Avatar: A Study in Worldbuilding - the Earth Kingdom [ The Last Airbender l Legend of Korra ]
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![Avatar: A Study in Worldbuilding - the Fire Nation [ The Last Airbender ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pa2BD13VzxY/mqdefault.jpg)
![Avatar: A Study in Worldbuilding — the Fire Nation [ The Last Airbender ]](/img/tr.png)
The worldbuilding in Avatar has always been incredible. If you'd like to suggest a video topic of your own, come join us on Patreon (also, there'll be a discord soon!) www.patreon.com/hellofutureme QotD: *how would you conquer the world from your country?* Let me know down below. Stay nerdy!
~ Tim
Hello Future Me will the discord be for everyone or only patreons?
I would nuke everyone into submission. (Actually I have a long, drawn-out plan for world domination, but it's 43 pages long, so I didn't want to put it here.)
Um, at 17:52. There is a big difference between what you're describing and the actual US. While under the Articles of Confederation the US was a loose collection of trading states, our current constitution effectively means we are one state with a bunch of provinces. The name tends to trip a lot of people up.
go back to 1922, implement keynesian economics, build up military following recommendations from strategists who are smart, invade USA, defeat Germany, Take japan, and deal with the Soviet Union by magic and Franco British Union or Something, Really only way the UK could do world domination in the last 100 years, we could do it today by ending our leaving process from the EU, create a European megastate, and slugging it out with our neighbours and Africa for global domination, but we can't win anymore because the US, China and Russia would stop us.
Hello Future Me could you do a video on the story of blackreach in skyrim?
Honestly I always kinda assumed that ‘King’ was just a title Bhumi gave himself and everyone else just went with it. I mean, are you gonna argue with a jacked, 112 year old master earth bender?
Yes
Yes
Caitlin Brewer perhaps
That... Actually makes a lot of sense.
Especially since he wasn't royalty by birth, as we see from his time with Aang, and so the only other explanation is that he was elected, and, uh... No.
then again the first earthbenders came from omaashu omaa and shuu
The Earth kingdom is incredibly large and distant. There's literally a whole water tribe that was hidden away from the world with little to no knowledge of the outside world for thousands of years just chilling in one of it's jungles.
THAT is so cool to me.
The foggy water people.
The Earth Kingdom is most of the world, and the decentralization is so cool
@@SeanLaMontagne fgfhtg
@@andressavitorino2900 what
@@SeanLaMontagne it means that they agree with you
@@andressavitorino2900 what
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
Here we are safe
Here we are free
Like how Reiss family in AoT using Titan abilities to control people Memory, except the Asian and Ackermann
Valkyrie Feirro, the Earth King had invited you to Lake Laugai.
*Headcanon Theory:* Roku may have actually been the one responsible for the Dai Li keeping the war with the Fire Nation from the Earth King.
When Sozin started setting up colonies by annexing parts of the Earth Kingdom, Roku of course stopped him, but this still was an act of war; the King in Ba Sing Se would've retaliated against the Fire Nation, and would've been legally justified.
UNLESS Roku convinced the Dai Li to avoid the potential disaster by just hiding all news of Sozin's imperialist shenanigans from the Earth King, and just let the Avatar handle the Fire Lord. Since Roku was the immediate successor to Kyoshi, the woman who founded and trained the Dai Li, the Avatar would've still had some pull with the group. I can see this being a continuing policy, especially after Roku died and Aang disappeared. Facing a new invasion by the Fire Nation, they would've asked "Well, what did Avatar Roku tell us to do in this situation?" Simple: Keep news of it away from the ears of the Crown and wait for the Avatar to handle it.
Of course, as the war dragged on and the Avatar never showed up to fix the problem, the Dai Li realized that they basically had to keep lying to the Earth King in order to save their own skins: Letting the King know that a war with the Fire Nation has been going on all this time would mean letting the King know that the trusted Dai Li have been lying to him from the start, and on the orders of the Avatar no less. So corruption really set in as a result during this century. The Dai Li were mostly confident in the protection of Ba Sing Se's walls to protect the city-state from invasion, so they basically abandoned the rest of the country. By the time Avatar Aang showed up, the Dai Li would've had no loyalty left to the Avatar, who had gotten them into this tangled conspiracy in the first place and then abandoned them. Plus, they were now led by a power-hungry control freak. And anybody ambitious and determined enough to become one of the Dai Li wouldn't wish to threaten their position by "rocking the boat", so there would be virtually no hope of reform from within.
there is no war in ba sing se change my mind
@@blazingbisharp736 I am honored to accept his invitation!
*Headcanon Theory:* Roku may have been the one responsible for the Dai Li's policy of keeping the war with the Fire Nation from the Earth King.
When Sozin started setting up colonies by annexing parts of the Earth Kingdom, Roku of course stopped him, but this still was an act of war; the King in Ba Sing Se would've retaliated against the Fire Nation, and would've been legally justified.
UNLESS Roku convinced the Dai Li to avoid the potential disaster by just hiding all news of Sozin's imperialist shenanigans from the Earth King, and just let the Avatar handle the Fire Lord. Since Roku was the immediate successor to Kyoshi, the woman who founded and trained the Dai Li, the Avatar would've still had some pull with the group. I can see this being a continuing policy, especially after Roku died and Aang disappeared. Facing a new invasion by the Fire Nation, they would've asked "Well, what did Avatar Roku tell us to do in this situation?" Simple: Keep news of it away from the ears of the Crown and wait for the Avatar to handle it.
Of course, as the war dragged on and the Avatar never showed up to fix the problem, the Dai Li realized that they basically had to keep lying to the Earth King in order to save their own skins: Letting the King know that a war with the Fire Nation has been going on all this time would mean letting the King know that the trusted Dai Li have been lying to him from the start, and on the orders of the Avatar no less. So corruption really set in as a result during this century. The Dai Li were mostly confident in the protection of Ba Sing Se's walls to protect the city-state from invasion, so they basically abandoned the rest of the country. By the time Avatar Aang showed up, the Dai Li would've had no loyalty left to the Avatar, who had gotten them into this tangled conspiracy in the first place and then abandoned them. Plus, they were now led by a power-hungry control freak. And anybody ambitious and determined enough to become one of the Dai Li wouldn't wish to threaten their position by "rocking the boat", so there would be virtually no hope of reform from within.
