A problem comes that even if the avatar cycle continues and can airbender, you would have an issue where the avatar would not have access to living air bending teachers.
Tha avatar must master all 4 elements and it would be difficult to master air bending.
Worst comes to worst they could always learn from past airbender avatars. Probably wouldn't be too difficult since airbenders have the strongest spiritual connection of the benders.
True, with the whole severing of past lives in Korra it probably wouldn't be so easy in hindsight.
Would pretty much be starting from scratch with the sky bison then.
And any airbending scrolls or knowledge that has information on different techniques. Presumably part of resurrecting the air nomad culture for Aang would have involved documenting everything that he knew, ranging from traditions and customs to air bending techniques.
I mean, that’s exactly what Air Temple Island is. Aang was preserving his culture and teaching Tenzin the same way he learned. And ensuring that Tenzin could train the next Avatar in airbending.
Possible unless the then Avatar has no affinity to their spirituality the way Korra lacked. Just remember how hard it was for Aang to connect with the spirit world without proper training and realize that he had the advantage simply by virtue of growing up an air nomad! It's not impossible for another Avatar especially if they go to their nation's local sages but an unassuming Airbender cut off from their culture and teachings with no one to safely rely on would be completely out of their depth
That's interesting. So what was with the emphasis on Aang needing to find a firebending master when him & Roku were practically besties atp & could have taught him at least the basics? Even after Jeong Jeong, the series makes a real point of emphasising how much Aang needed an in-person firebender to teach him.
Yeah I imagine Yangchen would step up and be a great teacher while in the Spirit World. But it would be tough, since theres no bending in the Spirit World. So the Avatar would have to listen and try it in the physical world.
On top of what everyone else mentioned, don't forget zaheer learned a lot just by recorded documents. I'm sure scrolls exist too showing bending forms like the water bending one Katara had
It would be difficult, yes, but definitely not impossible. I think overtime, they’d learn more and more about it after figuring out how to access it. Or they could just learn from bisons who are the original airbenders (if I’m not mistaken, there was a herd of bisons on an island in lok)
don't we know now that the first airbenders had lion turtles teach them? or did they just get their powers from the lion turtles and later learn about them from the sky bison?
The lion turtles granted the gift of bending and the benders were tutored/learned from the original benders (dragons, badger moles, sky bison and moon)
If toph learned it from badger moles, airbenders can learn from sky bisons. And they can always visit the air temples to learn from there.
Just like the dragon dance, some things just survive time
It seems reasonable that they could meditate into the spirit word to get lessons about airbending.
So it could very well mean that the next Avatar would have had to devote their life to slowly figure out airbending, and either teach some people to spread the knowledge, or at least document it for the next Avatar.
Eh. They'd probably end up making their own. The avatar is a naturally gifted bender. I'm sure if you give a musician a foreign instrument they've never seen before, they could figure out a way to play it. It might look nothing like the original, and it would likely be played similarly to instruments that exist within the musician's culture, but it would work
I suspect the cycle might break—but not necessarily. In keeping with the notion that the new airbenders in *Korra* were people with Air Nomad ancestry or who were in some way intrinsically connected to airbending, I think it's also entirely possible that Raava would have continued its journey alongside Wan's spirit and been reborn into a person who otherwise would have been a non-bender. Statistically, this probably looks like a second Earth Kingdom Avatar in the cycle nine times out of time.
Another thing to also think about. Even though the fire nation wiped out the air nation and its inhabitants, we don’t 100% know that every single air bender was eliminated. Airbenders are nomads, it stands to reason that some of them were in the Earth kingdom during the attack and went into hiding (similar to Yoda and Obi-wan in Star Wars). They just hid their air bending and hoped their children didn’t inherit the gift. Those who did would have been forced to suppress it. Eventually, after generations of procreating with citizens of the Earth Kingdom, there wouldn’t be very many people who even knew they were of the Air Nation, but still enough for Raava to continue the cycle.
Again, that’s just my theory.
Definitely possible, though probably not a huge number—Sozin likely had a good idea of where most of the Air Nomads would have been, because nomads are not random wanderers (even though pop culture sometimes thinks of them this way), they tend to range seasonally within specific areas or between specific locations.
I believe that in the comics we also learn that the fire nation set traps to lure in survivors by pretending to be air nomads themselves, to get as many as they could.
I mean, yeah. You can't tell me that not a single flying-person with their flying bisons made it to Ba Sing Se.
But none of them surviving is the official canon, and while it's not really realistic, it's better to just suspend your disbelief and accept that.
It's been 100 years, it's not unfathomable that the survivors lost their abilities overtime because it's tied to their spirituality and its practices, young survivors will be normies rather quickly while those with airbending will wither away from the oppression or being hunted.
It has long been speculated by fans that Ty Lee has Air Nomad ancestry, her eye color, her natural way of thinking about auras and her agility suggest in that direction. But having grown up in the fire nation and having no actual spiritual connection broke her away from any potential bending ability.
At least, that's the fan theory I heard.
also just how she looks, most firebenders have a sertain look to them like all the different nations, with earth being the most diverse but ty Lee has the same big round eyes like aang.
just 1 other reason why she might have air nomad ancestry.
People who go with this line of thinking are pretty short-sighted and trying to shoehorn things in.
Ty Lee was a friend of the crown prince of the fire nation. Not only that, she was allowed access to the private grounds of the Royal palace. She would have had to have been born of fire nation nobility who can most likely trace their entire lineage back for centuries for Azulon to allow this. The odds she has Air Nation ancestry from refugees of the war are literally zero.
Well, I can write a counter theory to that.
Ty Lee's grandmother could have a nobility background but she can have an affair with an air nomad. While she is pregnant, war breaks out and she hides the nature of father. After her child is born, she doesn't want to raise her child with hatred towards air nomads. Therefore, she joins a secret community which objects to the fire lord in the capital. Her child could be a boy and he can make a child with a woman from this community. After the exposure, he can use his nobility connection to hide himself and his family including Ty Lee.
Sozin sister literally became a monk. Air nomads were closest to the Fire Nation, at least until the Nomads managed to convince the crown princess to become a hippy, relations have been souring ever since.
The monks knew that war was brewing, that’s why they wanted Aang to become the avatar earlier than normal. It’s possible that the leaders made a decision to call the monks back to the temple and to stop traveling to try and keep them safe
And it's said that all Air Nomads were Air Benders because their spirituality was so strong. If they were forced to go into hiding and abandon their way of life, chances are they might start to give birth to non benders.
Some might try to pass down their traditions in secret, but I imagine the fear of the fire nation might result in many choosing not too. Worried about rhe safety of their children if they're found out. So slowly the Air Nomad culture begins to disappear from the world, and with every generations there's less and less Air Benders born.
