Is the White Lotus a Government backed Private Interest Group. It formed under the reign of Firelord Azulon after Iroh defacted from his family to go and become a member and the defacto leader of the group but that money has to come from somewhere
In the original series I could see a sizable chunk of funds coming from Piandao since he's a master swordsman who lives in a palace and Bumi who lived to see 4 different Firelord Generations and also lives in a palace.
But Jeong Jeong was fricking destitute and so was Iroh before making a little bit of money in Ba Sing Se. In Korra, where is that funding coming from? Is it Reparation money given to Tenzin from the Fire Nation?
Sex with Korra.
Isn't thats just a private association of nobles, rich and powerful or influencial people working secretly?
The only time Iroh had access to any kind of money was when his father was thinking about making him the firelord and him getting all that money back after Zuko became the firelord.
Anything he made from the Tea Shop was just to get by. There arent exactly high rolers in the White Lotus since master bending doesnt exactly pay well in authoritarian dictatorships when the flow of currency goes direct thru Firelord Ozai
Now in Korra I could understand Zuko refinancing all Fire Nation wealth into the White Lotus but wouldnt that completely destroy the Fire Nation economy?
Wasnt when they were banished from the fire kingdom? Is it far fetched to assume as a prince of the most powerful nation he didnt have any wealth for himself? Also assuming he did provide help in funding the white lotus I think they acted more like a group of friend who had their own goal and maybe helping each other when needed was part of it. Oh shit Im baked and just realising youre talking about the white lotus in korra.
I can maybe see Ozai letting Iroh keep a stipend since he and Zuko were both banished since he at least gave them a ship, a crew and war rhinos despite Zhao spending the last few remaining months of his life writing scathingly negative reports on them both.
Its not like Ozai went immediately into the whole "Execute my brother and my son" immediately steps of his plan until Zhao failed the south pole. The idea was to make it look like a work related accident since Zhao doing Ozai's job for him makes Ozai and Azula's job's easier
I'm reading the wiki and its started as a small group from before kyoshi that evolved into a secret society well before iroh was born, it was already an independant thing that surely has its own way of financing itself. Iroh was just one of the top dog in the association.
He must have gained entry after they found out about him sparing the last dragons living among the mortal plane since the Dragon Dance is a sacred technique that would need to be historically recorded for the upper elite of fire benders after Zuko to learn
thinking about it the series does hint about an imbalance when republic city was created, Im not that knowledgeable but werent all nation working together in someway? they collaborated in imprisoning the red lotus. honestly it could be financed from the fricking gold where he found that dragon he's riding. Im ranting but all countries seems to be doing good like it happened in real life after wars. But we did see the other side, poor people in the earth kingdom, republic city basically running on fire benders. The money could come from anywhere
Thats not exactly made clear since the Air "nation" isnt really a nation anymore its more a religious order and if they leaned into that that is a tax exempt that will allow them reparation money
I can imagine people who were living under Fire Nation rule during Zuko's rise to power are now pissed because instead of their money going directly to the war effort they have to pay money to the people they were originally trying to genocide
Also, Ba Sing Se as shown in S3 wants nothing to do with Republic City and especially the Air Nation since it was Aang, an Air Bender who exposed the corruption in Ba Sing Se which Aang never got around to fixing since that was when the Fire Nation took control of the city
Thats what I meant, I seem to remember at the start of the show we see the fire nation, water nation and republic city in good terms at the surface at least. and when we see the earth kingdom it shows not everyone got a good deal off it. Pretty sure we learn republic city was made from a large portion of the earth kingdom
The South Pole, which is where the White Lotus set camp in has good ties with Republic City since Tenzin is a member of the group
The North Pole has issue with Republic City because Unalaq, a member of the Red Lotus was outraged how the White Lotus would set shop in a complete barren shithole like the South Pole which was famously known for almost being genocided just like the Air Nation until Aang freed himself from the Iceburg
Iroh mooched a lot of money off his nephew and the gullible twit who ran the earth kingdom, then used it to form a banking monopoly that keeps the lower rings of ba sing se in perpetual debt slavery.