Kind of, except that the city was still ruling the kingdom and actively waging war with the Fire Nation. There were other arms of the govt, shown, generals in the city making war plans, to be doing that. The Dai Li were just keeping political control and information between the king and everyone else, the state didn't fragment completely.
Thats a good theory👍
That holds up until you consider the Earth Kingdom army combining all its forces in the Battle of Taku, which it of course lost and unfortunately the 2nd largest city in the entire kingdom was razed. I doubt such an important move could be calculated by the army without knowledge of the Earth Kings or at least the central government with the Earth King as an exception.
But if was just the Earth King, that would make keeping those developments a secret a much more difficult task.
Damn this could have been in the video
@@wildfire9280 well if the earth kingdom is as decentralized as Tim thinks, then it wouldn't be so hard really. All the governors and generals would simply communicate with each other and plan large troop movements and overarching strategy with the council of five. This would probably get communicated to the earth king, get intercepted by the dai li, and the dai li would forge a response. The Earth King is basically a figurehead by the the time we see Ba Sing Se anyway. He wouldn't have any real contributions to military strategy and planning.
So basically Avatar the Last Airbender is, again, the exeptional masterpiece that puts most content creators to shame.
And the Legend of Korra
(Don't kill me but I think it's better than ATLA)
Easy there pal.
mini2239 Nope. Never
Will Bowling Do you mean you wont kill me, or won't accept it's great
@mini2239
To each their own. But Korra is by fact just a rushed version of Avatar The Last Airbender. You can see they actually took years to build the The Last Airbender.
Since Korra was never suppose to air pass season 1 they had to create most of the plot on spot. Even the whole Korra Asami thing was obviously not planned until way later into the season.
The area outside of the wall could possibly have been farmable, but a 100 year war probably led to that not being possible... Thousands of fire warriors isn't exactly good for the whole "plant" thing
unless its proper slash-and-burning agricultural techniques.
Praries and dry planes light on fire and extinguish every summer or so, and feature hundreds of secondary successions by the century.
Wildfires stimulate plant growth
New plants spring up after fires
@@starrynight7783 it is mentioned that these monsters crave fighting each other as that is the only way they can really grow and evolve. Also even the weakest of pokemon are significantly more powerful than humans and can even pose an existential threat to society at large (for example its mentioned in pokedex entries that large cities have sirens warning about herds of electric type pokemon approaching because them simply being in the city can destroy all of their infrastructure and then there's electrodes which are literal living bombs) so not only does human society need to subjugate pokemon out of necessity, but also pokemon have an advantage over any human that attempts to abuse them. Hence why even organized crime syndicates like team rocket won't physically attack pokemon trainers, because the last thing you want to do is actually threaten a charlizard.
@@starrynight7783 Gengars eat souls, Electrodes can destroy city blocks in an instant, Dragonites can fly faster than sound, machops are known to entertain themselves by throwing humans across rivers, diglets regularly end up leveling mountains just by wandering around, many fire types can produce flame as hot as the surface of the sun, a herd of Pikachu create electrical storms that destroy everything around them just by being in a group. Many pokemon quite literally can be described as weapons of mass destruction. Let's not forget that legendaries are known to create life, control plate tectonics, or even warp time and space.
Like I said. Humans have to contain pokemon in order for the human race to survive. And then there is the fact that wild pokemon attack ones with trainers out of jealousy, that pokemon who don't fight will never grow, and let's not forget that humans ARE pokemon. Several psychic type pokemon (Abra, and jynx for example) come from humans that evolved into them. Plus it's not unheard of in the pokemon universe for humans to marry and have children with pokemon. (there's a popular theory for instance that Ash's dad is actually his mom's Mr.Mime)
A question i used to ask myself is
“Why did it take 100 years for the Fire Nation to conquer all of the earth kingdom?”
The Fire Nation clearly has a much powerful military, had better naval and by the end of the war, better air superiority over the Earth Kingdom. So why?
I believe and it is the only logical answer.
“geography”
The Earth Kingdom is massive. That statement is almost an understatement on its own. The Earth Kingdom is so large that each state has their own earth kings and own government systems. The western hemisphere of the Earth Kingdom is completely different from the Southern hemisphere. The Fire nation wasn’t fighting a single nation but separate smaller earth kingdom counties. Not only that, you also have to consider that the unbroken Spirit of the Earth Kingdom kept them in the fight for as long as they did. Earth Kingdom soldiers fought till the very last man and were willing to die for the nation.
There is also the problem of "How do you take Ba Sing Sei" a city state which is completely self sufficient, larger and more populous than your entire nation, and have massive nigh impenetrable walls around it.
You can't siege it - It's self sufficient
You can't really attack it directly - those walls are in the way
Similar problems plague other places on the continent, but to a lesser extent. Omashu for example could be seiged, it almost certainly depends upon food resources from outside, but it'd be really difficult to take and defend due to the mountains around it.
The spirit of the earth nation people and their unwillingness to be taken over by the fire nation can most clearly be seen - in my opinion - in THE BOULDER. He had a very lofty and profitable life of public entertainment in which he had tons of money, had fun working and thousands of fans and more than likely would have been allowed to continue this life if the fire nation took over, but gave everything up and risked his life to fight the fire nation
@@nyalan8385
THE BOULDER now serves his country
Jesus the timing of ads.
"People revolted under...HBOMax!"
The great leader
Your mother.
@@Flome810 my mother didn't die to any fire bender 🤔
Ha, well i forgot there is adds in these, i mean $10 a month is worth it
So Omashu is to The Earth Kingdom what Dorne is to The Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones, basically. Ostensibly loyal to the crown but geographically isolated enough to be practically its own nation.
