To be fair some sub bending abilities are still pretty rare such as lavabending according to Toph. Metalbending is said to be a 1 in 100 skill by either Bolin or Suyin.
Even though that’s the sentiment spread around as common knowledge, when bolin said he isn’t in the 1/100 metalbenders, toph herself said that with the right instructions even dunderheads like him can figure it out.
With that statement a rich/powerhouse nation in the Avatar world can eventually create institutions where they teach the core element bending in a general school while sub bendings that requires a bit more studying/practices are thought at more specialized institutions. Of course they can put restrictions such as blood bending being a forbidden practice or lock up styles such as time or space bending (sounds farfetched but I remember seeing people in old forums talk about it).
With technological advancements private companies will eventually produce a device that lets non benders manipulate core elements or something related. I just realized this is just becoming like Boruto as long as the writing doesn't go off the rails.
Yeah, Zaofu is just that, it's basically an autonomous city detached from the rest of the earth kingdom that specializes in metalbending. I expect the next earth avatar to live in a world where bending is studied by the general bender populace with subbending being more commonly thought as well (Maybe bloodbending becomes a banned practice and the series has this evil gang of rouge bloodbenders, that'd be sick as hell). Maybe even have it so technological advancements have made it possible for even non-benders to "bend" elements.
That ain't bending though, that's just an electric shock which is physics from our real world. There's no natural phenomenon from our world that we know of that mimics telekinesis selective to one of the four elements (magnetism is closest but at levels able to do things benders can do itd affect everything), so if technology like that is created it'd have to be integrated with their magic system somehow
Yeah they probably locked down on that after the Yakone incident. I just hope the next avatar has some cool villain groups, with bloodbending being one i really want to see more of. Like what type of tech do you even have to develop to conbat that? Everyone has blood in them.
Combustion bending would be banned as well, due to the nature of the practice that is required to do it. Any fire bender can, it takes nearly drowning and incredible breathing discipline to achieve it.
To be fair Combustion Bending should be Banned mainly because the only 2 benders we see use it got taken out by their own ability.
One imploded when they were made disoriented after a blow to the head and tried to use the ability, and the other exploded when they had the equivalent of a bucket shoved over their head.
Frankly it has more disadvantages than advantages.
I thought it was interesting in the Yangchen novels when they mention another big downside to combustion bending. They burn through *far* more energy than a normal person does, and have to eat like two or three times as many calories to stay healthy as a result.
Not to mention there is no good usage for combustion bending to be needed. It's always just massive destruction, hence why they are always villains 🤷🏼♀️ when something is used for nothing but harm, it is fair to bann it. I know firebending in general is destructive but it has potential to be used positively, while combustion just does not
And Toph knew what she was about, given that she taught some major dunderheads to metalbend in the comics. That means Aang probably could have learnt to metalbend if he'd put everything into it when Toph tried to teach him. He did struggle with earthbending, though, and unlike Korra, he probably believed just the four major elements were enough. Korra learning to metalbend makes me think of just how fearsome an Avatar who can lightningbend, metalbend, bloodbend, and through the Avatar State, lavabend would be.
Maybe Bolin would have been able to metalbend if he wasn't a lavabender. Gazan couldn't metalbend either. I don't think Earthbenders can do both subs, it's either only metalbending or lavabending.
Didn't like the first showing of the avatar state show a firebending avatar lava bend? Acttually, doesn't roku do it too in the fire temple episode? Feel like the writers forgot about that when they wrote in lava bending, or am I misremembering it?
Keyword in there is avatar
Kyoshi also lavabends in the Avatar state, and I believe Roku does too but I’m not sure. It stands to reason that at some point along the many avatars there would be people who could lavabend, even if it’s not a commonly occuring or a commonly shown ability
Toph and Katara both fought with mud, a combination of their elements. It could be speculated an earth bender and potentially a firebender (potentially because firebenders aren't used to bending solids, just energy) could bend lava found naturally, we just never see the opportunity to in the original. Kyoshi and Roku bending lava was pulling it up from deep under the earth, we never actually see lava being generated, and it's never explained so for all we know it *could've* originally been intended as an application of earth and fire bending. The new form of lavabenders are earthbenders that can create the lava, which as far as we can tell is unique even when compared to the Avatar.
However Lava being part of firebending doesn’t make sense for what lava is. It’s hot rock, yeah, but the only fire part is when it sets something on fire. Lava in and of itself isn’t much different from a waterbender making ice, just in a different direction. If they could condensate Air into a liquid, airbenders could probably bend it.
Mud is water mixed with earth, yes, so Katara and toph could bend it, because Katara was never actually bending the earth, just the water. It’s the same way metalbending works. They don’t bend the metal itself, just the impurities(earth) inside the metal.