Ba Sing Se is 100% a fully privatized ethnostate since security is financed entirely by the people who live among the outer wall protected by the Dai Li. You need to envision Ba Sing Se as the first ever HOA.
>During the Hundred Year War, before the awakening of Avatar Aang from the iceberg, a member of the Order of the White Lotus named Myeongsu tasked a group of adventurers with infiltrating the Fire Army as spies and saboteurs in order to slow down the Fire Nation's progress toward the remote, defenseless village of Jaiyin. After losing his son at the failed Siege of Ba Sing Se, Iroh joined the Order of the White Lotus while on a spiritual journey. Within a few years, he had risen to the rank of Grand Lotus.
>Shortly after the Hundred Year War's conclusion, the society stopped concealing itself from the public eye and began to serve the world and the Avatar more openly, although several aspects of their operations continued to remain secret. Their public debut and open affiliation with the Avatar following the war caused tensions within the order. One faction known as the "Red Lotus" led by Xai Bau wanted to restore the connection between the mortal world and the Spirit World, and regarded governments of all kind as obstacles in this quest. Accordingly, the Red Lotus opposed the order's new path and its growing association with the world's rulers. Despite Iroh's attempts at keeping the White Lotus united, Xai Bau came to believe that the society had been subverted into the "Avatar's bodyguards", and he and his followers left the organization.
Yes, you can copy the wiki, congratulations smoothbrain.
>When still a teenager, Zaheer met Chief Unalaq after they had both just joined the Red Lotus. They learned about Raava and Vaatu, the spirits of light and darkness, and how Avatar Wan had separated them, bringing imbalance to the world, which he, according to the Red Lotus, had only strengthened by dividing the physical and spiritual worlds. The Red Lotus subsequently devised a plan to kidnap the Avatar in order to reverse Wan's decision and teach her the ways of the Red Lotus. As such, Zaheer, Ghazan, P'Li, and Ming-Hua launched their plan to kidnap Korra a year after her status as the new Avatar was confirmed, but were unsuccessful due to the intervention of Tonraq, Tenzin, Chief Sokka, and Fire Lord Zuko. They were apprehended and detained in four maximum security prisons scattered around the globe. However, Unalaq had not come with his comrades that day and had thus managed to avoid being arrested. He washed his hands of the incident, and maintained his innocence by covering up his involvement in the kidnapping, but began pursuing his own personal ambition to become the Dark Avatar, something that the Red Lotus had not planned to do. To further defuse any suspicion against him, Unalaq collaborated with Zuko to build a prison in the western tundras of the North Pole to contain P'Li. As was the case with P'Li, the Order of the White Lotus imprisoned Ghazan and Ming-Hua in environments that would suppress their bending, while Zaheer was held in a remote mountaintop cell constructed entirely out of metal. The organization's lesser-known agents, such as Aiwei, remained at large and continued their operations in secret.
>Tasked by Avatar Aang at the end of his life, the Order of the White Lotus kept the next Avatar safe until he or she had completed his or her training; however, it was Aang's younger son, Tenzin, and the next Avatar's father, Tonraq, who insisted on keeping Korra at the South Pole. As such, the White Lotus directly oversaw Korra's development and training of each element at a compound in the Southern Water Tribe.
>With the White Lotus successfully raising Korra, the Red Lotus shifted plans. Instead of trying to convince the Avatar to join them in her adulthood, they decided to capture and eventually kill her while she was in the Avatar State, putting an end to the reincarnation cycle and further establish anarchy.
>Members of the White Lotus and Chief Lin Beifong of Republic City spent the next thirteen years interrogating each member of the Red Lotus in order to determine the gang's motives, but were ultimately unsuccessful.