True! Though, Dorne did have a treaty that allowed it to keep its own laws within its own realms (as opposed to following the dictations of King's Landing). But *that* in turn came out of its geological isolation.
~ Tim
We have something similar to that where I live. In Bryan County, Georgia, all of the main governmental stuff is in the northern part of the county. Problem is that Fort Stewart cuts the county in half, making what should be a short drive take an hour. Because of this, Richmond Hill has effectively become the governmental city of southern Bryan County, which sounds pretty similar to the Omashu situation, at least to me.
Seems more like the Vale to me except the Vale isn't independent.
Vance Underwood Like Guangzhou was to the Qing
@Kevin Warburton Makes sens because Republic City is Hong Kong.
how would I conquer the world from my country...? huh... as a german I´d like to pass on that question XD
From the netherlands it be fun to conquer germany since hey then you guys gotta learn dutch instead of the other way around xD
I'd like to quote Jeremy Clarkson in replying to this comment: "In one tank from Berlin to Moscow" - (The Orangutan, 2012)
zoroark zor Dat wordt te lastig
As a person from Poland, I agree
I thought the same xD
Also! Omashu is said to be the first earth nation city in Cave of Two Lovers. So it is very possible that the Omashu monarchy predates and other modern forms of government in the earth nation, specifically Ba Sing Se. guess I always just assumed the earth nation was more like a confederation. Bunch of different Autonomies loosely unified by their shared race/abilities (of earth bending).
~Secret tunnnneellll! Secret tunnnneellll!~
I think of it more like how China is with the mix of Holy Roman Empire.
Its like indonesia and her province of Jogjakarta. Its monarchy but still part of Indonesia.
47th peasant uprising...
Sounds like a normal game of Crusader Kings 2 if we're being honest.
*France's history.
@@archivist_13 *Europe's history
only 47? dude I get 50 on average will my siblings conspiring to kill me whist I try to marry them into hungry
*cough* Europa Universalis...
Victoria 2 is 94% rebels and 6% piecharts
You should do a video like this for the rest of the Nations
I would *love* to.
~ Tim
Hello Future Me that you should just do it
Overly analyzing fictional kingdoms it the reason why we need CZcams.
I don't think we have that much detail from the fire nation and the air nomads weren't even a nation. But I would love to see an water tribes analysis.
Oh, don't worry. There's a lot about the Fire Nation that you can infer and analyze from the show.
I think maybe one of the reasons that Ba Sing Se grew to be the most influential state in the Earth"continent" could be similar to how Athens became the most influential city in the Hellenic League, namely that it was on such bad territory agriculturally speaking, that whilst the other city states fought over territory Athens was largely left alone to develop a strong civic and technological edge over its rivals until it had quite accidentally ascended to the most important city of Greece.
That's a fantastic theory!
~ Tim
Up
That's fascinating.
that's not actually true though. Attica, the region where Athens is located, still produces most of mainland Greece's agricultural products. It's flat, has relatively good soil, and has more water than most places. However, the other thing about Attica is that it is walled off from the rest of the mainland by mountains. Not huge ones, but large enough to be impractical for an army. Athens frequently feuded with it's northern neighbor Thebes however, against whom the city possessed no natural defense. Most of the fights in ancient Greek history however were not over resources, but rather had to do with trade disputes or were simply about politics. In many of the city-states, almost any excuse would do. Part of the reason that Athens succeeded though was because it avoided that problem by forcing the people who were going to fight in the war to vote for the war. They thought about whether to go to war a little more carefully than most of their neighbors. What you say is more true of Sparta than it is of Athens. However, Athens was not the most influential city in the Hellenic League, since the Hellenic League was not established until after Athens' political influence had declined. I think you mean the Delian League.
Haha you've bested me at history, that's a very good point!
To summarize: The Earth Kingdom is a goddamn mess.
Its like a mix of the HRE and ancient greek city states
And probably a bigger mess since a certain someone decided to make it a democracy
You also left out “no wonder the Fire Nation has been able to take it over”
@@sticks4632HRE?
@@kcirtapelyk6060 and still took 100 years to win
What Kuvira instituted is something called a “Province Kingdom/Empire”, which is basically having a central leader, and governors essentially ruling for the main person, but still answering to the ruler for things such as taxes and orders. It was really started by the Assyrians, and perfected by the Persians and Romans.
In other words, hey, look at that, we also get some Near Eastern influence in our Avatar!
I think its more reminescent of Feudalism rather than the Classic Age empires systems
@@apvtethic8818 I wouldn't say so. Feudalism promotes even more decentralization compared to Classic Age empires, which is what Kuvira doesn't want.
In the feudal system, governors are basically local warlords who just owes their liege men and taxes. They're basically a nation within a nation. During times of weakening central authorities, these feudal vassals are in a strong position to field their respective army in a bid for hegemony.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 uP
@Griffith The Red why tf did you answer to a 3yo comment
@@apvtethic8818 who cares if it's a 3y/o comment? you answered, no?
"Azula's agents quickly overtook the entire city. They went to Ba Sing Se's great wall AND BROUGHT THEM DOWN."
- Lo & Li
LouieTube loli( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@@ipadair7345 no
Hentai loli
@@theparrot6516 C'mon now, they definitely intentionally name them that right? Like Lo and Li, Loli? They definitely did that on purpose lmao XD
I'm from the western most province of Canada, and the railway was /the/ major factor on joining confederation. It's really interesting to see the parallels.
Same for America the cross continental railroads are very important to western history with out them some western cities like San Francisco’s and Vancouver wouldn’t have grown as it has now the railroads literally sped up city development cause of trade and that’s why they have grown a simpler more minimalistic Silk Road of North America
Could have just said British Columbia. Love live the queen
It never ceases to amaze me how amazing in every way ATLA is. Like, is there a better piece of modern media? it seems ridiculous to even ask, but I can't think of one.
Two girls one cup is a good one watch that
This isn't said enough but the costume design was really creative and unique. It was very Asian influenced, but still not like anything we've seen before in anime. The color coding was really well done, appropriate to the spirit and philosophy of each nation. You could easily distinguish between the upper class nobles and lower class, in every nation. Each nation had a different take to their military regalia. They could've easily made everyone dress the same but with different colours.