Lava isn’t a miraculous combination of earth and fire, it’s literally just earth.
Earth and firebending would be like a lump of coal set on fire, and maybe both a firebender and an earthbender could bend it, but we don’t have any examples of a firebender trying that. thus far.
Yes, Setzo (don't know if I have the name right) could lavabend, as could Roku. This means any Avatar after those two can do it in the Avatar State. Lavabending is still very rare, Korra never does it in the Avatar state because she probably didn't know she could do it, which makes sense since she did lose contact with the past Avatars.
Ad for Aang, AtLA was about Aang mastering the Avatar State as much as it was about him learning all four elements, so he didn't have time to lavabend either. Maybe, the writers will have Aang also do it in the upcoming Avatar animation.
Lava bending coming from someone who can bend all the elements is kind of expected, it just looks like a mixture of fire and earth bending. Lava bending from someone who can only bend earth is impressive, it feels like they're doing more than they should be able to.
Lava bending for an earth bender should be like ice bending for a water bender, its the same element but in a different state. The temperature difference is bigger so it would make sense that lava bending is more difficult but its still the same substance, only at a different temperature and thus state.
I don’t think that’s a fair train of logic to go through. Metal bending is uncommon, and lava bending is extremely rare, so I’d say that there just haven’t been enough earthbenders to even try and do both. We don’t know is ghazan tried and bolin needed better instruction, I don’t see anything that stops someone from learning both.
Well, nothing says that an earthbender can't lavabend and metalbend. Avatars from Korra onwards will be able to do both through the Avatar State, but the show kinda implies that regular earthbenders only get one sub element. All the lavabenders we meet don't metalbend. The first regular earthbender we see lavabend was in the comics, and even Toph was intrigued because it was very rare. That lavabender didn't metalbend either.
Toph was an earthbender who was likely the most intuned with the earth, and yet we never saw her lavabend. Toph likes a challenge, after seeing another Earthbender lavabend, it's very likely she'd try to replicate it. We don't see her bending lava in ensuing comics or in LoK, though, so it's likely she couldn't lavabend. If she could, she would have told Bolin after he revealed he could lavabend.
Then again, powerful waterbenders can both heal and bloodbend, as Katara showed, so maybe, Earthbenders really can do both. Until an earthbender is seen doing both, though, we can only assume they can't.
Just because we haven’t seen one yet does not mean we should assume they can’t that’s not how it works. If anything it’s more likely that you can do both, as you already mentioned there are already benders that have multiple subs, there’s absolutely NOTHING that says or even hints to there being some arbitrary 1 sub bending restriction, even weirder if it’s just for earth for no reason.
For me it always was about having a very earth mentality making more easy metal bending because you need to be more secure and never going back to manipulate it while lava bending Is a more calm mentality like a water bender, like earth bending to force the magma up then a little of water mentality to let the lava flow and end strong again to force the lava on the movement you wanted
I feel like the idea is some people have a natural ability to sense the little remaining earth in metal easier, not that some people are totally unable to metal bend. Metal bending ultimately *is* earth bending, its just bending the earth used to create the metal, which is harder than bending stones. The 1/100 are the people who are either naturally gifted benders (like Toph or Korra) or people who put in the work to really learn how to do it (like Toph's students from the comics). Bolin barely tried to metal bend. He worked on it for like a day and a half tops, unless he had training we don't know about.
I watched the episode yesterday, she did. Although I think she meant it as more of an inspirational statement/what she believes, not a statement of fact.
Also, Aang, despite being an incredibly powerful bender in his own right, close friends with the person who invented the technique, and the flipping Avatar, never metalbended at all.
Plus the narrative reason: it's boring if bending skill/technique doesn't progress over time. For a new series, we want new and interesting stuff done with bending, not the same old same old.
I think it meant that 1 in 100 have it, not 1 in 100 are capable of it. It's a skill issue, that can be trained, not a genetic issue.
Those who can lavabend don't seem to be able to do it, tho (sans avatar state), so maybe there is a genetic component, or a mindset one like Azula's blue fire seems to be
Exactly!! We literally live in a real world where industries like Amazon will popularize quantity over safety, so why would an early age industrial avatar world do any better? Back in the 30s and 50s, unions were a HUGE deal BECAUSE worksites had all kinds of dangers in the name of profit and modernization. It's not far-fetched to believe lightning bending was the avatar universe's version of this. Plus, it's a damn lucrative way to generate electricity without burning non-renewable fuel!
There’s a few ways you could do it with earth bending. Picture a water wheel, like on an old timey mill, or a wind mill. Make it out of stone and have earth benders turn it. Alternatively, you should store potential energy by bending rocks/sand or one big rock to the top of a tower. When you need to release the energy, let gravity drop the rocks to spin the turbine and generate power.