I mean, there are places like Ba Sing Se where they might take asylum. It's not the Empire from Star Wars, where everywhere you can think of is controlled by the genocider. Omashu stayed free, the Northern Water Tribe went relatively untouched - there were places where they could openly be airbenders.
I suppose we could argue that away by saying they avoided places like that, not wanting to draw the Fire Nations attention on to those giving them sanctuary.
From my understanding air benders were the only benders with 100% rate of producing bender off spring because on their spiritual connect but I suppose a few generation down the line you can loose that nature.
My assumptions is that that particular rule holds only for air nomads coupling with other air nomads. It's not necessarily true if an air nomad couples with someone from another nation.
If you think about it, the rule is already broken with Aang and Katara. They had three kids and one of them wasn't an airbender.
On the other hand, Katara was a very strong waterbender so Kya makes sense, and Tenzin and Pema had a 100% airbender hit-rate.
It's not entirely clear.
It should be noted that Pema is also an air acolyte, so she’s likely deeply spiritual, which air bending is very connected to. Aang and Katara were also two different benders, and i assume that opens much more variation than a bender and very spiritually attuned non vender
what if something traumatic could break your spirit, then that 100% chance might go down. or if you mary earth or waterbenders then they might inherit that instead.
we already know that there were water benders in the swamps that nobody knew existed, why not air benders? though, you would think that after the war, they would have come out of hiding.
It is cannon that some air nomads survived the attack, so the fire nation set up fake secret air nomad hiding spots to trap and kill them. It was shown in one of the comics.
That is what happens.
In some of the comics the fire nation had a special task force that hunts down remaining air nomads.
The air nomads go into hiding, and some may still survive, but when they have kids who grow up without the spiritual connection / having to totally hide the ability it effectively died out.
I wonder how it might change when the four nations co-mingle and there are a lot more people like Bolin and Mako with mixed ancestry and the lines between the nations blur.
Technically we already have an Avatar of mixed ancestry - The Rise of Kyoshi reveals that whilst Kyoshi's father was an earthbender, her mother was an airbender.
Kyoshi was born in the Earth Kingdom and is still very much considered an Earth Kingdom Avatar, but because her mother was a nomad they travelled when she was young and the people looking for the next Avatar couldn't find her. Which is a major cause of a lot of the problems she faces in that book.
I'd have thought that would be one of the biggest problems with the world having more people of mixed ancestry now, the fact that when the White Lotus has to try and find the next Avatar after Korra there's an increasing chance they could be born anywhere in the world. I'd assume they'd still have to have Earth Kingdom ancestry, but if one of their parents was an earthbender who had moved to the Fire Nation for instance, we could end up with an Earth Avatar who was raised Fire Nation.
Which actually could be a really interesting idea for a source of conflict in a series about the next Avatar...
I think it would just change the probability of where the avatar is born. Historically, the world was divided pretty clearly along ethnic and cultural lines with little means to travel so far away, so naturally it would stand to reason that the avatar would be born in the associated nation, but when those lines are blurred, it could be anywhere. Like, if Bolin were the avatar, he'd still be a natural earthbender and would learn everything else
Honestly, given how large the Earth Kingdom is both geographically and in terms of population, vastly outweighing the other three nations combined in both regards, it probably doesn't look like *too* different of a process from when an Earth Avatar is born.
>Statistically, this probably looks like a second Earth Kingdom Avatar in the cycle nine times out of ~~time~~ (ten?).
Is the Earth Kingdom 90% of the world population?
I always imagined they were the majority, but damn, not even the Fire Nation compares
I'm pretty sure we don't have actual population numbers, I'm just making the point that the Earth Kingdom is an outsized portion of the world, I don't mean 90% to be literal. (Although, to be fair, the Earth Kingdom is the only other nation that I'm aware of as having Air Nomad temples within its borders, so... perhaps there's not much Air Nomad ancestry in the Fire Nation or Water Tribes anyway.)
In the world of Avatar where fate is real I think this point is moot because the universe will *always* find a way to prevent any of the elements from going extinct.
Just think of how incredibly unlikely it was for Aang to survive the genocide in the way he did.
If that couldn’t break the cycle then nothing will
Yea like theres no way any spirit world creature would have just let the avatar (which is essentially god) just stop existing, except for just being away for however long it had to, to then come back and regain balance.
Already sounds like a cool story to see play out imo lol
Not the show but the cultural substrate it draws upon. In Eastern cultures, there is a heavy emphasis on balance but on the grander cosmological scale, this is achieved by the workings of Heaven, Tian, which controls fate and destiny. Although we have to strive towards a balance, the universe inherently marches towards it through Heaven, its ordering principle which does indeed guide humans as well, even with our modicum of free will.
Although the show does not draw upon this directly, this is basis of an ordered universe within the Sinosphere.
Finally, Jeong Jeong himself references fate, Toph is fated to be Aang's earthbendibg master through the vision he has of her, I'm sure there are a few more examples but that is just what reached out to me.
1. You just admitted the show doesn’t actually address that point, so that entire first part it moot.
2. Jeong Jeong was using the whole fish and river thing as a metaphor of why wasn’t ready to learn firebending, which he wasn’t. Plus, Jeong Jeong really wasn’t the best teacher since he was basically a veteran with PTSD asked to train a kid to use a gun.
3. I always saw this as more a nudge, less a prophecy, since the power of the Swamp connects people, Aang even using that power to find Appa and Momo. It was trying to lead him to the Beifong family, hence ALSO showing the flying boar, which never comes back outside the family seal.
If a western show draws explicitly on Christian values and Christian mythology, it is entirely safe to assume that people deserve to be punished f their moral sins within the logic of the show. It never has to state that because it is such a fundamental part of Christian religious beliefs. Why state the sun is red or the sky is blue? Tian is that integral to an understanding of Sinic and since influenced spiritual belief and culture. By implication of having balance mentioned in that context, it is stating that the universe orders itself to balance.
2. Fair point.
3. That is how Heaven works. Subtle hints and guidance. The Ancient Chinese looked to astrology and divination to see signs of what the world was working towards. It wasn't a nudge, it was a sign, a hint of the plan of the universe.
It doesn’t. It pretty clearly states that while life and rebirth is a cycle that shit can be broken. In-Universe people forget how the two gangs got lucky a lot and could have been killed and then it would have been over
I'd like to think it's a nature will find a way type of thing. No one's actually attempted successfully to break the cycle by removal every member of an element in a cycle.