Well it's unrealistic to have the peasants wear colored clothing
sad to see Kyoshi didn't get any mention aside from the mistake, it's unique geography has a huge influence contrasting it from the rest of the earth kingdom. Being an Island they are more isolated from exterior political control as Kyoshi intended. Aside from the Kyoshi Warriors they don't even primarily dress in green, rather blue just as the water nation. They also rely on sea food as their main diet also affecting their culture which I find to be more reminiscent with Japan opposed to the more Chinese aesthetic the rest of the earth kingdom display.
It’s kinda like Taiwan in a sense, similar culture to the Mainland but isolated enough to be its own nation.
Makes sense, given that Kyoshi as a character has incredibly strong Japanese influences.
@@lightningfletch5598 was gonna say this exact thing 😀
I do believe Kyoshi island was based off of Japan, considering it’s geographical isolation, being culturally similar but different from the Earth Kingdom, and the unique martial arts style
@@couchpotato4928 Taiwan makes more sense from a historical standpoint, seeing how avatar kyoshi made the peninsula into an island when Jin the conqueror was threatening them, and Taiwan is was founded by Chinese rebels who left the mainland for freedom
I think they just called it the “Earth Kingdom” to fit the elemental theme.
It was essentially the earth kingdoms (plural) with fuedal lords ruling their own regions. There were at least two kingdoms there in the first series. It sounded like there may have been more kingdoms but they had already fallen to the fire Nation. Ba Sing Se was stated to be the last earth Kingdom. The Earth Kingdom fell not because they were the most important city but because they were the last (major) free kingdom.
Also, love that Age of Empires Farm refresh noise there, lol.
I could tell you how I’d take over the world but then I’f have to change my strategy.
Not to mention there were technically 2 water tribes with only cultural similarities to each other, and even then...
Well, Avatar always makes a point of saying "Four Nations", rather than "Four States" or "Four Countries". A nation is any group with a shared identity and, in Avatar, the shared identity is easily defined through bending and its cultural ramifications. Trying to figure out how many countries are in Avatar would be a whole lot more complicated because all of the cultures are so vastly different and the Fire Nation is the only one that fits our modern idea of a nation-state.
@@merrittanimation7721 Actually until Korra the Souther Watertribe was only an autonomous state of the Northern tribe. They only became officially independent after the events of Korra season 2. So the Watertribe really was one country.
I do think most earth kingdoms paid tribute to the fire nation or at least agreed to not come to the aid of other provinces attacked. Ba Sing Se was the last that was still fighting.
But even after the last stronghold of the earth kingdom fell the war continued on.
@@beanilla5575 Well, no. Until after the events of the Fire Nation's invasion of the North Pole, the two water tribes were effectively isolated and completely independent. It's only due to Team Avatar's intervention in saving the Northern Water Tribe that the North Pole seeks to rekindle relations with the South.
1:39
....little did he know,a few months later he will make "the psychology of Azula".
yesssssss one of my favorites
"the larger the kingdom, the harder it is to govern"
indonesia: did anyone talk about me?
Russia: *you called??*
@@meshalrahman3863 indonesia is basically tge archipelago like fire nation, with the scale of earth kingdom
brazil:ok i am in this picture and i don't like it.
Indonesia is a barely stable mess with Java attempting to rule all the other islands as colonies, and I'm shocked it survived for so long without falling apart.
@@mshaqed2538 lol, what the hell are you talking about, as colonies? There are a lot of infrastructure and development outside of Java, and i'm sumatranese love indonesia wjth my whole heart, and don't talk ahit about a country you don't even know jackshit about.
As someone who got their BA in political science and currently studying a Master of Public Administration, videos like this make me SO happy.
Matthew Chernesky there's a degree for that? I know there's a degree for communication
Damon Richter yes, it’s basically the public sector equivalent of the MBA (teaching you how to manage government & nonprofits)
I'm still studying Poli Sci and I agree. (How expensive is a Masters in Public Administration though?)
epicsamurai5 it depends where ya go! I’m going to school in Florida as an out of state student, so I pay about $20,000 a year for school (it’s a 2-year program).
Hey, im a fellow Political Science student, in Indonesia... And i fucking love this video
Hi Tim, if I were to conquer the world from my and your home country New Zealand, I would set up mass breeding programs for our native birds. Then we would send these birds ten billion in total to each nation pecking at the enemies, eating their resources and leaving faeces all over there homes. Once this has occurred they all surrender in anguish to our superior bird power.
I'd just strap bombs to our hordes of sheep and send them throughout the world. Nobody would suspect us.
~ Tim
I had a campaign where a single farmer plotted to conquer the world with sheep. The strategy actually wasn't too far off from "bomb sheep"
Mythic IQ does New Zealand posses the almighty cassowary? If not, Australia shall crush you.
Yeah, Soooo menacing. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Stephen_Bragg_with_kakapo_chicks.jpg
Caleb Reynolds, Australia declared a war on birds (emu) and ended up surrendering. The kiwi are a close relative to the emu so I find that is a losing battle.
czcams.com/video/9gDjQ3KAi1w/video.html
:P
Actually, I always assumed that the "Earth Kingdom" was essentially a federation of independent states united by a shared element (and the threat of the Fire Nation), with the King of Ba Sing Se being just the first of equals and called the "Earth King" as a kind of courtesy title.
Like USSR right? They have many independent state inside them.
@Will DeMarco yeah like earth kingdom. Ba Sing Se State Dominate all States/ republic iN Earth Kingdom
@@augusth2212 the ussr states weren't that independant... most of them atleeast
@@augusth2212 More like the US under the Articles of Confederation
@@augusth2212 Well the USSR is Heavily Centralized from the Supreme Soviets, More like the Kievan Rus if I could see it
I love that you integrate Legend of Korra. I feel like it had been popular for a while to ignore LoK but I think that Netflix really helped to bring it back into favor. It helps that Korra works much better as a binged show than a serialized show. It also doesn’t help that Nickelodeon, which had already had issues with scheduling new episodes, really bungled Korra’s airing schedule. They didn’t even air the final season on TV.
