Avatar: The Last Airbender

The creators intentionally left some aspects of bending a mystery to preserve the mysticism of it. They did not want it to be fully understood.

Katara was explicitly untrained but knew she was a waterbender. Which others have pointed out before.

Edited by Windona on Mar 7th 2024 at 8:36:09 AM

Also we know how Katara discovered she was a Waterbender - when she and Sokka were younger he would tease her, and when she got mad they noticed things like the water rippling and snow moving. So basically what happened in the first episode that let them find Aang.

So if bending is tied to emotion, and it's shown several times that it is, it's not hard to imagine how a kid with no training or prior knowledge (or at least those around them) can figure it.

Edited by LSBK on Mar 7th 2024 at 7:51:24 AM

According to a now defunct official website for the series, Katara found out she was a waterbender when she unintentionally cracked some ice in response to Sokka teasing her.

After that she tried to develop her waterbending further. But since she was the only waterbender in the Southern Tribe and thus had no one to train her, she didn't make much progress.

Edited by M84 on Mar 7th 2024 at 9:52:13 PM

This conversation honestly reminds me of, of all things, the twins from The Fortuneteller. One of them is an Earthbender and the other one isn't.

Then there's the Beifong family which has a mix of benders and non-benders. Among Suyin's kids, Bataar Jr. and Opal were born non-benders, though Opal later became an airbender through Harmonic Convergence.

And Commander Bumi wasn't a bender at all until the Harmonic Convergence, despite being the firstborn child of the Avatar, and with both of his younger siblings being benders to boot. If bending inheritance works like mutant genetics, then Bumi initially had about as much luck in the Superpower Lottery as Graydon Creed (a baseline human villain who is the son of Sabretooth and Mystique, both mutants; Mystique has also had other children who, unlike Graydon, were mutants, most notably Nightcrawler). Thank goodness Aang and Katara still loved him and raised him well, or else he might well have joined up with Amon to make the parallel to Graydon clearer.

Edited by TrashJack on Mar 7th 2024 at 11:15:15 AM

The Avatar Legends tabletop game (which is canon) also revealed that the Fire Nation Royal family weren't all benders. Sozin's own younger sister Zeisan was a non-bender.

Though Aang by all accounts still paid more attention to Tenzin than he did to Kya or Bumi. This led to the older siblings giving Tenzin a hard time growing up, leading to the siblings' relationship as adults being a tad strained. Kya and Bumi also don't think as highly of their late father as Tenzin did, seeing him as a flawed person rather than the Avatar.

Parents as People is the norm for these series (at least when it's not Abusive Parents like Ozai).

Edited by M84 on Mar 8th 2024 at 12:31:46 AM

Just found this nice chart of all the different subgroups of bending5, that we currently know of.

https://www.deviantart.com/dragonkid17/art/All-Bending-Styles-Avatar-1028734565

I feel like plant bending (ie the Foggy Swamp guys) should have been included.

Honestly, some of those feel like a stretch. How is "redirecting lightning" seperate from generating lightning?

Because they are seperate skills? Lighting generation is the ultimate form of traditional firebender.

Lightning redirection is a technique developed by iroh applying waterbending philosophy to firebending.

Noticably Zuko can redirect but not generate lightning. (At least in ATLA; did he ever learn post series when he'd found inner balance?)

Completely different martial philosophies. Generating lightning is the ultimate expression of firebending technique but offers no control over the bolt once fired. You point and shoot.

Redirecting lightning is a technique invented by Iroh applying the principles of waterbending to fire. It cannot produce lightning but instead allows the natural flow of the existing energy to move around and through the user while altering its course.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 8th 2024 at 11:29:46 AM

Still, redirecting lightning is a pretty specialized technique with a niche use. If it could be used in other ways, it would make more sense as a whole style.

Indeed. I always figured that Zuko didn't just teach Aang the technique because of it's obvious utility, but also because, as a Waterbender himself, he'd be able to immediately apply it easily.

When he was first teaching it to Aang, Katara herself recognized the similarity to water bending when Zuko explained it.

Temperature control isn't much of a special technique either, just a genral thing that Airbenders can do (And Firebenders!). Sandbending is also not really a special technique, just a form of earthbending practiced in deserts because that is the earth available to them.

Edited by lycropath on Mar 8th 2024 at 12:23:06 PM

I'm surprised it didn't mention Ice and Plant Bending with Water.

Is controlling ice or turning it to water and back again really a special technique? Most if not all of the waterbenders we see can do it and there's no indications that it's a special talent or that it's particularly difficult.

I don't think there's much to plant bending beyond controlling the water to manipulate the plants so it's not really its own sub bending (I would lump it with bloodbending because it involves manipulating the water of living things). I think it would make more sense for plants to be covered under a Plant/Wood element personally. Green Thumb abilities almost always have their own category after all + that will give more versatility.

Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 8th 2024 at 4:34:43 AM

Honestly I sometimes got the feeling that lightning redirection also like, increased the lightning's output somewhat. It's never said anywhere, but I figured passing through the Firebender's stomach or however Iroh put it gave it another charge.

I consider subsets of bending to be defined as bending stuff besides the actual element.

• Plant and blood bending involve moving stuff other than actual water (by using the water in them).

• Metal bending moves metal via earth impurities.

• Lightning bending generates lightning which is not fire.

Flight and Combustion bending are more like specialized techniques that require additional spiritual training. Flight needs a detached mindset, possibly akin to the Sky Bisons’. Combustion bending is psychic fire bending that requires learning how to manipulate chi too.

I guess flight could be considered a subset of air bending that works by thinking of yourself as air.

Edited by M84 on Mar 8th 2024 at 10:41:38 PM

The nature of bending the elements means that characters are largely limited by imagination and discipline. Aang's creation of the air scooter was original to him and what earned him the title of Master at such a young age. All of the bending forms are just specific ways to locate and manipulate the original element. Even Combustion Man's unique attacks highly resembled the raw energy other firebenders demonstrated with Sozin's Comet.

Lightningbending is the one alternate form that stretches those rules, if only because firebending itself is unique for conjuring their element instead of manipulating what is already present. Makes me think of how Iroh described firebending as draw from within and exhaled, if he described it as gathering energy from the air (ie ions) and channeling it through yourself to create fire the metaphysics might be slightly more consistent, as well as perfectly explain lightningbending as a more refined version of the same thing.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Mar 8th 2024 at 8:15:41 AM

A small note on spirit quelling; it's true that it's a waterbending technique — but it's also a very recent invention, created by a master Waterbender. If we ever get a sequel series to "Korra," it wouldn't surprise me to learn the other nations have developed their own forms of spirit quelling, or even learned how to do it without any bending at all.

A thought occurs about the new movie…

Awkwafina could be playing adult Toph. Do with this knowledge what you will.

Or it could be Kimiko Glenn. IDK.

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Apr 4th 2024 at 9:49:01 AM

Is this just a joke about Awkwafina being in everything? Or is there actual news she's attached?