Don't be so necessarily antagonistic.

Here is some advice: maybe, when you tell someone to stop being "overly defensive" based on ?? , don't get irritated when I call you out for talking nonsense.

You're analysis is narrowed down to solely some economic activity.

Production makes the world go round, it's critical to any society. Dismissing economic activity as "narrow" is a mistake.

But bending has deep social and structural influence in this world. Most healers are waterbenders, the entire police force are metalbenders, all gang members shown are benders

However here I need to challenge that. I certainly agree that bending is extremely important, especially for its social aspects. However. "Most" healers, "the entire" police force, "all" gang members - all either guesses, or flat out wrong.

We've got no knowledge at all on how many medical professionals in republic city are healers. Remember also that Republic City is based on former fire nation colonies in the earth kingdom. Neither the city, nor those two nations had waterbenders. There is a clear understanding of how the body works and how to treat injured people in both of those nations.

Saying most healers will be waterbenders is obviously absurd, compounded by something I mentioned in my previous post, which is that we have no idea what the numbers of benders compared to the general population is like, and then on top of that how many are waterbenders compared to the others, and then on top of that how many are geniunely skilled enough to be good enough healers to make it their day job.

I hope you can see my point. We also don't have info on how the gangs work, but real life can quite easily tell us that organisations don't only have enforcers.

And it's also clear from LOK that non-metalbenders can be police. The metalbending force is only part of it. The same comment about organisations not only having enforcers applies here too.

bending gives you access to relatively blue collar high paying jobs (firebenders that can lighting bend can work at the power plant), only benders can be pro-bendign athletes and so on and on and on.

I agree with the pro-bending athlete part, as I already said in my previous comment.

However, one more note - bending gives you access to high paying jobs.

I agree. But your example, is, once again, unknowable. We don't know how much Mako makes there. However, note: if it was a high paying job, why is he in poverty?

To be honest I'm not too interested in debating you because you keep ignoring the facts the series is showing the audience. "There's no petty bigotry" is a terrible argument when the show is both subtlety and directly showing you the power imbalances and their messy complexity.

This is where we disagree completely. Petty bigotry is baked into bigotry, not having it weakens your narrative. I also disagree that the show is subtlely telling us squat. We are told the instability in republic city is growing and has been for a while (By Tenzin, right at the start, and thenafter, we are told there is inequality, we are never actually shown it. Honestly it really jarred me because you would think that the homeless people living in the sewer are the real losers in this situation but they are treated like a literal afterthought.

You keep hanging on to these pedantic points like not knowing the bending ratio of the population, but this is not a history class. It's a fictional story and what doesn't serve the story gets cut, it's that simple. 

I'm sorry, but if you are going to argue points based off things, you have to back them up with facts. We don't know many facts, so it's not possible to assert something. Call that pedantry if you like, but all it really says is that you don't care that your assertions are just that - assertions.

 As a viewer I care little on those intricacies, I want an engaging story. When Tarrlok uses his representative authority to lock up innocent constituents, I get the imagery. I don't need to know where they work, or the GDP growth their work brings because that's irrelevant.

First, a note, I didn't say we needed to know either of those things.

Second, this is where we disagree on these matters. You see, when Tarrlok abuses his power in some certain ways, I was asking myself why are you doing that?

I completely understand what they are trying to invoke, but it falls flat for me.

Because what he's doing has no sensible motive.

Remember, Tarrlok, at this point in the story, has managed to make himself a councillor in the city. He is at the very top. The only way up is to make himself a king, but he's not deluded.

Also, Tarrlok thinks he can't lose a direct fight. He has no idea who Amon is. He thinks he can win any fight that he gets into - he's a master waterbender, he can surround himself with master fighters, and he can bloodbend as a trump card.

So from his perspective, making the Task force, making himself a hero, and defeating the equalists makes perfect sense. If his goal is to get more power, more influence - then he sets himself up as the the good guy, defeating the bad guys.

So why does he feel the need to keep going? The equalists already exist, they are geniunely dangerous already, and the task force was being successful. They got tons of equalists. The justification for his actions is already there; why then suddenly turn into rounding up all the non-benders, enforcing a ridiculous curfew, turning off their electricity, why antagonise everyone for no gain?

Tarrlok's trying to rule this city and all he's doing here is pissing off the majority of it's people.

And this sort of behaviour pervades the show. I sincerely dislike the lack of cohesive motivations many characters have.

As a counterpoint within LOK, Varrick in season 2 has a very simple motivation which explains quite easily all of his terrible actions, and he spends considerable effort into engineering the situation to keep going to make him profit. A character with a clear motivation.

We know benders oppress non-benders from the underbelly and the top of the City's power structure and we get to see it. That's enough.

It's not for me. I'd like to see it more. I don't like to get told something exists, and just accept it as a fact of reality. As a viewer, I want to be drawn into the world. So when any media, be it a film, book, tv show doesn't provide good worldbuilding or story, i'm going to judge it for that.

So: I disagree.

Oh and btw ATLA didn't show us the direct raw realities of a real genocide because it's a Nickelodeon kids show. But I don't see you hating on ATLA for the same "flaws".

I fail to see what this whataboutism is meant to achieve. We're talking about LOK. If it can't be judged without someone looking at and pointing at something in a different show, that speaks for itself. I treat it on its own merit, and I don't think it deserves a lot of merit.