The older I get the more sophisticated and better this show gets
Ps you should do reactions to these series
He makes such great stuff.
Reactions are lazy stuff.
Reaction videos are lazy and stupid
Yeah I used to look at ALTA as only kids show but there is so much more. Reaction to series that he already saw? :o
"How would you conquer the world from your country?" *Whistles in British*
Do you have a flag? 🙄
@@TheSealDribble Like me or the country? Yes Great Britain has a flag, no I don't own one personally :)
@@TheSealDribble great Britain has a flag, it's basically the Union Jack minus, the diagonal red stripes(which stand for Ireland).
whistles in German
12:45
No. That's actually one of the benefits of de-centralized nations in that they are much harder to conquer. The individual parts of it are largely self-sufficient and can continue the fight.
You can actually see that as even after Ba-Sing-Se falls the earth kingdom continues to resist and the war goes on. The story plays off in the fire nation but the earth kingdom keeps fighting.
In contrast to that the fire nation which is more centralized needs it's central body. That's why they could have actually won during the day of black sun even though they were just a small band of troops and had no way of conquering the fire nation. Or when Zoku became firelord the entire nation immediately switched over.
However that decentralization also allowed the fire nation to fight on relatively equal grounds with the earth kingdom. After all the earth kingdom has way more people and way more resources than the fire nation. But because it's so decentralized there is no single army strong enough to directly face off against the fire nation. Lou Shi also made it clear how much massing a large army would destabalize the nation.
Yes this is brought up during the war cabinet meeting Zuko attends. Ozai asks Zuko if they would easily conquer the rest of the Earth Kingdom and Zuko explains that the Earth people are strong and resourceful and would never give up - this is the whole point of using the Comet to torch the land and utterly break the peoples' resolve.
The Fire Nation basically won the war but would have had a lot of trouble maintaining control if not for something like Sozin's Comet.
Up
I heard somewhere that Ba Sing Se became so rich due to the high abundance of crystals in its catacombs which they traded
Perhaps, but would it have been a wanted commodity in feudal times?
“Welcome to the longest video I’ve ever made at 2,900 words.”
Me in the future, having seen your more recent videos: Oh, my sweet summer child.
I believe that Zuko alone was the inflection point for Zuko. It was the first time he saw what the fire nation had done, how the fire nation was not spreading greatness, how despite having been so welcomed and liked before, despite being asked for help, the moment they knew he did any firebending TO HELP THEM, they became disgusted, absolutely ashamed and horrified. They would not accept even a gift from him.
There's one figure that could have united the Earth Kingdom before Kuvira: Chin the Conqueror. If you looked at the map of his conquests, he got everything else outside of Ba Sing Se. If the Earth King stepped down in favor of him (which would have been impossible) you would have had a united Earth Kingdom where the army and the nation all answered to him, because he destroyed all other local lords and their fiefdoms.
46 peasant uprisings in Ba Sing Se in its history. +1 cabbage salesman with a broken cart.
He didn't get a broken cart in Ba Sing Se, he just lost his merchandise to one hoppy boi
In my headcanon, these are the layers of administration of the (pre-100 y War) Earth Kingdom, in order of decreasing central authority (and typically increasing distance from Ba Sing Se) :
1. Ba Sing Se
2. Provinces directly controlled from Ba Sing Se City : are integrated into the Earth Kingdom's legal system and so on but have a level of local government
3. protectorates of the Earth Kingdom : non-independent kingdoms that have more or less full say over laws, domestic policy (incl. the legal system), etc. but are required to pay tribute/taxes (more than the vassals have to) and send conscripts to the Earth Kingdom's army
3.5 the Si Wong desert : de jure part of tier 4, de facto not under central control at all
4. vassals of the Earth Kingdom : independent kingdoms that pay a tribute to the Earth Kingdom and are in a military alliance with them and that's it (Chin, Omashu, Gaoling, etc.)
The Si Wong's aridity varies from "semiarid shrubland" to "basically the Rub al Khali". Generally, the deeper you are in it, the drier it is.
All hail lord MISHKA may he forever more be beautiful and divine
6:35 this Tong guy, I thought his voice sounded familiar, so I paused the video and did some research and this is what I found:
*Tong is voiced by James Hong who also voiced Chi-Fu in Mulan, you know? The emperors egotistical advisor, scrawny kinda looks like Major Tong. The one who was eventually fired at the end of tge film. Yeah that guy.*
I was so amazed...
Also Po's dad (the duck) from kung fu panda
Personally, I would argue that the Earth King could've been referred to as Earth Emperor instead, since Bumi was the king of Omashu city and undoubtedly there were other Earth Kingdom cities ruled by kings, which are vassals of the Emperor.
Yes I think that he should have been the Earth Emperor and his daughter the Earth Empress. Even the Firelord should have had a greater title then just mere "fire" and "lord", especially during the Hundred Year War.
Thank you for the timestamps in the first two minutes - I like assume many others just came for 11:52
The Earth Kingdom is pretty much just China, in fact the whole world of Avatar is just the Chinese map.
As you may know the traditional Chinese map is upside down, which means Japan (the invaders) would be on the left side, just like the Fire Nation in Avatar.
Russia is left out and further downwards on the Chinese map is the north pole, which is very similar to the Southern Water-tribe in Avatar.
On the west side of China is a desert, just like on the right side of the Earth Kingdom.
The Air Nomads were spread out across the Earth Kingdom borders instead of mostly being to the south (or above China on their map), but the biggest one is still the Northern one.
The only completely original one is the Northern Water-tribe (or I could be missing something).
EDIT: Even the name "Ba Sing Se" sounds a lot like "Bejing".
china, Persia, Egypt, and other countries
I can see Persia, but why Egypt?
And it's really mostly just China.
