Entry tags:
The Trouble with Lin (and Other Stuff)
A little while ago, this article by Slavoj Žižek on TDKR was doing the rounds on FB, which prompted a rather lengthy, rambling conversation between ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zorana, A (that girl shows immense fangirl potential, I must say), and myself about certain narrative problems and disappointments in TDKR, and its parallels with LoK. FB is hardly the sort of place for this sort of a thing, so re-posted here for archival (and further discussion!) purpose:
S: The most disappointing thing about both canons - LoK and TDKR - is that they present us with a vision of a proletarian revolution (in LoK's case, an oppressed social group in the shape of the non-benders), only to snatch that away in the end by shifting the focus onto the figurehead of the revolution (as opposed to the demands of the same) and discrediting them: Bane is an obsessed lover, Talia is a megalomaniac, Amon is a lying bender who lies. The focus then shifts to our heroes justly bringing down the now-discredited, unworthy villain. And the root of the problem, I'm beginning to suspect, comes from a narrative failure to meaningfully juxtapose the sympathetic and just good cop with a sympathetic and just revolution. If there is one constant in the Batverse alongside 'Alfred is awesome' it's that Jim Gordon is a Good Cop (who loves his daughter). Jim's good cop-ness isn't under question even when he's done something as morally grey as his actions in TDK; he did it for the greater good, and the audience might question him in the beginning through Blake's character, but they also fall right back in love with him, just as Blake does. Lin, meanwhile, gets the lion's share of character development and moments of awesome in LoK s1, not to mention the most powerful emotional moment in the entire season - she's republic city's Gordon, standing for that upright cop type within the Korraverse. Even when Lin clearly displays an inability to entirely understand what the non-benders are upset about (ep 6: she wants to a display of bender unity against these non-benders) or to come with a suitable strategy to counter them, thereby displaying her inability (refusal?) to treat the non-benders as a truly serious threat, there is no question that Lin is a sympathetic figure whom we love. And, I argue, therein lies the problem.
The narrative in both canons displays a remarkable failure to deal with the themes of order and chaos – TDKR even more than Korra, because Korraverse, at least, has an excuse: the Avatar by definition stands for order and balance (and therefore, in some ways, status quo) in a way Batman doesn't have to because of the lack of divine ordainment. Aang's world needed him to challenge status quo because status quo stood for imbalance and chaos; the imbalance in Korra's world is much less obvious, much more insidious, systemic and structural. The question then becomes, is there such a thing called creative destruction in these universes, or is all chaos to be simply reviled? What happens if the chaos is directed at institutions of 'order' that are, on occasion, also instruments of oppression? But to have to answer such questions, you have to shake the very foundation of your 'good' characters – the ones who stand for Justice and Order: Gordon, Beifong (even more than Korra or Bruce – the Messiah) – and question if personal integrity is enough for us to overlook the flaws in the 'order' that they uphold. LoK, at least, has the entire police force reduced to redundancy and Korra's own victory a rather accidental one – as opposed to the emphatic messianic appearance of Bruce and the guerilla war Gordon's men wage against bane's rioters (who are, very conveniently, criminals from Blackgate – therefore, unworthy) . But the problem nonetheless remains: is our love for the upright cop enough to overlook the role that they play in systemic oppression?
(I am not meaning to suggest, of course, a dismantling of the police force or Lin/Gordon turning into revolutionaries themselves – but a more nuanced treatment of the same in a manner that resonates with realworld attempts to solve the same problem.)
A: I think that the city topography along with its heterogeneous demographic constitution is the problem. The good cop is as you said, face of justice and order, but one who must stand for the city state, however flawed. Since political rule of a state has in its inception the notion of being repressive, the cops cannot be made to side with the revolutionaries. Both Lin and Gordon are part of the whitewashing-the-dirty-walls project of the state. It is constitutionally not their place to question why... I think this protector of the state therefore has limited scope of political free thinking since they themselves are a part of the state machinery, and one cannot obviously imagine the fall of Gotham/ Republic City since that is exactly what our messiahs/ super heroes are trying to protect. Which takes me to the superheroes themselves.
