But once Noatak and Tarrlok develop waterbending, the good days are firmly behind them. He is able to naturally adopt the skills his father once honed, but as a result of his training, he becomes a shell of his former self.
The warm, caring child Tarrlok looked up to had vanished. A perfect fit for the most inhumane form of bending. When asked to bloodbend his brother to please his father, Noatak does so without hesitation. But Tarrlok cannot stand it, finally condemning the practice and the pain it brings others. And just as Yakone is about to unleash his paternal wrath, Noatak finally turns on Yakone, bloodbending him instead and declaring his intentions to run away.
He asks Tarrlok to join him, but Tarrlok hesitates, and Noatak declares that Yakone is right about him, calling him weak and indecisive. The moment is a defining one for a particularly brutal family dynamic. Tarrlok becomes a corrupt politician who manipulates and shifts any narrative he can in order to further his own ambitions.
Meanwhile, the newly-named Amon forges an identity as an anarchical savior of the people. He lies about his past and his purposes to gain the trust of an oppressed society, creates his own falsehoods to deliberately further the cultural divide, and wreaks havoc among benders with his mysterious physical advantages. The two brothers may have ended up on different sides of the law and society, but their spiteful actions perfectly mirror each other.
They are truly two sides of the same terrible coin. Amon contrasts with Avatar Korra in many important ways, and one of them is Amon's meticulous planning vs Korra's brash, improvisational style of fighting and thinking. While Korra reacts, Amon acts, and not without planning first. He won't make a move until all the pieces are in place, and he repeatedly outmaneuvered everyone from Korra and Tarrlok to the Republic City police and even the United Nations fleet. The members of Team Avatar have even commented on this in total frustration.
The Equalist revolution was powerful for more than one reason. Amon knew how to stir the anger of the non-bending citizens of Republic City, and he put on a good show of it, too, as Korra and Mako personally saw during an early episode. Amon used strong words and skillful rhetoric both on the radio and in-person to rile up the crowds, and he won them over with ease.
He used a fictional personal story to add a human touch to it, and he uses smoke machines, a huge backdrop, and even a demonstration of his power to really crank up the entertainment factor.
No wonder his message spread so fast. Amon made up that story about a firebender criminal killing his family, but the sentiment that he's exploiting is quite real. He even applied face paint to make his face look scarred and burned, and he showed that face when Korra questioned him about it.
Even though the war with the Fire Nation has been over for around 70 years, firebending is largely feared and mistrusted, often irrationally. At its core, firebending is about passion and life, not anger and destruction. Katara really did lose family to a firebender, but Amon did not. Amon wields many weapons against his enemies, such as Team Avatar, the metal-bender police, and the United Nations. Not only can he rally a huge crowd to the cause and use all kinds of new tech, but he uses fear as a weapon, too.
Used correctly, terror can absolutely destroy an enemy's capacity to resist, and Amon uses everything from his mask and unique powers to threats on the radio and ambushes to drive Korra into a corner. Korra even had nightmares about her encounter with Amon at the Aang statue. That, and he uses more conventional terrorist methods as well, such as attacking the city council members and threatening the pro-bending arena.
This is the lieutenant, a powerful and loyal member of the Equalist revolution. And how did Amon repay his loyalty? By bloodbending him and tossing him aside upon being outed as a waterbender. And it's not just him. Amon and Hiroshi made sure that Cabbage Corps took the fall in Future Industries' place during an investigation. All kinds of people suffer unfairly after Amon has used them, since he sees them as tools and convenient cover rather than loyal subjects.
Amon was the first major villain to face Korra, and in some ways, he hinted at what was to come. He shares some elements with the Airbender anarchist known as Zaheer , who was another major challenge for Korra.
His father, Yakone was a criminal whose bending was taken away by Avatar Aang. After Yakone fathered two sons, he realizes his children inherited his ability to bloodbend outside of the lunar cycle, so he plans his revenge. He teaches his sons to be bloodbending masters, forcing them to practice on helpless animals and each other, all while drilling into them that the Avatar is corrupt, obsolete and arrogant.
Noatak, while upset with his father, sees the Avatar and the natural ability bestowed to all benders as the source of his pain. If no one could bend, his father may have been a different man, and no one else would have an unfair advantage over another. Amon as a character raises essential questions about the hierarchy within the Avatar world, and his role as a villain stems from childhood trauma. Amon suffers from Season 1's poor pacing and many subplots, and in the end, he is disregarded as just an extremist Korra takes down.
The equalizers and the debate Amon started are dropped the moment he leaves the series, which is unfortunate. All the villains of Korra raise moral questions about their society, but Amon is the one who is the most realistic and compelling.
Her work has been featured in multiple literary journals and anthologies.
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