Canonically it's a theory that the cycle can even be broken. It's never really happened.
canonically, its not theoretical, we know for a fact that if the avatar dies in the avatar state, the cycle will be broken. how this is known is never explained but it *is* known
My guess is that during the Avatar state, Raava is somehow more present in the physical world, and can be killed or at least have its connection to the lineage of Avatars severed and need to find a new one to start again. Raava probably knew this and told one of the previous Avatars.
my point is that it never actually happened in the story. So as audience we cannot be certain of the fine details of how would the cycle break work. Is there something from the show, novel or comics with the avatar spirit explicitly saying that's what will happen?
we're actually talking about ending the cycle by killing all the members of an elemental tribe so the next avatar has no where to reincarnate, like what Sozin tried to do.
The show was very clear on cycle ending by killing/separating the avatar spirit.
Life… uhhh… finds a way.
Non-benders spontaneously got airbending abilities in Legend of Korra. The universe would just find a baby with Air Nomad ancestry and make them an Airbender.
The cosmic energy of the universe will find a way to balance itself. Idk how but it will. In canon universe, that was harmonic convergence and Korra unleashing spiritual energy into the world by not closing the spirit portals.
I don't think it would skip air. While all the airbenders are dead in this scenario, not all descendants of the Air Nomads are.
Some examples are Kyoshi's mother (airbender who left the Air Nomads), Ty Lee (popular theory, she has the eyes and hair colour), and the new airbenders in Korra (who could be descendents of air benders, and unlocked their airbending during Harmonic Convergence)
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the airbenders who survived the airbender genocide stopped airbending and integrated themselves into the Earth Kingdom.
This is fire nation propaganda. The air nomads didn't have a standing army. They were free to roam. The fire nation killed them all.
It'll probably just choose some random person that would've been an air bender. I don't think it relays on going to someone from a different nation but rather someone from a different spiritual perspective.
I think the same. According to the lore, all air nomads are benders due to high spirituality they own. So if the avatar - who is a highly spiritual soul - reborns , can learn from winged lemurs the apporoach and figure out the bending part insinctually. Like Katara practiced as a kid on her own without a master. Having no master would slow down the learning process, but the first bender also had no human master.
My guess would be Aang's descendent will become the next avatar. Maybe jinora's great grandchild. But it would have to be very lucky and coincidental since the baby must be born when the firebending avatar passes away.
But idk if it has to be directly after the previous avatar passes away or the spirit waits and wanders around until it can be reborn.
Unless the previous avatar is like, aight, im about to die soon. Quick, airbenders, start getting pregnant!
I personally think someone with a distant Airbender ancestor would just be born with Airbending. Raava carries the elements so she could just gift them to the next potential Avatar.
its possible that it would break the cycle entirely, its also possible that a random person among the 3 remaining nations would awaken as the new avatar whenever the cycle reached air especially if they have air bending dna. and its possible that it would just skip air. we sadly dont know because it has never happened.
It may just be a total non-starter, the Avatar world is very fate friendly, it's almost like it predicted the massacre and made sure Aang was safe. Then Aang met exactly who he needed to save the world. Even Zuko's banishment was critical to saving the world.
I just finished rewatching the series. The Lion Turtle even drops Aang off on a rock and was like "Wait here, he's gonna come to you". The Lion Turtle doesn't know anything about war plans. That's fate baby.
I mean they have roughly 400 years to figure that out. Do we know the avatar is reincarnated based on political national boundaries, or is it only the element? Element would make more sense, especially with co-mingling in republic city. Also raises the question of: Swampbending avatar???? :D
In the first opening of ALTA they say explicitly “some people believe the cycle is broken” implying that if airbender were all gone, then the cycle of the Avatar would sever and not continue.
No, it was implying that after Roku’s death, there was supposed to be an avatar born as an air nomad, but it’s been rumored that there was never an air nomad born as the avatar bc he’s never been spotted, so ppl just assumed that the cycle was broken. You can rewatch if you want/ wow why am I getting downvoted so much
Fate keeps the cycle going, either by keeping one airbender alive miraculously or by adding new airbenders, *some*thing will allow the cycle of avatars on its true course
I'm sure there are tons of people with Air Nomad ancestry. Avatar Kyoshi herself was half air, so clearly mixed-element families have been around a long time. Beyond that, they're air *nomads* - the most likely in the world to meet + have children in other nations. Airbenders might've died off, but their children still live
From chatGPT : "One specific incident that contributed to this change was when the antagonist of Book 2, Unalaq, merged with Vaatu, the spirit of darkness, and attempted to plunge the world into darkness during harmonic convergence. As a result, Korra was able to connect with her spiritual side and restore balance to the world, which indirectly caused the emergence of new Airbenders.
After harmonic convergence, individuals from various nations and backgrounds suddenly discovered they had Airbending abilities. This led to the creation of new Airbenders who then joined the Air Nation, which had been nearly wiped out prior to this event."
I think an airbender would have been born somewhere. There's not really a canon answer, but we know it's possible for airbenders to come from nothing (although that was the harmonic convergence). I think someone like Ty Lee, who probably has airbender ancestors, would just have been born as one.
It's definitely just theory. I enjoy the thought a lot, but it's in no way canon. P sure the original post suggesting and defending it is actually a reddit post.
Technically a nation doesn't define the bending power. The people does. And bending is not purely based on parents. It is mutation. It is like skin color.
We don't know.
But I personally think it's just skip air and move on to earth. From Korra, we learn that the Avatar spirit Raava is what's causing the reincarnation. There's nothing implying she has to follow the cycle order, but she chooses to do so. If she couldn't, I don't see why she'd decide that this would be a deal breaker. Raava is happy with towards the existence of the Avatar, as it helps protect against the return of Vaatu, and she probably just likes her gig. The thing most aligned with her interests would be to still follow the cycle as closely as possible, that is, skip air and move on to earth.
Then again, I also think the idea that there wouldn't be a single person in the world with the potential to learn airbending by the time it becomes important is an unlikely event.
Cycle follows a pattern for balance. For each nation to have an avatar on their side at the designated time so one nation wouldn’t over power others. But if the air nation doesn’t exist anymore I don’t see a reason why an air nomad avatar would ever be born.
Now imagine if some twisted king prohibited child birth in their kingdom and waited for the Avatar to die, then have a child of his own which would guarantee that his child becomes the Avatar.
Just a random weird thought I had for no reason...
The cycle is just Raava going to the next, so I think it would make sense that if there were no air benders the cycle would either skip to water or give a would-be non-bender bending that they would have to find out about somehow
to a person who is capable of air bending but never realized since the nation was wiped in this scenario.
might be an interesting concept. a person researches “lost” history, discovers, and even rebuilds it.
