Everyone, look.
I know it’s super funsies to speculate about Amon being Aang and Katara’s non-bender son, or Ozai, or the cabbage merchant, or an avatar of Koh the Face Stealer… isn’t it just as likely that Amon is Amon?
It’s not like every masked villains has to be someone everyone already knows. Think of Slade from the Teen Titans cartoon. Right up until the first season finale, I was totally convinced he was Bruce Wayne in disguise (mostly because I had no idea that Deathstroke the Terminator was a thing), but when he just kept on being Slade, it didn’t detract from the character. Neither did not going into his backstory. If anything, it made him even cooler! He was just some guy with a mask going toe-to-toe with all of the Teen Titans, and he was never defeated; sure, he ran away in almost every encounter, but not once did they ever catch him. I’m genuinely hoping that Amon is to Korra as Slade is to the Titans. No backstory, no tragic character reveal, no nothing. And hell, if your problem with Slade was an ill defined motive, Amon has an excellent one:
You live in Republic City, created by the great Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko, both benders. Alright, cool! Except, Republic City isn’t quite the utopia they envisioned… but hey! That’s not their fault, it’s unreasonable to blame them. You try to make the best of a bad situation, but it’s pretty difficult. How many jobs are taken by benders? Or, if not taken, done better by benders? Just consider the (presumably) non-bender cop in the park, and the metalbender cops who appear a little later in the first episode. Who do you think earns more? And it’s not because they work harder, they just have a natural born gift. And any dreams of becoming popular or important go right out the window, it’s the pro-benders who are idolized and treated as heroes, drawing huge crowds to the arena night after night, and from what we’ve seen so far, the government is also staffed by benders; at the very least, Tenzin has his position by virtue of being one of the last living airbenders, and the son of the Avatar- oh look, more special privileged granted by birth. And then, even if you do manage to get by doing something mundane, there’s a good chance you’re going to get shaken down by gangs like the Triple Threat Triads… more benders.
Wouldn’t that make you a little angry?
All this identity theorizing is super fun.
And this is a fun theory too.
Nice analysis of motive here too.