Goodness, some of you have such elaborate analyses already! I’m not quite that good to be able to come up with anything new or clever, so I’ll just talk about my first impressions and what I’m hoping to see.
1. Badass normal, as defined here. Him being an Airbender would certainly be an interesting twist, however, I feel it would make him even more badass if he were just a nonbender. Imagine how badass he would have to be in order to be a threat to all benders while not sharing any of their special abilities, only equipped with physical strength, stealth, charisma, manipulative cunning and general intelligence.
2. Unrelated to any of the characters we know. The Darth Vader twist was only interesting to me when it was Darth Vader. Actually even then, that twist was kind of bs, now that I think about it. It just seems like such a cliche if he were someone’s dad or brother or son or uncle or whatever.3. Fairly normal looking underneath the mask. No prominent disfigurement or anything like that. I think the mask is simply a very deliberate choice. Amon seems clever enough to have a good understanding of human psychology and how to play with it. I don’t think the fact that everyone seems to draw connections to Anonymous or V for Vendetta is a coincidence. It’s probably a connection Amon himself would hope for. A man in a mask is a mystery (whoa unintentional alliteration there). It’s easy to forget he’s even a man. Amon in the mask represents an idea. Ideas are clever little things. All it takes is a suggestion and once the seed is planted in someone’s mind, there’s little to stop the idea from growing and developing. By wearing masks, Amon and the Equalists all become suggestions of the idea they represent so that the mere sight of them could be enough to plant the seeds of ideas in everyone they encounter.
Not to mention, the masks make them all far more threatening, particularly Amon’s. While the standard Equalist mask has an obvious gas mask quality, Amon’s mask resembles a human’s face, but only just enough to evoke that Uncanny Valley feeling. He’s almost human, but not quite…what if he’s something more? The power of imagination is the best fuel for fear. Imagination is also the fertilizer that enhances the growth of the idea. Thus, when left all up to the imagination, Amon could be elevated to superhuman quality in a person’s mind. There’s no limit to what he really could be. Not to mention, there’s that creepy “I know a little something that you don’t” smile that seems to be ever-plastered on his face.4. Backstory—I don’t think he ever had any particularly traumatic experience with a bender eg. family murdered, assaulted in a back alley, etc. Or if he did, it wasn’t what started everything. I think it was, in the terms of Hyperbole and a Half, a sneaky hate spiral.
Here is what I see: Amon starts off as your average person, somewhat optimistic, having faith in the system. He’s got some idea that nonbenders are getting the short end of the stick, so he’s got big plans to be an instrument of change, but in your average, law-abiding activist way. When he’s finally old enough and smart enough to gain some influence, he tries to make some changes. People blow him off, nothing happens, but he’s determined. He tries harder. He talks to people, tries to educate them, petitions important figures. Maybe some change happens, but it’s more of a patch, not a long-term fix, and in general, things continue to regress more than anything. After a long period of pent up frustration and disenchantment, something pushes him over the edge. Maybe it’s a small thing. Maybe it’s a big thing. Either way, he’s had enough of doing it the system’s way. The system doesn’t care about the nonbenders, no matter what the people say. No, the only thing it will respond to is a crisis. It will take force. If things need to get ugly, Amon will go the distance if it means bringing justice to his oppressed fellows in the end. Problem is, when you hold a grudge for so long, sometimes things can get out of hand. Sometimes you forget what it really is that you’re fighting for.5. Not speculation, just something I wonder about. Is he planning to kill benders or at least reverse the oppression? (Seems counterproductive, but he might be past the point of reason right now). Or does he perhaps have some sort of method, some technology or whatever to remove benders’ abilities? Instead of having to enforce nonbending, why not just get rid of bending altogether? Everyone becomes a nonbender. Everyone is truly equal. Then the Avatar becomes his main obstacle, the perpetual bender, unless he destroys the Avatar for good.
6. When he says “I will destroy you” I don’t think he’s talking to Korra as an individual, but Korra as the Avatar. I’m really on board with the theory that he’s going to find a way to trigger her Avatar state (“I’m saving you for last”) and try to kill her in the Avatar state. Either way, he seems very sure that he can do this. (When he says “And I will destroy you,” the emphasis is definitely on “will.”) Meaning he is definitely a man with a plan.
That’s all I’ve got.
Glad I’m not the only one really wondering what “End all Bending” could mean. Is it just execution? I hope it’s not just execution. I can kinda want something…new. And more gelling with the ‘Equality’ thing Amon does talk about—so it seems like his first step would be sorta ‘nonviolently’ trying to figure out a way to remove bending. AND HE HAS A PRECEDENT—Avatar Aang did it with Ozai! And that apparently ended the 100-year war! If one really starts exploring that, is it any wonder Amon would start to think bending itself is the entire problem? I can see Amon being pushed to mass slaughter, kill ‘em all, but I think that would be his last resort, something he would work to avoid and secure his goal through other less ‘extreme’ means, until he felt he really had no choice. What I think and hope to see, and what I ended up already putting down in Amon-centric fic. Just Amon as this sorta Zen, creepy figure who pushes, but knows he could be even more extreme and avoids it for the moment (the thought of Amon really losing it freaks me out).
And Amon is totally just seeing the Avatar when telling Korra “I will destroy you.” I think it’s also the word choice—if he saw Korra the Person there, I think he would say “I will kill you”, since ‘kill’ seems more for taking away a life, while ‘destroy’ seems more impersonal as it seems more applied to taking away a thing, which would include an ideal/figurehead/symbol like the Avatar.
I really want Amon to be a Badass Normal. But if he has to bend, I only want him to Airbend—Airbending is the only thing that would make him being a bender super interesting. I even thought of a compromise that I’m still trying to tweak—Badass Normal Amon, but still descended from the few Airbenders that managed to survive Sozin’s Comet….