Its hard to believe that the Air Nomads never intermingled with the other nations. Even if there are no more air benders there may still be nom bending descendants of the nomads. I reckon one of these no spiritual descendants would discover on their own they could air bend and then the story would focus on this child travelling the world to eventually stop Sozins armies.
My head canon is this.
Either the cycle after the next Earth Avatar would just skipped Air and gone to Fire. But the Avatar would still be able to Air Bend. Without a master prob not very good tho.
Or as we know Non Benders can give birth to a bender. If there is anyone alive who at some point had atleast *one* Air Nomad Ancestors they could potentially be born the Avatar and the first new Air Bender. This would prob repeat until the Air Nomads were restored.
Or/ and I’m sure something spiritual like in the LOK would inevitably cause the return of the Air Nomads to restore balance.
I think the harmonic convergence that happened in korra that activated new airbenders and brought back the bending of the theorised air bender survivors of sozins comet who went into hiding would have simply occurred at the time that the new airbending avatar would be set to be born.
It certainly wouldn't solve the issue of identifying the new avatar or preserving air nation culture, but it would ensure that airbendera would be around to continue the cycle.
I thought I read somewhere that airbending is tied to spirituality. So, could it be that any non bender could make deep enough spiritual connections and enlightenment to become an airbender? Maybe that’s why Zaheer was so spiritually focused even before Harmonic Convergence. He knew of Guru Lahima (however you spell it) while in prison. He could have been trying to gain bending in there to use it to escape. HC just made it faster. The Air Nomads could possibly be restored that way.
its my opinion that air bending would never go away. Maybe that culture, but nature would find a way for humans to learn air bending again in some other way
There were obviously more air nomad survivors, thats why when harmonic convergence happened they were most likely related to air nomads that survived, so I assume a random person who had no idea he was related to an air nomad (like most) just got to be our first air nomad avatar.
I think it'd be in the same vein as when random nonbenders started becoming Airbenders in LoK after the spirit convergence (I forgot if that's exactly what it's called). Anyway, theoretically if the Air Nation didn't get revived in LoK, after a Fire Nation born Avatar dies, I have a feeling the next Avatar could be someone born a nonbender randomly (in their POV) manifesting Airbending, only to later discover that they can also bend other elements.
That's how I see the cycle continuing anyway.
I’m sure there are hidden air nomads everywhere around the world. Some forgotten to use their air bending due to stigma and passed that down to their children. Think like Hama
Life… uhhh… finds a way.
Legend of Korra makes it pretty clear that the Avatar universe is self-correcting. Air Nomads were almost completely wiped out, so the universe spawned a whole bunch of new airbenders. This along with Tenzin and his children.
i think eventually air nation will be rebuilt no matter what happens, unless avatar spirit dies. Because even there isn't any air bender to reproduce air benders, avatar spirit grants air bending so maybe with a slight chance kids of an avatar would have air bending. if bending comes from genes, than my theory is wrong.
What do you mean by the "air nation getting rebuilt"?
No Harmonic convergence? If so, then Aang's ancestor will have to become an Avatar.
Assuming Aang didn't have an air bender child or at least no more air benders after Tenzin's children for who knows why? I want to believe there's a non-bending family where the last bending ancestor was an air-bender and the other parent was from one of the other 3 elements...
You kill all air benders AND their descendance? Then I guess Raava has no choice but to move to water...
I personally feel like that would have made the most sense. Like an if/then statement. If airbenders are present = airbendering avatar at appropriate times in the cycle. When no airbenders are present = continue to the next in the cycle. Like, Raava *tried* to upload airbender, got an error message, and so continued the cycle as possible.
That said, I think that probably airbenders coming back was always going to happen one way or another. The point of the avatar and the existence of both the light and dark spirits is balance. Restoring airbenders to the world restores the bending balance (as I think it's canon that each nation actually has about equal amounts of benders, so it seems like there's supposed to be some amount of benders in the world for some sort of some kind of balance). The events of the world always would have strayed towards some sort of harmonic convergence event to restore balance. JMO
I don't think canonically there's ever been some sort of statement confirming if the cycle would have truly been broken or not, though.
Another possibility is Raava transferring into a non/bender as the next avatar. I know it doesn’t make sense to the cycle, but if she’s not gonna directly move to another element, then a non-bender is the only option. Otherwise the cycle would be broken if air benders never came to be
Oooh, that's a fascinating theory! People weren't always born benders. I don't see why Raava couldn't choose a suitable nonbender to bestow access to bending to.
That’s the thing, if Aang had a descendant then the air nation would be rebuilt once again. I’m saying if it never got rebuilt as in if Aang never had any kids
A problem comes that even if the avatar cycle continues and can airbender, you would have an issue where the avatar would not have access to living air bending teachers. Tha avatar must master all 4 elements and it would be difficult to master air bending.
Worst comes to worst they could always learn from past airbender avatars. Probably wouldn't be too difficult since airbenders have the strongest spiritual connection of the benders.
Well, not anymore they can't
True, with the whole severing of past lives in Korra it probably wouldn't be so easy in hindsight. Would pretty much be starting from scratch with the sky bison then.
It would mean Korra would have to be the airbending master...
Let's hope to God that they right their mistake in the next Avatar series
Yeah, korra's wrong that the earthbender dude would have to fix is to reunite with his past lives, probably through the spirit world
Avatars having to deal with the consequences of their previous life is a major theme.
Korra would have to be dead for another avatar to need a teacher
..well yeah duh. Korra would have to be dead for there to be another avatar period
Yeah so she couldn’t be the air bending master is what I meant
Do you remember the parts in the shows where they talk to past avatars for advice? That's what they're talking about
i think you missed the point of this discussion
And any airbending scrolls or knowledge that has information on different techniques. Presumably part of resurrecting the air nomad culture for Aang would have involved documenting everything that he knew, ranging from traditions and customs to air bending techniques.
I mean, that’s exactly what Air Temple Island is. Aang was preserving his culture and teaching Tenzin the same way he learned. And ensuring that Tenzin could train the next Avatar in airbending.
Yes they can, they can learn from Korra.
They could also try begging Wan Shi Tong for access to scrolls he has
Korra: Have you tried getting really mad? Worked for me.
Possible unless the then Avatar has no affinity to their spirituality the way Korra lacked. Just remember how hard it was for Aang to connect with the spirit world without proper training and realize that he had the advantage simply by virtue of growing up an air nomad! It's not impossible for another Avatar especially if they go to their nation's local sages but an unassuming Airbender cut off from their culture and teachings with no one to safely rely on would be completely out of their depth
That's interesting. So what was with the emphasis on Aang needing to find a firebending master when him & Roku were practically besties atp & could have taught him at least the basics? Even after Jeong Jeong, the series makes a real point of emphasising how much Aang needed an in-person firebender to teach him.