Not exactly. I mean the world of Avatar is mostly based off of China, but not all of it. The Air Nomads are largely based off of Tibet, a currently occupied nation between between China and India that took influence from both of them. The Water Tribes are largely based off of The Inuit and The Siberians, with some creative liberties taken since neither of these groups had created buildings big enough for the show. The Kyoshi Islands appear to have more in common with Japan than China. While most of The Fire Nation is also based off of China, albeit a different dynasty, there are some exceptions. The area that Ursa, Zuko's mother is from, appears to be a fusion of Asian and Polynesian culture, similar to those of ethnic Japanese who live inside of Hawaii. The area of The Fire Nation that some sky bison were kept in and where Korra managed to regain her memories appears to be based on the older civilizations of Cambodia. The area where the last two dragons were is based off of The Mayans and other Mesoamerican groups. Going back to The Earth Kingdom, the inhabitents of The Si Wong Desert appears to be based on The Turang, a group who lives inside of North Africa.
I did say the Air Nomads were based on Tibet, just in different words. The Southern Water-tribe I also said, though not Siberia. The Northern Tribe is largely original, which I also said. If you look at the names of the people from the Fire Nation you'll find they very closely resemble Japanese names (some even are Japanese names), the culture is similar too, and the rough shape of the island. While earlier Chinese culture and Japanese culture were quite similar and thus easily mistakable I'd still say that the Fire Nation as a whole (not every single part of it) is based on Japan. So I largely agree with you, but not completely.
I always felt like if they should had made the Southern Water Tribe, Polynesians it would have fit the maps of East Asia and Katara could have been Moana lol. Also the Air Nomads being Mongols or Turks would also make sense but at that point your just copying
This is just more evidence why Kuvira is my favorite character in the show
"All Hail the Great Uniter!"
Also with the kingdom of omashu it’s often back and forth but they do occasionally refer to them as the earth kingdoms as opposed to just the earth kingdom which makes more sense as to why the fire nation is winning despite being them vs everyone, because the air nomads were broken into 4 temples the water tribes were in 2 tribes and the earth kingdoms are very disconnected and each seem to act with autonomy from eachother. So the fact that there’s just one fire nation under the fire lord with a single allegiance and goal it can handle being technically outnumbered and at a disadvantage and still be winning most of the time
yes.. Yes... YES!!!
Finally! Please do more worldbuilding vids!
And after rewatching A:TLA again, the emotions are still fresh..
Leaves from the vine
Moreorlesser at least give a warning man
En Gee
leaves from the vine
Falling so slow
I don't got any tears left..
reminder:
Do ATLA spirits reproduce??
Daniel 83012468013579 yes they do
Daniel 83012468013579 koh the face had a mother so I think so
Daniel 83012468013579 they do loke bunniesb
Kimathi Talton She didn't really so much birth him as she just brought him into existence
Daniel 83012468013579 yes because koh the face stealer is the son of the mother of faces.
This sounds like the Holy Roman Empire system. With a ton of only barely allied kingdoms and duchys.
In my personal opinion after the events in the Legend of Korra I see the Earth Kingdom officially splitting up into a few/several officially independent states. I imagine there would be 3 great states, but now maybe 2 split between the North and the South via the Si Wong Desert based off of your video. Maybe there would be a few other smaller independent states and a few city-states like Omashu.
I envision Kyoshi Island becoming independent. I feel like what united the Earth Kingdom was bending, the War, and as you mentioned Ba Sing Se's advantages. In modernity these wouldn't matter as much/at all but the smaller new Earth continent states would be much more centralized and united then the old Earth Kingdom.
Really happy to see you talking about the economics and politics of the Avatar universe. If you do decide to do a video on Kuvira's Earth Empire will you also discuss the potential fallout/wisdom of Prince Wu's desire to remove the central authority of the crown completely? As despite being a highly decentralized confederation the loss of the Earth Queen did seem to plunge the whole continent into chaos. Love your work as always.
jigsawking5
I dare say that the continent was already plunging into chaos during the Earth Queen's rule, and presumably because of it. Entire provinces de facto occupied by biker gangs? That's some Mad Max stuff right there.
How things play out going forward after Wu's decision is very unpredictable. If a lot of trade and mutual interdependence is in place throughout the former Earth Kingdom, then maybe all those independent democracies will federalize, or at the very least maintain loose alliances. If not, then likely the strongest of them will start strong-arming neighbors and the warring states period will come back.
A fair point. Though when they met Kai we saw a local sheriff so it is fair to say despite chaos in some provinces there was still relative stability in others. It seems the assassination of the queen was what pushed things over the edge,
jigsawking5
The fact that the Queen was adamant about her policies, and unwilling or unable to correct the increasing social collapse in the outskirts of her kingdom makes it clear that if she'd stayed in rule, things would just have continued to crumble, slowly but surely.
The monarch being assassinated by a literal anarchist who then does his level best to ensure the power vacuum stays in place (kinda cool, too, that he used vacuum to kill her. SYMBOLISM!) did cause the situation to go to hell on a handbasket fast, but that's kind of an extreme case of regime change.
Mmmmmmm the AoE II sounds....
WOLOLO
~ Tim
11
To be honest I died a little at the farm exhausted noise, it triggered my PTSD.
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(actually he looks a little like t90, they sound completely different but conspiracy theory?)
Rogan?
ikr
Zuko Alone is also a personal favorite of mine. It's basically the famed cowboy movie, Shane, widely considered the best cowboy movie ever and a personal favorite because... I share a first name with the titular hero. Shane pretty much Zuko but expanded. The local town security is trying to force some homesteaders off valuable land so the homesteaders hire the Mysterious Stranger Shane to protect them after Shane doesn't put up with crap from the security. Shane leaves a lasting impression on the family who he rents room from with a back to back badass fight partner to the dad to put other back to back badasses to shame, teaching the young boy how to handle a six shooter with the mother's disapproval, and being a tempting hunk that causes the Mom to almost break her wedding vows (naturally those scenes were the first to go on account of it's a kids show.). And while never fully answered, Shane seems to have background with the security and may not have always been the hero.
