Avatar: The Last Airbender/Headscratchers/Bending: Difference between revisions

* Why does waterbending have so many special subskills? Earth and Fire have Sandbending and Lightningbending respectively, Toph and Combustion Man are exceptions (which confuses me), also respectively, and Air doesn't seem to have one (also confusing), but water has healing, plantbending, AND bloodbending (or, if you lump the last two together,extracting moisture from something instead of swishing it around inside), also how does Katara pick all the moves up, they're all different martial art styles.

** Because water is life. Incidentally, Katara never learns plantbending and healing is an innate skill which doesn't require any fancy moves.

** The nature of subskills is really just a fan invention. In-universe, it's just a slightly different style coupled with the normal movements. Water happens to be in a lot of stuff, so there is a lot you can do with it.

** Toph isn't an "exception" like Combustion Man, she just uses a variant style (Toph is to Earthbending as Iroh is to Firebending). So earth is as broad as waterbending, between sandbending, metalbending and seismic sense.

** It may have a double meaning. It's to show her precise control over the element, but also the cold, calculating aspect of her personality shows through in her fire.

** It was stated in Avatar Extras during The Chase (I think it was that one) that Azula's fire is blue because she puts more heat into it - which is also why it turns orange when she is no longer fueling it and it is left to burn on its own.

** Probably either one or neither. Look at a Punnet Square. Red flower+ White Flower= 1 Pure red flower, 2 Red flowers with white genes, or 1 White flower. Just depends on which one is dominant. Also I know that it is a fuckton more complicated and probably dead wrong with human genetics, but it's a cartoon. This should suffice.

*** Bending is spiritual, not genetic. It would depend on the child's upbringing, personality and things like cultural indoctrination. You could have an orphaned Earth Kingdom baby raised in the Fire Nation and that child could be a Firebender. Come to think, that'd be a good fanfic premise: if that child were to find out their true parentage.

**** It's not based on the person's spiritualness, but the nation's, that determines the non-bender to bender ratio. This is why all Air Nomads are air benders.

**** You make an interesting point but evidence from the show says that only certain people can be certain benders If I'm remembering right.

**** The spiritual leaning appears to be mutually exclusive if you aren't the Avatar.

**** I think that it's partly nature and partly nurture. Someone who has two Earthbending parents is more likely to be an Earthbender, first because personality types (Which helps to determine bending, note that Toph is very strong-willed and stubborn, Aang is very light-hearted and playful) are partly genetic, and second because your environment and the people around you also greatly influence your personality. So, someone who would have had the potential to become a fiery, passionate Firebender who was raised in a very peaceful pacifistic home, more likely than not would have been a nonbender.

**** Actually I've thought about this. My theory is this.

#### Bending is based on spirituality not heredity. This explains why Katara can bend but her brother, father and mother cannot.

#### Personality shapes the bending as much as bending shapes the personality. A person starts off with a personality that matches their bending talent but it becomes more ingrained over time.

#### The reason that someone who is spiritual (like Ty Lee) couldn't bend is that it's a talent like anything else. Not everyone has it. Not everyone can create good art or play music even if they have a respect and enjoyment of it.

** According to the [http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Bending "official" Avatar Wiki], "bending abilities are not defined genetically, but are related to one's nationality. It is unknown how some people become benders while others do not. Even with identical twins, one can be born a bender while the other is not." Whether one parent's "nationality" relates to what nation he was born into, or to where he was when the offspring was conceived/born, isn't clear.

** Presumably what nation he was born into, since {{spoiler|Aang and Katara's son}} [[The Legend of Korra|is an Airbender.]]

*** Tenzin is the only one of Aang and Katara's children who is an airbender.

* Energy bending was a bit of an asspull...even for a show about spiritual magic. I could accept temporarily shutting down Ozai enough to end the war, but PERMANENTLY removing his bending? And of course it gets glossed over, as Katara should be just a liiiiittle uncomfortable he not only has this power but also used it, even if it was on a bad guy, judging by her reactions through the series to Ty Lee.

** If Aang could have Airbending kids with Katara, what's stopping those same airbenders from having airbending babies of their own?

*** See the genetics and Elements discussion above.

** Also, it has been already stated in ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'' that Aang and Katara have a son who is an airbending master, the same guy who teaches Korra airbending. And that came from an airbender father and a waterbender mother. I guess hope is not all lost for airbenders. But that means the next airbender Avatar would be a descendant of Aang.

*** Why? Just because Aang taught his kids does not mean he could not instruct anyone else. I suspect the crowd at the Northern Air Temple would develop a rival style by the time the Avatar Cycle rolls around to Airbending again.

**** They can't learn airbending because they're Earth Kingdom. Tenzin and his kids are the only airbenders in Korra's time. Bending tournaments use three elements.

** Taking from the above genetics/bending discussion, quite possibly a natural air-bender could be born to, say, Earth Kingdom parents, just because the Avatar cycle needed it. Although, the traditions of aribending would probably have been lost by then.