Bruce and Korra are protectors of the political state themselves... Bruce by choice, due to his personal crime fighting ambitions and Korra because the spirits thrust status quo on her. And I believe the striking factor of them being impervious to Gotham's people/Republic City's non benders is a structural necessity of the genre. Korra remains shamelessly proud of her bending, and Bruce is ready to take reigns of the city he protects by his gadgets... What we are now faced with is the problem that the city politic is not a homogeneous egalitarian state but a pluriform platform of voices from all pockets. I guess that is what has disappointed us, the incapacity of the superhero genre to accommodate these voices... It works on the assumption that the city state our hero protects is essentially good. Both the Equalist movement and the anarchic regime of the prisoners in Gotham had to be challenged by our heroes. What is interesting is that the 'good' packet of citizens in Gotham were invisible during the rule of bane and silently walk out of their houses once their city has been 'saved'. The alternate to the existing political order are criminals excluding the average populace of the place. Which is why Selina disappoints me so much... She was for me the representative of these voices, the people not Blackgate prisoners...
Aang had it easy, he had to restore balance to a universe ruled by a despot, both Korra and Bruce must protect the existing state. Therefore they too skirt the issues raised by the revolution furtively. To make our cops/heroes support the revolution one has to imagine them as a citizen subject not a guardian of a political locale. Which is why I am so intrigued by Korra, the Equalist movement is soooo appealing to me because it questions the administration of the state literally constructed by her predecessor. The status quo she must strike is far more modern, urban, nuanced. To re do the status quo representative of the previous Avatar is what she must achieve. Bruce however, is too 'invested' in the running of Gotham to achieve the same.
So Gotham's 'good' people remain indoors during their chance at revolution, they are victims of Bane's regime not participants.
S: First things first: I would not call it 'the incapacity of the superhero genre' per se as opposed to the failure of the Nolanverse to deal with the same; there are instances of stellar writing within the Batverse that attempt to deal with these complexities, Gotham Central by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker being a prime example - or even No Man's Land, much of which informs the guerilla warfare in the second half of TDKR (to be honest, TDKR made me wish for a good - preferably televised - adaptation of NML, featuring ALL the Bat-characters Chris Nolan so disdains). More later.
A: I am talking about the Batverse specific to Nolan's because of obvious reasons, the trilogy begins with Ra'as al Ghul explicitly stating that he wants to destroy Gotham. Nolan's Gotham is from the beginning the prosperous state which arouses envy in the terrorists (this is how the Al Ghuls have been represented here). Which is why in TDKR Batman must protect Gotham and the problems Catwoman talks of must be defeated.--- more later as well.
S: The entire Ra'as al Ghul wants to destroy Gotham plot is horseshit, and rather disturbing given his (played by white person) middle-eastern origin - it's as though Nolan has to be 'topical' somehow, and how better to do that than terrorists attacking New York (Gotham)? But coming back to Selina, yes, it's terrible - to the point where you have to wonder what the scriptwriter was even thinking when he put lines like 'a storm is coming' in her mouth. Selina's betrayal of Bruce is portrayed as a sell-out (if justified, because she doesn't want to be killed by Bane), and her return to the fold a sign of her ~seeing the light (again justified by the fact that Bane and Talia are self-serving ev0l folks, not to mention the fact that Blake - the stand-in for the audience - has acknowledged Bruce Wayne's goodness and charity, and that is apparently enough to overlook the military/Wayne Enterprises nexus that Lucius Fox flaunts).
Z: Bruce not fighting the political city-state is something Nolan definitely pushes more than other versions of the Bat-verse. A. you hit the nail on the head when you talk about how the "people of Gotham" melted away from the narrative because they couldn't be shown to be sympathetic to the cause. Personally the reframing of the occupy movement's narrative as THE WAY TO CERTAIN DOOM felt almost ridiculously manic and anvil-like. There was actually more exploration of their reaction to the Joker, possibly because he was much more easily cast as absolute EVOL. Here they just drift away because Nolan refuses to let them be implicated in the revolution, even as a misled mob (like Tale of Two Cities).
I do wonder what happened to the boys from the orphanage who were disappearing into sewers because it was mentioned as a thing that was happening enough for it to be noticed. Do they not count as citizens for Nolan? Or is that problem fixed by private philanthropy?
Selina as a failed revolutionary is the tragedy of the piece really because bless her Anne Hathaway does play her well. Her role in the narrative is so compromised but I'd rather read it as a metaphor for the capitalist system itself, which produces endless debt and so does not allow escape? I feel better about it like that anyway lol.
