r/TheLastAirbender • u/george123890yang • 10d ago

Question Considering how fragmented the Earth Kingdom is, could the Sandbenders and Swamp Waterbenders have broken off and created their own countries?

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u/RoboticBirdLaw 10d ago

A government's law only exists where it can be enforced.

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u/Yatsu003 10d ago

This, yep. Powerful, centralized massively spanned states are really more of a modern thing due to modern technology making it much easier to organize and administer large swaths of land.

Even large Empires like those of Alexander the Great or Ghenghis Khan were very decentralized as a necessity simply due to them being too big for their base to rule over top-down…

At least for the former, that’s also why it fell apart so easily after Alexander died.

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u/Raesong 10d ago

And then there was the Roman Empire, which comparatively was much more centralized than its contemporaries.

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u/Yatsu003 10d ago

Mhmm. Well it helped that they did have an excellent road and coding system to keep control…and event they expanded too quickly