Mindfire
Istar
Amon struck me as more of a Marxist actually, although his methods were more Nazi-ish, with a dash of modern terrorism.I won't disagree that there are no easy solutions, but I think there is a problem - or, at least, the beginnings of one, and I refuse to believe that absolutely nobody who sided with Amon had legitimate grievances, since it seemed like he had a pretty big following. If I'm honest, my biggest problem with Legend of Korra, overall, has been Amon in general. They portray him more like Hitler - hell, look at all the Nazi imagery in this finale - when really, up until the big reveal, he just sort of seemed like an extremist freedom fighter. This wasn't a matter of propaganda, it's an underground movement. While I'll always disagree with extremist methods, I simply can't help but feel like the rhetoric he used had to have some valid points to it.
I wouldn't say that Amon and Tarrlok were poorly explained so much as the explanation wasn't obvious. As I said a couple posts up, I think I've broken down Amon's way of thinking fairly accurately, and it goes something like this:Also, his motives were pretty poorly explained. Evil dad, bloodbending woes ... destroy all bending??? I feel like there's a big piece of that story we're missing, but since they decided to just kill him off, I guess we'll never know what happened there. Or with Tarrlok, who somehow went from "bloodbending is wrong and it hurts!" to "muahahahahahaha" to "ohnowait, bloodbending is wrong!". :/ I mean, gah, there's just so much about Tarrlok and Amon that is completely unexplained and just killing them off is such a terrible way to end their story that I can't even begin to list all the things that could have been done better with them.
I think in Amon's mind the inequity between benders and non-benders is greatly exaggerated due to his experiences with his father. Because to Amon, ALL BENDERS are, or could be, just like his father. His personal experiences shaped his views on bending, similar to thw way some people's experiences during crisis situations shape their opinions against violence. As for Tarrlok, I don't think he ever reveled in his bloodbending power. We never see him gloat over the fact that he can bloodbend, except when facing Amon, and that was more bravado than anything. If he really enjoyed bloodbending, it would have been his first resort against Korra instead of his last I think. He was reluctant to use it and only did so because he realized he had no chance against THE AVATAR without it."Most powerful kind of bending" = bloodbending.
bloodbending = causes pain and misery
causes pain and misery = evil
bloodbending = evil
most powerful (or "purest") form of bending = evil
therefore, ALL BENDING = evil.
Was she seeing her visions of Yakon to warn her about Tarrlok... or Amon? That was never made particularly clear and now that they've said they're brothers, I just want to find anything in the previous episodes that could even have slightly hinted at this, and that's really the only thing that ties them. But it's just sort of left ambiguous, even though she had a chance to talk to Aang and ask directly.
I think Aang was trying to warn her about both of them, but probably more Amon than Tarrlok. After all the visions started after she encountered Amon IIRC.
Who knows? Maybe they will fill in more blanks in season 2. I'm STILL hoping to find out about Zuko's mother. And what do you think of the idea of using energybending to make people more equal? It would be kind of the opposite of Amon's way. Those who want bending can have it, those who don't want it don't have to get it.