Yes! This is a much-needed point to raise. As much as the Avatar universe "critiques," one of its biggest pitfalls is depicting anti-establishment movements or figures as antagonists alongside tyrannical rulers—often as misguided characters who'd resort to unreasonable violence. https://twitter.com/Pinoy_Air_Nomad/status/1279657088130695169

While Jet and the Freedom Fighters led an anti-colonial resistance against the Fire Nation, The Last Airbender portrayed (some of) them as deceptive, manipulative characters who are willing to flood an entire town. No revolutionary would resort to that kind of excessive violence.

The same line is echoed by The Legend of Korra in how it inevitably discredited the Equalists through Amon's mass deception and use of terrorist tactics, even though the movement itself has legitimate grievances against benders that find resonance among non-Equalist nonbenders.

The Legend of Korra also portrayed Zaheer and the Red Lotus as terroristic anarchists who are willing to kill off the new Air Nation and the Avatar to achieve a stateless world, even though there are also legitimate grievances in their aversion to tyrants like the Earth Queen.

The Avatar universe's pitfall is wrongfully portraying revolts as fundamentally flawed, doomed to fail—even as early as Kyoshi aiding the Earth King in squashing a peasant uprising in Ba Sing Se through the Dai Li. Everything has to be the Avatar's work, not people's movements.

Of course, it comes with recognizing that the Avatar universe is still a product of a capitalist culture industry, which is why it also inevitably articulates (and inevitably reinforces) a liberal, personality-driven (and frankly, defeatist) kind of politics in its narrative.

Nonetheless, its portrayal of the effects of a draconian law is pretty spot on: Tarrlok used his crackdown on the Equalists to arrest innocent nonbenders and anyone who stood in his way to grab more political power. A real-life fascist president might be taking some hard notes.