In a way LOK is a much more nuanced setup for political critique because the populace IS wholly implicated in Amon's agenda. They actually make up a large part of the Equalist forces and there is plenty of evidence that it is a popular movement. That's why the narrative betrayal of LOK affected me so much more because I could see Nolan's agenda from the start, whereas LOK actually let me hope we could GO somewhere with it!
In terms of the figure of the Good Cop I agree, S, both Lin and Gordon use personal moral standing to support unjust systems. When they go "outside the law" it's not to undermine the institutions of oppression but reinforce them. Their personal tragedies function (much more than the big TRAGEDIES of Bruce and Korra) as much more effective vehicles to demonise the revolutionary. The system is acknowledged as flawed but no other alternative can ever be thought about.
A: I am not giving up on the Equalist movement yet. It is too close to me to give up on. Korra's world needs restructuring for it is politically so different from Aang's. And the political cause of the Equalists is very viable.
S: I will admit that I am perhaps more fascinated by Lin and Gordon's roles in the narrative more than the superhero/messiah, but this is favourite character bias showing I'm afraid. As good officers, they serve the law - and as Z points out, even when they're working outside the law, they're doing to uphold the legal system as it exists. This might appear to foreclose any possibility of political free thinking, but that's what really fascinates me about this entire thing: the possibility of thinking... differently (for the lack of a better word) even within the constraints of the existing structure and their role in the same.
I haven't entirely given up on the Equalist movement, although it's certain that the Equalist movement as it existed (Amon-Amon-Amon-everywhere) can no longer exist. But the problems they raised were legitimate, the structural inequality they pointed to was real, and regardless of whether or not poverty unites benders and non-benders in Republic City, the questions raised by the Equalists will have to addressed sooner or later. In some way, I'm quite fascinated by the idea of every Avatar trying to correct the mistakes committed by the previous Avatar - Aang had to correct Roku's and deal with the fallout of Kyoshi's (Kyoshi created the Dai Li, who would of course go on to be important villains in AtLA); I love the idea that Korra must not only preserve RC but also simultaneously shake its structure so that it becomes closer to the idea of the balanced society Aang wanted to create.
zorana, A (that girl shows immense fangirl potential, I must say), and myself about certain narrative problems and disappointments in TDKR, and its parallels with LoK. FB is hardly the sort of place for this sort of a thing, so re-posted here for archival (and further discussion!) purpose:S: The most disappointing thing about both canons - LoK and TDKR - is that they present us with a vision of a proletarian revolution (in LoK's case, an oppressed social group in the shape of the non-benders), only to snatch that away in the end by shifting the focus onto the figurehead of the revolution (as opposed to the demands of the same) and discrediting them: Bane is an obsessed lover, Talia is a megalomaniac, Amon is a lying bender who lies. The focus then shifts to our heroes justly bringing down the now-discredited, unworthy villain. And the root of the problem, I'm beginning to suspect, comes from a narrative failure to meaningfully juxtapose the sympathetic and just good cop with a sympathetic and just revolution. If there is one constant in the Batverse alongside 'Alfred is awesome' it's that Jim Gordon is a Good Cop (who loves his daughter). Jim's good cop-ness isn't under question even when he's done something as morally grey as his actions in TDK; he did it for the greater good, and the audience might question him in the beginning through Blake's character, but they also fall right back in love with him, just as Blake does. Lin, meanwhile, gets the lion's share of character development and moments of awesome in LoK s1, not to mention the most powerful emotional moment in the entire season - she's republic city's Gordon, standing for that upright cop type within the Korraverse. Even when Lin clearly displays an inability to entirely understand what the non-benders are upset about (ep 6: she wants to a display of bender unity against these non-benders) or to come with a suitable strategy to counter them, thereby displaying her inability (refusal?) to treat the non-benders as a truly serious threat, there is no question that Lin is a sympathetic figure whom we love. And, I argue, therein lies the problem.