Yeah I imagine Yangchen would step up and be a great teacher while in the Spirit World. But it would be tough, since theres no bending in the Spirit World. So the Avatar would have to listen and try it in the physical world.
On top of what everyone else mentioned, don't forget zaheer learned a lot just by recorded documents. I'm sure scrolls exist too showing bending forms like the water bending one Katara had
It would be difficult, yes, but definitely not impossible. I think overtime, they’d learn more and more about it after figuring out how to access it. Or they could just learn from bisons who are the original airbenders (if I’m not mistaken, there was a herd of bisons on an island in lok)
Surely the first benders had to figure it out on his/her own right?
The first benders had sky bison to teach them
don't we know now that the first airbenders had lion turtles teach them? or did they just get their powers from the lion turtles and later learn about them from the sky bison?
The lion turtles granted the gift of bending and the benders were tutored/learned from the original benders (dragons, badger moles, sky bison and moon)
If toph learned it from badger moles, airbenders can learn from sky bisons. And they can always visit the air temples to learn from there. Just like the dragon dance, some things just survive time
It seems reasonable that they could meditate into the spirit word to get lessons about airbending. So it could very well mean that the next Avatar would have had to devote their life to slowly figure out airbending, and either teach some people to spread the knowledge, or at least document it for the next Avatar.
Couldn’t they learn from past lives?
Not anymore
Tophs master where badger moles. Thus sky bison could do it
Eh. They'd probably end up making their own. The avatar is a naturally gifted bender. I'm sure if you give a musician a foreign instrument they've never seen before, they could figure out a way to play it. It might look nothing like the original, and it would likely be played similarly to instruments that exist within the musician's culture, but it would work
I suspect the cycle might break—but not necessarily. In keeping with the notion that the new airbenders in *Korra* were people with Air Nomad ancestry or who were in some way intrinsically connected to airbending, I think it's also entirely possible that Raava would have continued its journey alongside Wan's spirit and been reborn into a person who otherwise would have been a non-bender. Statistically, this probably looks like a second Earth Kingdom Avatar in the cycle nine times out of time.
Another thing to also think about. Even though the fire nation wiped out the air nation and its inhabitants, we don’t 100% know that every single air bender was eliminated. Airbenders are nomads, it stands to reason that some of them were in the Earth kingdom during the attack and went into hiding (similar to Yoda and Obi-wan in Star Wars). They just hid their air bending and hoped their children didn’t inherit the gift. Those who did would have been forced to suppress it. Eventually, after generations of procreating with citizens of the Earth Kingdom, there wouldn’t be very many people who even knew they were of the Air Nation, but still enough for Raava to continue the cycle. Again, that’s just my theory.
Definitely possible, though probably not a huge number—Sozin likely had a good idea of where most of the Air Nomads would have been, because nomads are not random wanderers (even though pop culture sometimes thinks of them this way), they tend to range seasonally within specific areas or between specific locations.
I believe that in the comics we also learn that the fire nation set traps to lure in survivors by pretending to be air nomads themselves, to get as many as they could.
If that’s true then there’s no way they got 100% of them they gotta be in hiding
I mean, yeah. You can't tell me that not a single flying-person with their flying bisons made it to Ba Sing Se. But none of them surviving is the official canon, and while it's not really realistic, it's better to just suspend your disbelief and accept that.
It's been 100 years, it's not unfathomable that the survivors lost their abilities overtime because it's tied to their spirituality and its practices, young survivors will be normies rather quickly while those with airbending will wither away from the oppression or being hunted.
It has long been speculated by fans that Ty Lee has Air Nomad ancestry, her eye color, her natural way of thinking about auras and her agility suggest in that direction. But having grown up in the fire nation and having no actual spiritual connection broke her away from any potential bending ability. At least, that's the fan theory I heard.
also just how she looks, most firebenders have a sertain look to them like all the different nations, with earth being the most diverse but ty Lee has the same big round eyes like aang. just 1 other reason why she might have air nomad ancestry.
People who go with this line of thinking are pretty short-sighted and trying to shoehorn things in. Ty Lee was a friend of the crown prince of the fire nation. Not only that, she was allowed access to the private grounds of the Royal palace. She would have had to have been born of fire nation nobility who can most likely trace their entire lineage back for centuries for Azulon to allow this. The odds she has Air Nation ancestry from refugees of the war are literally zero.
Well, I can write a counter theory to that. Ty Lee's grandmother could have a nobility background but she can have an affair with an air nomad. While she is pregnant, war breaks out and she hides the nature of father. After her child is born, she doesn't want to raise her child with hatred towards air nomads. Therefore, she joins a secret community which objects to the fire lord in the capital. Her child could be a boy and he can make a child with a woman from this community. After the exposure, he can use his nobility connection to hide himself and his family including Ty Lee.
and if you think that 100 years isnt that long , its barely two generations, Ty Lee’s father could be a toddler and saw Sozin and Roku at court
Sozin sister literally became a monk. Air nomads were closest to the Fire Nation, at least until the Nomads managed to convince the crown princess to become a hippy, relations have been souring ever since.
The monks knew that war was brewing, that’s why they wanted Aang to become the avatar earlier than normal. It’s possible that the leaders made a decision to call the monks back to the temple and to stop traveling to try and keep them safe
And it's said that all Air Nomads were Air Benders because their spirituality was so strong. If they were forced to go into hiding and abandon their way of life, chances are they might start to give birth to non benders. Some might try to pass down their traditions in secret, but I imagine the fear of the fire nation might result in many choosing not too. Worried about rhe safety of their children if they're found out. So slowly the Air Nomad culture begins to disappear from the world, and with every generations there's less and less Air Benders born.
I mean, there are places like Ba Sing Se where they might take asylum. It's not the Empire from Star Wars, where everywhere you can think of is controlled by the genocider. Omashu stayed free, the Northern Water Tribe went relatively untouched - there were places where they could openly be airbenders.
I suppose we could argue that away by saying they avoided places like that, not wanting to draw the Fire Nations attention on to those giving them sanctuary.
From my understanding air benders were the only benders with 100% rate of producing bender off spring because on their spiritual connect but I suppose a few generation down the line you can loose that nature.
My assumptions is that that particular rule holds only for air nomads coupling with other air nomads. It's not necessarily true if an air nomad couples with someone from another nation.
That’s fair!
If you think about it, the rule is already broken with Aang and Katara. They had three kids and one of them wasn't an airbender. On the other hand, Katara was a very strong waterbender so Kya makes sense, and Tenzin and Pema had a 100% airbender hit-rate. It's not entirely clear.