Also there is a big difference in the ending which makes Zuko Alone all the more of a gut punch. After the fight, Shane realizes he is the last gunslinger left in the town and leaves to finally rid the valley of gunslingers like himself. This leads to the final scene where the boy desperately chases after Shane begging him to come back. In Zuko, the boy pretty much renounces Zuko and twists the metaphorical knife by literally giving the knife back to Zuko. It's a devestating scene for anyone. But if you've see. Shane, it hurts so much more.
And I'm not kidding about it being the best cowboy flick ever. Turner Classic Movies once ran a cowboy movie marathon literally titled "The Top Ten Cowboy Movies (That are not Shane)".
The EU: Keep France and Germany hugging so they don't have time for a War.
Pretty much lol
Hello again, Tim,
This video was flat out impressive. Your level of detail was impressive. The videography was impressive. I wish you could do more videos like this (though perhaps not quite as long - I can only imagine how long it took you to put this together). The topic was fascinating. Even Mishika liked it, showing an actual facial expression somewhere between sarcastic surprise and shock.
I am DEFINITELY looking forward to whatever you post next.
Staying nerdy,
Carlos T.
PS. Given your like on my last comment, I assume you do, in fact, have finals around the corner. Good luck on them!!! (Let me know if I am mistaken, but nonetheless, good luck in life anyways.)
I agree with everything you said except I think it's fine as a longform video. The only way to do justice to the details is with the longform format (though of course it also depends on the content itself too). But yeah Tim, this was a fantastic video exploring the political-economic aspects of the Earth Kingdom.
I'm probably biased since I studied political economy though lol
Carlos T. La
drop the formalities lmao this is a youtube comment not a review for the times
Dear mr Moritz,
You are absolutely right.
Sincerey, Leto85
Dear Mr.@@Leto85 ,
It is my humblest regret to inform you of my remorse, having seen your response gaining more likes than my own.
Yours,
Mr. Moritz
The earth kingdom to me sounds like a cross between imperial China and the Holy Roman Empire
It's amazing that the world of Avatar still remains as one of the best example of World building in media.
The political situation surrounding the Earth Kingdom’s problems with governing reminds me of Morrowind’s political situation in the Elder Scrolls 3. Like the Earth Kingdom the Empire technically governs Morrowind however they have little authority over most of the territory and leave it up to the great houses to rule most of it. Great video!
THANK YOU FOR THE AGE OF EMPIRE SOUND EFFECTS
I was looking for this.
You are a wonderful human being for making these videos. The world does not enough recognize the brilliance behind the Avatar series as a whole, or the effort that went into making it incredible. I hope you continue to make content!
Ba Sing Se in Avatar The Last Airbender reminds me a bit of the later Roman Empire. Rome largely didn't care much about what was going on in the outside world as it was nearing its end, and was convinced of its own invulnerability, even though its legions had largely become a shadow of its former self and largely relied on foreign mercenaries instead. Most Romans believed the Roman Empire was perfectly fine, even as it was in the process of collapsing.
"they cant afford to go to war with each other"
Except Texas.
Hold on let me go get some tea and fire gummies and then I’ll sit and watch
Amber Beam when I read tea I thought you were making an Iroh reference.
Don’t you mean fire flakes
How bout some QUENCHY CACTUS JUICE
IT'S THE QUENCHIEST
Technic 12 no thank you, I’ll just stay sane..
I'm a little blown away how much thought that the avatar team put on their geography. This all of this checks out and makes complete sense.
Earth Kingdom;
China
Fire Nation;
Japan
Water Tribe;
Siberians
Air Nomads;
Buddhists
Avatar is a story of North-Eastern Asia.
Fredrik S water tribe are Inuit
Swamp Benders;
Southern United States
Fredrik S The water tribes, especially the northern water tribe are not exactly Inuit. It is again a cultural mix. Remember the two koi fishes? That was ☯️ yin and yang, 混沌（a state of both chaos and balanced), 太極 (South Korean flag is a simplified version of it, 🇰🇷) from Daoism.
Ba Sing Se - China
United Republic, Zaofu, Omashu, kyoshi island - hong kong, Macao, Thailand etc.
I think that's much accurate because they have almost the same traditions
@@zetash7372 actually its South America the Amazon basin to be exact
The crusader kings 2 mod really got the scale right. The earth king technically rules everything on paper, but de facto there are hundreds of independent kingdoms, tribes and provinces. Makes Chin's conquest even more impressive (he has a whole three successor empires in the mod, ruled by his descendants but declining heavily)
"How would you conquer your country, let me know in the comments section" I see Mishka is planning something.
That's LORD Mishka to you
I love how you don't just write your videos like an essay, you write them like a novel. Especially the intro to this episode... 😩
Ba Sing Se is one of the most recognizable locations in television history. Up there with Winterfell, the southern United States and Bikini Bottom.
Damn, that was fascinating. I love these kinds of topics, how the economy and geography of a land shapes its political institutions. Very good video, I never quite knew how deep the worldbuilding went!
The Age of Empires II sound effects made my life.
My inner need for sounds from Age of Empires in your videos was just satisfied.
7:55 - 8:04 As a fellow Kiwi, I can somewhat explain here. New Zealand experimented early on with a quasi-federal system, but it was a complete shambles. Each of the provinces actively competed against each other for new settlers, they were very insular and unco-operative with the central government, and generally made things very inconvenient. For instance, if you wanted to travel between two provinces, you'd find that you'd have to switch trains upon approaching the border because each province used different railway gauges. And of course, some provinces (cough AUCKLAND!cough) were more powerful than others and tended to throw their weight around. The whole system was abolished in the 1870s and power was centralised in Wellington. So far, it's worked pretty well.
Tim can you read me bedtime stories in the voice you use at the beginning?
love how fast ur channel has been growing these past several months you deserve it!
GEOGRAPHY IS EVERYTHING
This was amazingly in depth! I love your videos as they give me so much insight as a writer. I never thought about the Earth Kingdom's geography as much as you did.
I for one would love an episode on the Southern Raiders and/or Zuko Alone.