The narrative in both canons displays a remarkable failure to deal with the themes of order and chaos – TDKR even more than Korra, because Korraverse, at least, has an excuse: the Avatar by definition stands for order and balance (and therefore, in some ways, status quo) in a way Batman doesn't have to because of the lack of divine ordainment. Aang's world needed him to challenge status quo because status quo stood for imbalance and chaos; the imbalance in Korra's world is much less obvious, much more insidious, systemic and structural. The question then becomes, is there such a thing called creative destruction in these universes, or is all chaos to be simply reviled? What happens if the chaos is directed at institutions of 'order' that are, on occasion, also instruments of oppression? But to have to answer such questions, you have to shake the very foundation of your 'good' characters – the ones who stand for Justice and Order: Gordon, Beifong (even more than Korra or Bruce – the Messiah) – and question if personal integrity is enough for us to overlook the flaws in the 'order' that they uphold. LoK, at least, has the entire police force reduced to redundancy and Korra's own victory a rather accidental one – as opposed to the emphatic messianic appearance of Bruce and the guerilla war Gordon's men wage against bane's rioters (who are, very conveniently, criminals from Blackgate – therefore, unworthy) . But the problem nonetheless remains: is our love for the upright cop enough to overlook the role that they play in systemic oppression?
(I am not meaning to suggest, of course, a dismantling of the police force or Lin/Gordon turning into revolutionaries themselves – but a more nuanced treatment of the same in a manner that resonates with realworld attempts to solve the same problem.)
A: I think that the city topography along with its heterogeneous demographic constitution is the problem. The good cop is as you said, face of justice and order, but one who must stand for the city state, however flawed. Since political rule of a state has in its inception the notion of being repressive, the cops cannot be made to side with the revolutionaries. Both Lin and Gordon are part of the whitewashing-the-dirty-walls project of the state. It is constitutionally not their place to question why... I think this protector of the state therefore has limited scope of political free thinking since they themselves are a part of the state machinery, and one cannot obviously imagine the fall of Gotham/ Republic City since that is exactly what our messiahs/ super heroes are trying to protect. Which takes me to the superheroes themselves.
Bruce and Korra are protectors of the political state themselves... Bruce by choice, due to his personal crime fighting ambitions and Korra because the spirits thrust status quo on her. And I believe the striking factor of them being impervious to Gotham's people/Republic City's non benders is a structural necessity of the genre. Korra remains shamelessly proud of her bending, and Bruce is ready to take reigns of the city he protects by his gadgets... What we are now faced with is the problem that the city politic is not a homogeneous egalitarian state but a pluriform platform of voices from all pockets. I guess that is what has disappointed us, the incapacity of the superhero genre to accommodate these voices... It works on the assumption that the city state our hero protects is essentially good. Both the Equalist movement and the anarchic regime of the prisoners in Gotham had to be challenged by our heroes. What is interesting is that the 'good' packet of citizens in Gotham were invisible during the rule of bane and silently walk out of their houses once their city has been 'saved'. The alternate to the existing political order are criminals excluding the average populace of the place. Which is why Selina disappoints me so much... She was for me the representative of these voices, the people not Blackgate prisoners...
Aang had it easy, he had to restore balance to a universe ruled by a despot, both Korra and Bruce must protect the existing state. Therefore they too skirt the issues raised by the revolution furtively. To make our cops/heroes support the revolution one has to imagine them as a citizen subject not a guardian of a political locale. Which is why I am so intrigued by Korra, the Equalist movement is soooo appealing to me because it questions the administration of the state literally constructed by her predecessor. The status quo she must strike is far more modern, urban, nuanced. To re do the status quo representative of the previous Avatar is what she must achieve. Bruce however, is too 'invested' in the running of Gotham to achieve the same.
So Gotham's 'good' people remain indoors during their chance at revolution, they are victims of Bane's regime not participants.
S: First things first: I would not call it 'the incapacity of the superhero genre' per se as opposed to the failure of the Nolanverse to deal with the same; there are instances of stellar writing within the Batverse that attempt to deal with these complexities, Gotham Central by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker being a prime example - or even No Man's Land, much of which informs the guerilla warfare in the second half of TDKR (to be honest, TDKR made me wish for a good - preferably televised - adaptation of NML, featuring ALL the Bat-characters Chris Nolan so disdains). More later.
A: I am talking about the Batverse specific to Nolan's because of obvious reasons, the trilogy begins with Ra'as al Ghul explicitly stating that he wants to destroy Gotham. Nolan's Gotham is from the beginning the prosperous state which arouses envy in the terrorists (this is how the Al Ghuls have been represented here). Which is why in TDKR Batman must protect Gotham and the problems Catwoman talks of must be defeated.--- more later as well.