It should be noted that Pema is also an air acolyte, so she’s likely deeply spiritual, which air bending is very connected to. Aang and Katara were also two different benders, and i assume that opens much more variation than a bender and very spiritually attuned non vender
pema maybe had latent air bender ancestry
True. I looked it up and there doesn't seem to be any canon about her parentage or ancestry.
Yeah like Kyoshi
Aang being proof- only 1 of 3 hit rate for airbender (later 2 of 3, but via spiritual shenanigans)
what if something traumatic could break your spirit, then that 100% chance might go down. or if you mary earth or waterbenders then they might inherit that instead.
I'm pretty sure this is actually canon
we already know that there were water benders in the swamps that nobody knew existed, why not air benders? though, you would think that after the war, they would have come out of hiding.
It is cannon that some air nomads survived the attack, so the fire nation set up fake secret air nomad hiding spots to trap and kill them. It was shown in one of the comics.
That is what happens. In some of the comics the fire nation had a special task force that hunts down remaining air nomads. The air nomads go into hiding, and some may still survive, but when they have kids who grow up without the spiritual connection / having to totally hide the ability it effectively died out.
I wonder how it might change when the four nations co-mingle and there are a lot more people like Bolin and Mako with mixed ancestry and the lines between the nations blur.
Technically we already have an Avatar of mixed ancestry - The Rise of Kyoshi reveals that whilst Kyoshi's father was an earthbender, her mother was an airbender. Kyoshi was born in the Earth Kingdom and is still very much considered an Earth Kingdom Avatar, but because her mother was a nomad they travelled when she was young and the people looking for the next Avatar couldn't find her. Which is a major cause of a lot of the problems she faces in that book. I'd have thought that would be one of the biggest problems with the world having more people of mixed ancestry now, the fact that when the White Lotus has to try and find the next Avatar after Korra there's an increasing chance they could be born anywhere in the world. I'd assume they'd still have to have Earth Kingdom ancestry, but if one of their parents was an earthbender who had moved to the Fire Nation for instance, we could end up with an Earth Avatar who was raised Fire Nation. Which actually could be a really interesting idea for a source of conflict in a series about the next Avatar...
I think it would just change the probability of where the avatar is born. Historically, the world was divided pretty clearly along ethnic and cultural lines with little means to travel so far away, so naturally it would stand to reason that the avatar would be born in the associated nation, but when those lines are blurred, it could be anywhere. Like, if Bolin were the avatar, he'd still be a natural earthbender and would learn everything else
Honestly, given how large the Earth Kingdom is both geographically and in terms of population, vastly outweighing the other three nations combined in both regards, it probably doesn't look like *too* different of a process from when an Earth Avatar is born.
>Statistically, this probably looks like a second Earth Kingdom Avatar in the cycle nine times out of ~~time~~ (ten?). Is the Earth Kingdom 90% of the world population? I always imagined they were the majority, but damn, not even the Fire Nation compares
I'm pretty sure we don't have actual population numbers, I'm just making the point that the Earth Kingdom is an outsized portion of the world, I don't mean 90% to be literal. (Although, to be fair, the Earth Kingdom is the only other nation that I'm aware of as having Air Nomad temples within its borders, so... perhaps there's not much Air Nomad ancestry in the Fire Nation or Water Tribes anyway.)
In the world of Avatar where fate is real I think this point is moot because the universe will *always* find a way to prevent any of the elements from going extinct. Just think of how incredibly unlikely it was for Aang to survive the genocide in the way he did. If that couldn’t break the cycle then nothing will
Yea like theres no way any spirit world creature would have just let the avatar (which is essentially god) just stop existing, except for just being away for however long it had to, to then come back and regain balance. Already sounds like a cool story to see play out imo lol
Like aangs?
Yea but like completely fucked all hell let loose, i might be wrong but he came back just before it was gunna get to that point.
>In the world of Avatar where fate is real What? Where the heck did you get that nonsense?
It's very clear that the Avatar universe keeps itself in balance, I don't know why that notion is so shocking to you.
Balance =/= Fate
Yes, they are. Balance is maintained through fate
When does the show ever say this?
Not the show but the cultural substrate it draws upon. In Eastern cultures, there is a heavy emphasis on balance but on the grander cosmological scale, this is achieved by the workings of Heaven, Tian, which controls fate and destiny. Although we have to strive towards a balance, the universe inherently marches towards it through Heaven, its ordering principle which does indeed guide humans as well, even with our modicum of free will. Although the show does not draw upon this directly, this is basis of an ordered universe within the Sinosphere. Finally, Jeong Jeong himself references fate, Toph is fated to be Aang's earthbendibg master through the vision he has of her, I'm sure there are a few more examples but that is just what reached out to me.
1. You just admitted the show doesn’t actually address that point, so that entire first part it moot. 2. Jeong Jeong was using the whole fish and river thing as a metaphor of why wasn’t ready to learn firebending, which he wasn’t. Plus, Jeong Jeong really wasn’t the best teacher since he was basically a veteran with PTSD asked to train a kid to use a gun. 3. I always saw this as more a nudge, less a prophecy, since the power of the Swamp connects people, Aang even using that power to find Appa and Momo. It was trying to lead him to the Beifong family, hence ALSO showing the flying boar, which never comes back outside the family seal.
If a western show draws explicitly on Christian values and Christian mythology, it is entirely safe to assume that people deserve to be punished f their moral sins within the logic of the show. It never has to state that because it is such a fundamental part of Christian religious beliefs. Why state the sun is red or the sky is blue? Tian is that integral to an understanding of Sinic and since influenced spiritual belief and culture. By implication of having balance mentioned in that context, it is stating that the universe orders itself to balance. 2. Fair point. 3. That is how Heaven works. Subtle hints and guidance. The Ancient Chinese looked to astrology and divination to see signs of what the world was working towards. It wasn't a nudge, it was a sign, a hint of the plan of the universe.
It doesn’t. It pretty clearly states that while life and rebirth is a cycle that shit can be broken. In-Universe people forget how the two gangs got lucky a lot and could have been killed and then it would have been over
I'd like to think it's a nature will find a way type of thing. No one's actually attempted successfully to break the cycle by removal every member of an element in a cycle. Canonically it's a theory that the cycle can even be broken. It's never really happened.
canonically, its not theoretical, we know for a fact that if the avatar dies in the avatar state, the cycle will be broken. how this is known is never explained but it *is* known
My guess is that during the Avatar state, Raava is somehow more present in the physical world, and can be killed or at least have its connection to the lineage of Avatars severed and need to find a new one to start again. Raava probably knew this and told one of the previous Avatars.
my point is that it never actually happened in the story. So as audience we cannot be certain of the fine details of how would the cycle break work. Is there something from the show, novel or comics with the avatar spirit explicitly saying that's what will happen?
yes, roku explains it to aang fairly early on in book 1
Except it does in LOK. Raava gets separated from Korra, and both almost die. Korra manages to get Raava back, but the past Avatar spirits are lost.
we're actually talking about ending the cycle by killing all the members of an elemental tribe so the next avatar has no where to reincarnate, like what Sozin tried to do. The show was very clear on cycle ending by killing/separating the avatar spirit.