Omg this will be great! I love the world of A:TLA!
All hail MISHKA Kawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
All hail Mishka! May our overlord forever reign!
hands down best video you have made. so interesting and well thought out
Absolutely love the slow, calm pace and atmosphere of this video.
Step one: get an army.
Step two: I don't know, I didn't think I'd get this far.
When I first watched Avatar the plot around the "secret war" seemed quite silly to me, buut when the whole kingdom is that large I guess it's not too absurd anymore.
Also the Dai Li spending large amounts of their resources to keep the information hidden from the king. It seems like more that the population knew about it just never talked about it for fear of retribution. Also I doubt the refugees living there really wanted to talk about it anyways
Great video. Way to get deep into a unique topic. Most video essays cruise over the top of the entire story and never dive in.
Loving your work, keep at it! It gives me much to ponder as I work on my own ideas.
Plus, I really love the small references to AoE you throw in there.
Talking about Ba Sing Sae now makes me wonder how Iroh sieged it. Obviously he could attack the walls, but since they could grow all of their food within the walls, they couldn’t be starved
He probably decided to keep poking at it. The farms rest on the outer edges of Ba Sing Se so a constant barrage of fireballs from the Fire Nation dragnet would burn their food supply. Causing the farms to need extra defense putting soldiers in harm's way and telling Iroh that he can dictate the movement of Ba Sing Se's military and farming personnel. His biggest roadblock was probably the sheer size of Ba Sing Se. He could probably poke at some places some of the time but never all places at once. And while Ba Sing Se's supply lines were cut, theres still a lot of people inside of it and they can make their own resources. Still the fact that Iroh got as far as he did is very impressive on his part. He was probably looking for a way to break the stalemate before Lu Ten died.
One of the things I liked about the Fire Nation is for all of their racism they were the least sexist kingdom of the remaining
I am assuming you plan to do the other nations
animalia555 I like how you said the remaining. But I don’t think the air nomads were a nation in the first place. I think they just lived in other kingdoms and the temples we were they learned to air-bend
Being a nation is not the same as being a country (which they're not), a nation is, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary, a large group of people of the same race who share the same language, traditions, and history, but who might not all live in one area. This is exactly what the air nomads were, examples of this in the real world are the Navajo and the Kurds.
Manannan anam How? The Fire Nation is openly colonialist in the show and shows a complete disrespect for the conquered peoples, and while they can't outright say it in a kid's show, they clearly view their own nation and ethnicity as the superior one (and name a SINGLE colonial nation that didn't. You can't. Doesn't matter how much you invoke the White Man's Burden, you're still saying that a people have lost the right to govern themselves and now a superior one gets to try.) Considering they're based on Imperial Japan, their racism is supported further. People don't talk about the Japanese atrocities in China because the Nazis kind of stole the show, but they were ridiculously cruel to the conquered Chinese, to the point of releasing bubonic plague in the Manchurian countryside to test its feasibility as a biological weapon, and abducting natives for sick experiments that often served no scientific purpose (indeed, they were largely only done to see how much suffering they could inflict on someone before they died).
Despite all this, they don't seem particularly concerned about any sort of traditional gender roles. Women serve fully in the workforce and the military, and a female Fire Lord is not treated as any less legitimate than the male one (the reason Azula is not the official heir is because she, like her father, is second in line.) Given that the show had no problems bringing up sexism before now, I doubt this was an oversight or something we're supposed to read sexism into. The Fire Nation is just not very hung up on gender. Meanwhile, we KNOW the Water Tribes are very sexist, the Air Nomads still segregated by sex even if they're pretty chill overall, and we can gather from the fact that there are barely any female soldiers in the Earth Kingdom that they're less progressive in that sense.
TheAngryXenite Exactly.
Honestly these videos are so great!
Is that why the Fire Nation went after the Air Nomads first?
With their gliders and bison, they could have transported messages and so have given the Earth Nation the advantage it needed.
9:21 There are exceptions, such as the German Empire, where there was a King of Württemberg, King of King of Prussia and King of Bavaria... However, the King of Prussia also held the title of Emperor which took precedence. Regardless, it was a simple enough circle to square, once you think of the Earth King of Ba Sing Se as the Emperor.
Living in Switzerland, I would wait for a third world war to happen, barricade myself in my bunker in the alps, wait it out, and then conquer the world once everyone has destroyed each other
Nobody fucks with the Swiss because mountains
jlattimore 674 that's why he said he wouldn't get involved
"Tell my wife I said 'Hello'."
a King of ashes is no true king
@@bartandaelus359 Damn, good line. Is it from somewhere or did you make it?
That's all good bro but everything changed when the fire nation attacked
No everything changed when the Avatar attacked
Your Earth Kingdom video is how I found your channel. It came out around my birthday and someone sent it to me. I have vol 1 of your world building book and it along with your videos are things I tried to incorporate in my own work :)
Your videos are the kind I was looking for. Keep that good work up! :)
I just watched this one and the fire nation one too. Have you not done the water tribes and the air temples? And it’s been two years? I tried searching for it but I don’t know if you’ve done them yet. I love these Avatar The Last Airbender world building videos! I want more! 😍
I love all of your Avatar videos (and you for making them), I can sit and watch, grinning, because you talk about politics and geography in fiction and I couldn't be more entertained
In awe with your brillant analysis on Nations worldbuilding. Just perfect.
I love the age of empire sound effects you put in. Thanks for the great videos
I'm from Germany. We aren't that good at conquering anything. We tried though.
Just to clarify: I'm disgusted by parts of our history and don't support any of it.
Zerberus 😂 i
Try again?
Jason Tai Like we use to say: all good things come in threes...
Zerberus and by the 3rd time he saved that commander
Zerberus only for
Him to shoot him self
Finally I love your avatar vids you haven't made them in like forever
15:33 The sound of a farm being depleted from Age of Empires II is what made me suscribe and give it a thumbs up. Thanks for the great content.
Three years later and Hello Future Me (and this video series specifically) is still my Number One Go-To for advice on my worldbuilding.