S: The entire Ra'as al Ghul wants to destroy Gotham plot is horseshit, and rather disturbing given his (played by white person) middle-eastern origin - it's as though Nolan has to be 'topical' somehow, and how better to do that than terrorists attacking New York (Gotham)? But coming back to Selina, yes, it's terrible - to the point where you have to wonder what the scriptwriter was even thinking when he put lines like 'a storm is coming' in her mouth. Selina's betrayal of Bruce is portrayed as a sell-out (if justified, because she doesn't want to be killed by Bane), and her return to the fold a sign of her ~seeing the light (again justified by the fact that Bane and Talia are self-serving ev0l folks, not to mention the fact that Blake - the stand-in for the audience - has acknowledged Bruce Wayne's goodness and charity, and that is apparently enough to overlook the military/Wayne Enterprises nexus that Lucius Fox flaunts).
Z: Bruce not fighting the political city-state is something Nolan definitely pushes more than other versions of the Bat-verse. A. you hit the nail on the head when you talk about how the "people of Gotham" melted away from the narrative because they couldn't be shown to be sympathetic to the cause. Personally the reframing of the occupy movement's narrative as THE WAY TO CERTAIN DOOM felt almost ridiculously manic and anvil-like. There was actually more exploration of their reaction to the Joker, possibly because he was much more easily cast as absolute EVOL. Here they just drift away because Nolan refuses to let them be implicated in the revolution, even as a misled mob (like Tale of Two Cities).
I do wonder what happened to the boys from the orphanage who were disappearing into sewers because it was mentioned as a thing that was happening enough for it to be noticed. Do they not count as citizens for Nolan? Or is that problem fixed by private philanthropy?
Selina as a failed revolutionary is the tragedy of the piece really because bless her Anne Hathaway does play her well. Her role in the narrative is so compromised but I'd rather read it as a metaphor for the capitalist system itself, which produces endless debt and so does not allow escape? I feel better about it like that anyway lol.
In a way LOK is a much more nuanced setup for political critique because the populace IS wholly implicated in Amon's agenda. They actually make up a large part of the Equalist forces and there is plenty of evidence that it is a popular movement. That's why the narrative betrayal of LOK affected me so much more because I could see Nolan's agenda from the start, whereas LOK actually let me hope we could GO somewhere with it!
In terms of the figure of the Good Cop I agree, S, both Lin and Gordon use personal moral standing to support unjust systems. When they go "outside the law" it's not to undermine the institutions of oppression but reinforce them. Their personal tragedies function (much more than the big TRAGEDIES of Bruce and Korra) as much more effective vehicles to demonise the revolutionary. The system is acknowledged as flawed but no other alternative can ever be thought about.
A: I am not giving up on the Equalist movement yet. It is too close to me to give up on. Korra's world needs restructuring for it is politically so different from Aang's. And the political cause of the Equalists is very viable.
S: I will admit that I am perhaps more fascinated by Lin and Gordon's roles in the narrative more than the superhero/messiah, but this is favourite character bias showing I'm afraid. As good officers, they serve the law - and as Z points out, even when they're working outside the law, they're doing to uphold the legal system as it exists. This might appear to foreclose any possibility of political free thinking, but that's what really fascinates me about this entire thing: the possibility of thinking... differently (for the lack of a better word) even within the constraints of the existing structure and their role in the same.
I haven't entirely given up on the Equalist movement, although it's certain that the Equalist movement as it existed (Amon-Amon-Amon-everywhere) can no longer exist. But the problems they raised were legitimate, the structural inequality they pointed to was real, and regardless of whether or not poverty unites benders and non-benders in Republic City, the questions raised by the Equalists will have to addressed sooner or later. In some way, I'm quite fascinated by the idea of every Avatar trying to correct the mistakes committed by the previous Avatar - Aang had to correct Roku's and deal with the fallout of Kyoshi's (Kyoshi created the Dai Li, who would of course go on to be important villains in AtLA); I love the idea that Korra must not only preserve RC but also simultaneously shake its structure so that it becomes closer to the idea of the balanced society Aang wanted to create.