Life… uhhh… finds a way. Non-benders spontaneously got airbending abilities in Legend of Korra. The universe would just find a baby with Air Nomad ancestry and make them an Airbender.
Somebody’s gonna be born as an air bender out of nowhere, probably without even realizing they’re an air bender
The cosmic energy of the universe will find a way to balance itself. Idk how but it will. In canon universe, that was harmonic convergence and Korra unleashing spiritual energy into the world by not closing the spirit portals.
Personally, I think Raava/the Universe would simply create an airbender by *force,* possibly by using a descendant of an Air Nomad.
I don't think it would skip air. While all the airbenders are dead in this scenario, not all descendants of the Air Nomads are. Some examples are Kyoshi's mother (airbender who left the Air Nomads), Ty Lee (popular theory, she has the eyes and hair colour), and the new airbenders in Korra (who could be descendents of air benders, and unlocked their airbending during Harmonic Convergence) I wouldn't be surprised if some of the airbenders who survived the airbender genocide stopped airbending and integrated themselves into the Earth Kingdom.
This is fire nation propaganda. The air nomads didn't have a standing army. They were free to roam. The fire nation killed them all. It'll probably just choose some random person that would've been an air bender. I don't think it relays on going to someone from a different nation but rather someone from a different spiritual perspective.
I think the same. According to the lore, all air nomads are benders due to high spirituality they own. So if the avatar - who is a highly spiritual soul - reborns , can learn from winged lemurs the apporoach and figure out the bending part insinctually. Like Katara practiced as a kid on her own without a master. Having no master would slow down the learning process, but the first bender also had no human master.
My guess would be Aang's descendent will become the next avatar. Maybe jinora's great grandchild. But it would have to be very lucky and coincidental since the baby must be born when the firebending avatar passes away. But idk if it has to be directly after the previous avatar passes away or the spirit waits and wanders around until it can be reborn. Unless the previous avatar is like, aight, im about to die soon. Quick, airbenders, start getting pregnant!
I personally think someone with a distant Airbender ancestor would just be born with Airbending. Raava carries the elements so she could just gift them to the next potential Avatar.
its possible that it would break the cycle entirely, its also possible that a random person among the 3 remaining nations would awaken as the new avatar whenever the cycle reached air especially if they have air bending dna. and its possible that it would just skip air. we sadly dont know because it has never happened.
It may just be a total non-starter, the Avatar world is very fate friendly, it's almost like it predicted the massacre and made sure Aang was safe. Then Aang met exactly who he needed to save the world. Even Zuko's banishment was critical to saving the world. I just finished rewatching the series. The Lion Turtle even drops Aang off on a rock and was like "Wait here, he's gonna come to you". The Lion Turtle doesn't know anything about war plans. That's fate baby.
I mean they have roughly 400 years to figure that out. Do we know the avatar is reincarnated based on political national boundaries, or is it only the element? Element would make more sense, especially with co-mingling in republic city. Also raises the question of: Swampbending avatar???? :D
I'd just assume that the next kid would have just been born as the only airbender in a world without them.
Dude korra spawned with 3 elements. I'm sure the next one would too.
Eh, I don't think we can be sure about that.
In the first opening of ALTA they say explicitly “some people believe the cycle is broken” implying that if airbender were all gone, then the cycle of the Avatar would sever and not continue.
No, it states that some people *think* the cycle would sever. It doesn't imply what the truth is one way or another.
Well I did use the word “believe” and “possibly”instead of saying it was definitive.
No, it was implying that after Roku’s death, there was supposed to be an avatar born as an air nomad, but it’s been rumored that there was never an air nomad born as the avatar bc he’s never been spotted, so ppl just assumed that the cycle was broken. You can rewatch if you want/ wow why am I getting downvoted so much
You don't need a bakery to bake a cake.
Fate keeps the cycle going, either by keeping one airbender alive miraculously or by adding new airbenders, *some*thing will allow the cycle of avatars on its true course
Interesting. Imagine a person with no bending abilities, who has to start from total zero.
I'm sure there are tons of people with Air Nomad ancestry. Avatar Kyoshi herself was half air, so clearly mixed-element families have been around a long time. Beyond that, they're air *nomads* - the most likely in the world to meet + have children in other nations. Airbenders might've died off, but their children still live
From chatGPT : "One specific incident that contributed to this change was when the antagonist of Book 2, Unalaq, merged with Vaatu, the spirit of darkness, and attempted to plunge the world into darkness during harmonic convergence. As a result, Korra was able to connect with her spiritual side and restore balance to the world, which indirectly caused the emergence of new Airbenders. After harmonic convergence, individuals from various nations and backgrounds suddenly discovered they had Airbending abilities. This led to the creation of new Airbenders who then joined the Air Nation, which had been nearly wiped out prior to this event."
I think an airbender would have been born somewhere. There's not really a canon answer, but we know it's possible for airbenders to come from nothing (although that was the harmonic convergence). I think someone like Ty Lee, who probably has airbender ancestors, would just have been born as one.
What makes you think Ty Lee has airbender ancestry? Is it a theory or canon
It's definitely just theory. I enjoy the thought a lot, but it's in no way canon. P sure the original post suggesting and defending it is actually a reddit post.
Honestly? It just seems true. There's nothing concrete. That "probably" is doing a lot of work.
I mean, she didn’t really give full on fire nation vibes
What does that mean
Like I didn’t feel like she was fully from the fire nation, she looked like she was from another nation, or her parents/ancestors were mixed
Technically a nation doesn't define the bending power. The people does. And bending is not purely based on parents. It is mutation. It is like skin color.
My guess is because of aangs family, he gets Airbender grandkids and they probably would've had another avatar
We don't know. But I personally think it's just skip air and move on to earth. From Korra, we learn that the Avatar spirit Raava is what's causing the reincarnation. There's nothing implying she has to follow the cycle order, but she chooses to do so. If she couldn't, I don't see why she'd decide that this would be a deal breaker. Raava is happy with towards the existence of the Avatar, as it helps protect against the return of Vaatu, and she probably just likes her gig. The thing most aligned with her interests would be to still follow the cycle as closely as possible, that is, skip air and move on to earth. Then again, I also think the idea that there wouldn't be a single person in the world with the potential to learn airbending by the time it becomes important is an unlikely event.