** It'll be one of Aang and Katara's airbending descendants. Question answered.

** Tenzin (Kataang's son) has 3 airbending children. There are also nonbenders called air acolytes dedicated to preserving Air Nomad culture. By the time another airbender is Avatar, the damage will be healed.

** I think that civilization has a major flaw in that they keep the males and females separate. This troper reads that as the Air Nomads were hetero nominative, and related to that, they considered carnal attachment as absolutely exclusive from spirituality. Therefore, all the benders weren't born in the Air Temples (because enlightened people don't have sex) but born elsewhere, and sent away to the air temples to live and train if they showed airbending potential.

*** No, the Nomads were all airbenders. So although they kept separate temples for men and women and raised their children communally, they did have sex to produce the next generation and all their children showed airbending potential.

** I don't see a problem with it. Bending is using the force of nature as a weapon, so it's likely that you'd have to be a part of nature to bend. The Fire Nation relies too much on technology. They're the only nation with metal ships. All other vehicles in all other nations are made of wood, stone, and/or cloth (Earth Kingdom tanks didn't debut until Season 3). The entire Northern Water Tribe was basically carved out of an iceberg. The Air Nomads focused on living in harmony with nature. And the Earth Kingdom is too stubborn and proud to rely on technology; They're at home in the earth. As for the last sentence up there... what do you expect? There were, like 15 minutes of Air Nomad culture shown, seeing as they were all wiped out before the start of the show, and their only representative is Aang.

** How does the Air Nomads having flaws equal a reason for the genocide taking place? I'm pretty sure Sozin didn't totally annihilate the Air Nomads simply because he though they were flawed.

*** Confirmed by [[Word of God|Avatar Extras]].

*** This explanation makes the most sense, given the fact that the "lavabender" would probably have to use ''waterbending'' moves to control the substance. And I guess airbending would come in handy to control the smoke and toxic gases. (Hm, seems like Roku was really unlucky...)

**** Water is known for its mutability. Earth is not. It's not entirely unreasonable that a waterbender would be able to adapt to and even cause changes in state, whereas an earthbender would find himself unable to use something that lacks most of the qualities for which his element is known.

** Given that both Katara and Toph can bend the slurry of rock and water during the attack on the giant drill thing at Bah Sing Se, I'd guess that both firebenders and earthbenders would be able to bend lava.

 

* So this one always bugged me, but... Earthbenders have been getting trapped in metal cages for at least the past 100 years. Furthermore, they've more than likely been trying to figure out Metalbending since the invention of metallurgy itself. So why, then, is a twelve year old girl who's been working on the problem for a few hours, tops, able to figure it out to the point of ripping a half-inch sheet of metal in two, and then kicking another one literally across a hallway, and then mastered in only slightly more than three months to the point of crafting and perfectly controlling metallic armor pulled from the floor and ceiling of a blimp.

*** None of them were THE GREATEST EARTHBENDER IN THE WORLD!

*** Confirmed in {{spoiler|"The Aftermath" in The Legend of Korra.}}

** Toph's style is also different from traditional earthbending. Hers is based on the Mantis Style. Presumably she learned this from the badger moles, which puts her closer to the pure art of earth bending in the same way that Zuko's lessons with the dragons taught him true firebending.

*** Body heat comes from oxidative metabolism in cells, which is fire, burning food. Firebenders ''do'' have to have a source of their element nearby in order to bend. They're just lucky in that the source is found inside their own living bodies. ("Fire is life.")

** It's also been shown that firebenders are able to manipulate heat. Maybe firebending is just projecting heat outwards in the form of flames? In that case, firebenders would only need heat(which would mean they are powerless at 0 degrees Kelvin. Just like anything else anyway). And as said in the link, even the body itself is a source of heat. On the other hand, lightning is made of plasma, so maybe it's a combination of binding heat and plasma?

 

** See above speculation about bending being partially genetic, partially spiritual. And it's not like there's too much communication between the nations anyway. And the method of choosing the Avatar is actually based on a real-life ritual, I believe the one to choose the next Dalai Lama. Children are brought into a room full of toys and are told to choose from them. The next Dalai Lama is the child who picks the same set of toys the Dalai Lama chooses in every life.

** Additionally, it's not just a social convention, it's most likely a literal impossibility. After all, reason does hold that people would have attempted it in the past. This troper always theorized that rapid evolution manifested in genes favoring bending specialization which conveniently matched the nationality of the user.

*** The above answer makes no sense. Changing the state of water, by definition, means changing the amount of energy present, which would result in a change in temperature or pressure. [[wikipedia:Properties of water|Wikipedia]] has a more detailed explanation, but the bottom line is that the statement "The water is being frozen around them without actually reducing the temperature of it in the conventional sense" violates the definition of phase changes. Also, adding energy to ice makes it turn to water, then gas (the above post implies the opposite).

