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How can manipulating the transmigration process corrupt an individual's karma?

Erebus

Troubadour
The avatar is a superhuman individual with the ability to manipulate the forces of nature: air, water, fire, and earth. He is also regarded as an important religious figure who has reached spiritual enlightenment which allows him to leave the cycle of reincarnation but has elected to stay in the mortal world to pass on his knowledge and help others reach their own enlightenment. When the current physical form of the avatar dies, their spirit ascends back into the cycle of birth and death. There it waits to be transmigrated into a new body. This can take hundreds of years, with the avatar able to be born anywhere in the world outside its homeland. During this time, the followers of the avatar, a religious sect of holy monks, begin their search for the new incarnated being with the use of visions and interpreted signs. When the avatar is eventually located and trained, it begins to regain the memories of its past lives, re-gaining all the knowledge of its previous cycles. However, a disaster has struck this tradition. The avatar and its followers have lost a war to the Fire Nation led by the SCP (Super Communist Party), forcing them into exile. Given sanctuary in a foreign land, they continue to advocate for freedom for their country from the SCP.

Sadly, the avatar is approaching the end of its current life due to old age. The super communists seek to take advantage of this situation by reincarnating the avatar themselves. Through an ancient ritual, they can ensure that the spirit of the departed being is specifically bound to an unborn child. By manipulating the transmigration process, they can move the spirit of the avatar to the front of the reincarnation cycle for it to be born immediately to a subject in their possession. This will give them access to a powerful being under their direct control for their own purposes. The process worked with disastrous consequences, as the resulting child's karma became corrupted with evil intent. It then set about its own visions of world conquest as it purged all who stood in its way, including its previous followers.

How can hijacking the reincarnation cycle lead to an evil demi-god?
 

Chasejxyz

Inkling
I can't tell if you're ripping off Avatar: The Last Airbender and throwing in some real-world politics or you're conflating a bunch of different Eastern religions.

Politics aren't allowed so I won't voice my hot opinions on the ccp and what it's done to my religion. But I will say there are multiple schools/traditions that take things very differently. Like Tibetan Buddhism is a lot like Catholicism, as it's pretty metal and has some neat traditions around death. Also the Dalai lama only "rules" over that school (like how the pope only "rules" over Catholics). So you can look at multiple sources for inspiration.

Karma is one of those things that non-Buddhists talk about a lot and have gotten wrong, so most people have incorrect beliefs about it. It's not a "score" you tally up like in Mass Effect. What it really aligns to is what your next rebirth will be. There are "good" and "bad" planes, with bad ones being Not Pleasant and also it's more difficult to reach enlightenment (which is forgoing all attachment, then you get to escape the cycle*). Being reborn as an animal is considered bad because you're controlled by animalistic desires and can't sit around and think about stuff. There is hell-ish realms and heaven-ish realms, along with demi-god realms. Look up the wheel of Samsara and the various planes.

Samsara or enlightenment isn't like the force, there's no power you can control with your intent. Everything is up to YOU and YOU alone. You don't go to church enough times to get into heaven, there's no indulgences, there's no rules about whether you can use an elevator on certain days of the week or not. So you really can't do what you're proposing if you're going to follow Buddhist theology. Also it's going to look Really Weird that you have the evil fire nation AND super communists.

Just make up your own thing at that point.


*I, personally, would argue that if you've reached enlightenment but then you are ALSO staying to teach others so they can achieve enlightenment....well that's just a form of attachment. You're still attached to other people because you want to help them
 
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