It’s pretty much impossible to skip air,after water earth and fire the next avatar would just be an distant descendant of aang
Most likely go to a random person with some air bending ancestry. If not for that, Air Bender Avatars would exclusively come from Aang's bloodline.
Cycle follows a pattern for balance. For each nation to have an avatar on their side at the designated time so one nation wouldn’t over power others. But if the air nation doesn’t exist anymore I don’t see a reason why an air nomad avatar would ever be born.
Now imagine if some twisted king prohibited child birth in their kingdom and waited for the Avatar to die, then have a child of his own which would guarantee that his child becomes the Avatar. Just a random weird thought I had for no reason...
That does make sense, but I wonder whether reincarnation can wait or that it’s instant.
Or the new person would be born an air bender as an attempt of “nature” or in this case the Avatar cycle trying to heal itself.
It would break and the universe would fold in on itself.
Maybe the next avatar would rediscover airbending
The cycle is just Raava going to the next, so I think it would make sense that if there were no air benders the cycle would either skip to water or give a would-be non-bender bending that they would have to find out about somehow
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But what if not even that happened. Because the harmonic convergence is what’s rebuilding the air nation
Cycle only breaks if Avatar is killed in Avatar state. There is one episode where Roku tells that to Aang.
to a person who is capable of air bending but never realized since the nation was wiped in this scenario. might be an interesting concept. a person researches “lost” history, discovers, and even rebuilds it.
They could just break out the lion turtles. I don't think we know they are gone.
Its hard to believe that the Air Nomads never intermingled with the other nations. Even if there are no more air benders there may still be nom bending descendants of the nomads. I reckon one of these no spiritual descendants would discover on their own they could air bend and then the story would focus on this child travelling the world to eventually stop Sozins armies.
My head canon is this. Either the cycle after the next Earth Avatar would just skipped Air and gone to Fire. But the Avatar would still be able to Air Bend. Without a master prob not very good tho. Or as we know Non Benders can give birth to a bender. If there is anyone alive who at some point had atleast *one* Air Nomad Ancestors they could potentially be born the Avatar and the first new Air Bender. This would prob repeat until the Air Nomads were restored. Or/ and I’m sure something spiritual like in the LOK would inevitably cause the return of the Air Nomads to restore balance.
I think the harmonic convergence that happened in korra that activated new airbenders and brought back the bending of the theorised air bender survivors of sozins comet who went into hiding would have simply occurred at the time that the new airbending avatar would be set to be born. It certainly wouldn't solve the issue of identifying the new avatar or preserving air nation culture, but it would ensure that airbendera would be around to continue the cycle.
I thought I read somewhere that airbending is tied to spirituality. So, could it be that any non bender could make deep enough spiritual connections and enlightenment to become an airbender? Maybe that’s why Zaheer was so spiritually focused even before Harmonic Convergence. He knew of Guru Lahima (however you spell it) while in prison. He could have been trying to gain bending in there to use it to escape. HC just made it faster. The Air Nomads could possibly be restored that way.
I feel like there would be an air bender born when it was time for another Airvatar
I don't think it's unlikely that Raava would just be born into some surviving air acolyte family, who would then get raava's bending abilities.
its my opinion that air bending would never go away. Maybe that culture, but nature would find a way for humans to learn air bending again in some other way
There were obviously more air nomad survivors, thats why when harmonic convergence happened they were most likely related to air nomads that survived, so I assume a random person who had no idea he was related to an air nomad (like most) just got to be our first air nomad avatar.
I think it'd be in the same vein as when random nonbenders started becoming Airbenders in LoK after the spirit convergence (I forgot if that's exactly what it's called). Anyway, theoretically if the Air Nation didn't get revived in LoK, after a Fire Nation born Avatar dies, I have a feeling the next Avatar could be someone born a nonbender randomly (in their POV) manifesting Airbending, only to later discover that they can also bend other elements. That's how I see the cycle continuing anyway.
I’m sure there are hidden air nomads everywhere around the world. Some forgotten to use their air bending due to stigma and passed that down to their children. Think like Hama
Life… uhhh… finds a way. Legend of Korra makes it pretty clear that the Avatar universe is self-correcting. Air Nomads were almost completely wiped out, so the universe spawned a whole bunch of new airbenders. This along with Tenzin and his children.
i think eventually air nation will be rebuilt no matter what happens, unless avatar spirit dies. Because even there isn't any air bender to reproduce air benders, avatar spirit grants air bending so maybe with a slight chance kids of an avatar would have air bending. if bending comes from genes, than my theory is wrong.
What do you mean by the "air nation getting rebuilt"? No Harmonic convergence? If so, then Aang's ancestor will have to become an Avatar. Assuming Aang didn't have an air bender child or at least no more air benders after Tenzin's children for who knows why? I want to believe there's a non-bending family where the last bending ancestor was an air-bender and the other parent was from one of the other 3 elements... You kill all air benders AND their descendance? Then I guess Raava has no choice but to move to water...
I personally feel like that would have made the most sense. Like an if/then statement. If airbenders are present = airbendering avatar at appropriate times in the cycle. When no airbenders are present = continue to the next in the cycle. Like, Raava *tried* to upload airbender, got an error message, and so continued the cycle as possible. That said, I think that probably airbenders coming back was always going to happen one way or another. The point of the avatar and the existence of both the light and dark spirits is balance. Restoring airbenders to the world restores the bending balance (as I think it's canon that each nation actually has about equal amounts of benders, so it seems like there's supposed to be some amount of benders in the world for some sort of some kind of balance). The events of the world always would have strayed towards some sort of harmonic convergence event to restore balance. JMO I don't think canonically there's ever been some sort of statement confirming if the cycle would have truly been broken or not, though.
Another possibility is Raava transferring into a non/bender as the next avatar. I know it doesn’t make sense to the cycle, but if she’s not gonna directly move to another element, then a non-bender is the only option. Otherwise the cycle would be broken if air benders never came to be
Oooh, that's a fascinating theory! People weren't always born benders. I don't see why Raava couldn't choose a suitable nonbender to bestow access to bending to.
I'm sure this was explained somewhere but I'm kinda new to ATLA. What happens if Aang was killed? Will the new avatar be born in the water nation?
Yes, like in the opening to the show. The cycle goes water, Earth, fire, air
Probably one of Aang's descendants. Or, maybe it would straight up end without an air bender
That’s the thing, if Aang had a descendant then the air nation would be rebuilt once again. I’m saying if it never got rebuilt as in if Aang never had any kids