**** I meant to say "taking" energy, just forgot to fix it. Bear in mind that they're already violating several laws of physics. Let me put it this way. It is possible for water to exist in a gaseous state without being heated to boiling. Clouds, for example, though that's a whole mess of factors. Benders can cheat the energy requirements. What they're doing is controlling the molecular bonds of the water. Ergo, water becomes gas because they break the bonds, and that energy is applied to the bonds only. Conversely, they're forming molecular bonds to create ice, and the person would no more freeze to death than you would for stacking ice on your chest. Granted, they would get cold rather quickly with that much ice around, but that's beside the point. The energy being either applied or removed from the system is not being applied to the person, only the water, and at such a rapid pace that there is no time for the water to leech energy through contact before it's already changed state. It's been a while since I've gone through the whole series, but hypothermia takes a bit to set in. So does suffocation for that matter. I don't think they've ever been trapped for such extensive periods that they'd be irreparably harmed for the effort.

** Remember ''Imprisoned''? Haru and Tyro were able to take several chunks of coal and make them into one solid boulder. Likewise, and Earthbender is able to turn a boulder into dust. A similar principle is used here.

*** Probably for a very good reason. This is a ''Kids'' show, so slow painful death by scalding water is out.

** It's Wuxia. People are [[Made of Iron]] in these settings.

 

* Why, when Toph and Katara are trapped in the wooden cell, does she use her sweat to escape when a more plausible source of water is urine, which they both would likely have in much greater quantity than sweat. I know it's a kids cartoon, but it just bugs me they didn't pop a squat instead of running in place.

** They were only in the cage for a few minutes and they were already sweating from the heat, so clearly they just never got desperate enough to think of urine. Really, this complaint is far more appropriate when applied to ''Hama's'' backstory. You'd think she and her fellow imprisoned waterbenders would have tried bending urine long before she discovered bloodbending. How on Earth could fire nation prison guards reliably prevent their charges from soiling themselves and attacking them with the waste? For that matter, what prevents them from bending the water they're given to drink? Yes I know, the guards bound the prisoners' limbs before giving them water, but we've seen Katara bend water right of Aang's lungs so bending it out of their own stomachs should be doable, and they could always just force themselves to vomit if they had to. Guarding waterbender prisoners has got to be the '''worst job ever'''.

*** Well it's up there, but being Azula's keeper would be no picnic either. (Ni-i-i-ce crazy lady. I'm just here with your breakfast--Ow!!)

*** The guards probably only gave the prisoners the bare minimum amount of water needed to survive so they couldn't spare any of it to attack without dying of dehydration, and as a result they didn't have enough energy to fight effectively with their urine, or enough urine to do more than annoy the guards even if they did. I'd imagine at least a few of them tried it anyway, but their weak attempts were easily defeated and the punishment they received was enough to discourage the rest. Not to mention, living in a state of near-dehydration for years would be torturous and incredibly demoralizing.

* Also, why did Toph not simply try to bend the earth under the building? She knows it's there, and earlier episodes have established she can still bend earth when standing on wood.

* If Earthbenders can bend coal, can they bend petroleum? What about wood, which is what coal was? At which stage from wood to coal does the substance become bendable? For example, is peat bendable? What about other predominantly carbon-based substances? Can an earth bender bend dry ice? CO₂? Furthermore, if sand is bendable, can glass be bended? What about calcium. Can an earthbender bend bones like he bends calcite and limestone?

** Good question. Earth bending is usually explained as the ability to control minerals to justify people bending stuff like gemstones and materials with mineral impurities like metal, but coal isn't a mineral and earthbenders can manipulate it anyway, so who freakin' knows? Whatever logic lets them bend coal should let them control all those other things too. Glass isn't a mineral anymore so I'd say no to that one, and bonebending would seem to work by the same principle as waterbending healing does (manipulating the element present within the human body to repair it), so I'd imagine that's a standard technique employed by earth nation doctors and combat medics for treating broken bones.

 

* Why would the fire nation assume that by restraining Bumi he can't bend? ''ALL THREE OTHER TYPES OF BENDERS'' can bend with their faces or by breathing<ref>Katara melts water by exhaling, Iroh breathes fire and heat, Aang airbends by sneezing</ref>, why assume earthbenders would be the only exception?

***** The water is merely a catalyst in some spiritual process.

****** That would mean that waterbending can, besides water, manipulate some kind of spiritual "healing force", which would be odd considering the other three forms of bending can manipulate only one element.

* The thing about people getting hit by bending attacks. Why aren't victims of firebending attacks completely [[Man On Fire|immolated]]? And why don't victims of water bending attacks at least get water up their nose, but more realistically, sending huge waves of water at somebody could ''drown'' them on dry land. As for Earth bending, I wonder why there aren't more victims of internal bleeding or smashed organs and limbs, as Jet masterfully demonstrated once. Airbending is pretty aboveboard, but it also gives me an idea: In theory, could an airbender generate a vacuum? If so, then it would be simple to shape one around a firebender's head in order to incapacitate them, as firebending is powered by the bender's breath.

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