12/26/2023 0 Comments Aang removes firelords powerThis addresses the questions of developing sophisticated systems of codes which are inaccessible to the world outside, of myths of non-existence, of masking and masquerade through a harlequinesque figure, of the politics of lying, of disguise and of theatricality. Silence as resistance is looked at by extending it into the performative aspects of secrecy. Keywords: avatar, postcolonialism, power, resistance, secrecy, silence, the last airbender, trauma Thirdly, silencing through brainwashing and destruction of cultural bodies, e.g., libraries, as an effect of the repressive state apparatus (RS) is explored. Secondly, silence is understood as an erasure of a violent past which is consciously performed as a protective shield, a deliberate forgetting, carrying within itself the hope that, silence over a span of time would assuage the pain of trauma. By drawing on the dialogues and visual evidences from the series, the paper first examines the culturing of silence by a community as self-policing which reinforces the hegemony of the power group- the Fire Nation. In reading ATLA as an allegory to a specific kind of colonialism, i.e., of genocide, this paper aims to explore how ‘silence’ and ‘secrecy’ are used by the power group to colonize the ‘others’ but are also rearticulated as forms of resistances. This world sees the domination and colonization of the Fire Nation over the other kingdoms and the ensuing violence and resistance. This world comprises four cultural formations or communities -the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Air-Nomads and the Fire Nation, where each society has a population of ‘non-benders’ and ‘benders’ who can ‘bend ‘or manipulate the element of their community for both productive or/and destructive purposes. In the American animated television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA), a visually Asian-influenced world of humans, animals and spirits plays out a history of violence, trauma and resistance.
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