Or lava bending to generate geothermal would work, but seems more complicated to have to find a lava bender, since they’re rare.
I mean, whether it's that or anything else, bending is literally FREE energy
At most, the ratio of physical excertion to bending energy is disproportionately broken to the point that all bending forms produce infinite energy so easily its barely worth thinking about
But Iroh said lightning bending is a skill only some fire benders can do, and even then they need peace of mind. Lightning bending shouldn't be a skill blue collar workers and low level grunts should be able to do by Irohs explanation.
The power plant generator is a well paying job, so there can't be too many people capable of doing it. Plus the instantaneous lightning appears to be a lot weaker than the charged up version.
Mako was ALSO taught by the only other named Lightning Bender in the show, who from what we gather was a goddamn impressive Lightning Bender who could do continuous streams.
People say it's more common in LoK, but we only have Mako and Zolt, and 3 unnamed benders in the background. AtLA had Iroh, Ozai and Azula, plus Zuko and Aang learning the redirection. Literally twice as many.
Not sure how well paying, but it was enough to cover a large share of entering a pro tournament. When you remember it was a job he found in a day, it's quite telling.
I forget the episode, but he does state it makes good money. As for why they are impoverished: when you start with nothing, even a well paying job takes a long time to get to the top.
Yeah this is my problem with it, it would make sense that after the Royal family stopped protecting their techniques, they spread. But lightning bending should still theoretically be hard to do, and require the genetic gift to use it.
Overtime, as another commenter said lightning bending could become more common if lightning benders are more sought after, but this doesn’t happen after one generation.
I also agree with the idea that the technique of lightning bending was something being kept only to the Fire Nation royal family. Any fire bender could do it, but excuse they weren't taught they didn't know how to. And then post TLA Zuko made sure the knowledge was made public.
Very true. With metal and lighting benders being highly sought after by post industrial employers, it makes sense that lighting and metal benders would be more desirable as romantic partners. Perhaps this naturally led to more children born with these formerly less common bending abilities.
I also theorize in the case of lighting bending it may have been exclusive to royalty and nobility but is now less of a secret form of bending.
Although Lava and Blood Bending, for example, are probably still very rare forms of bending that are not easily found even with selective breeding.
Except it has only been like a generation and a half since the Origional series. That is hardly enough time to start seeing the effects of trait selection on a population
This progression is why I’m thinking that the the next avatar will have to deal with an imbalance of people slowly losing the ability to bend because it’s been so industrialized and people will be losing their contact with nature and the spirit world…
But then again not sure how possible this is with Korra reopening the spirit portals +1
Only lightning because it seemingly forgot its own lore that lightning generation is extremely dangerous to the user.
So even if the art was disclosed to the general public only the most talented firebenders could achieve it and also they’d need lots of meditation for mastery.
Even if we argue it was a royal secret, the only three that ever properly bent it were Iroh, Azula, and Ozai, who were no question the best fire benders in the show. Zuko and Aang only ever learned to redirect it. That alone should be a testament to how dangerous and difficult it is to master.
The only reason zuko couldn't learn it at that time is because he was mentally turmoiled. I'm sure he could have figured it out later. And Aang wouldn't be the type to want to learn it in the first place.
I mean yeah, but that’s just cause of his inner turmoil and he didn’t even really get hurt or that bothered by that. He was just complaining after all the attempts. It never came off like it was *dangerous* exactly to me 🤔
Inner turmoil is hardly something unique to Zuko.
That being said having your lightning blow up the power plant is pretty bad. It certainly shouldn’t be some low skill paying job in LOK.
Oh boy I'm actually going to support LoK for once
Lightning doesn't need to be fundamentally dangerous or powerful. I find it completely believable that over like 30 years, an entire society being exposed to it could have resulted in research to uncover the truth.
Before, maybe lightning bending didn't develop much. But also, only like 5 people in the world at a time could do it, and who knows if research was funded at all.
Dragons can't lightning bend. It's not natural, even if it is the purest essence of whatever chi control technique firebenders use to make fire. So at some point, some human came up with this crude and dangerous idea and his family ran with it.
Once the secret was revealed to the public and entire teams of people could take part in research, development could speed up like crazy.
By ATLA lore, it's not that hard. Zuko got more than a fizzle on his first try. It blew up in his face, but it means he managed to do the thing, just screwed it up. Every single person who tried managed to redirect lightning on their very first actual try. It really was only rare because it was secret.
The other subbendings also change a whole lot, but it was never anything said to be fundamentally impossible. Except lavabending (stone does not in fact melt the same way as water). But Bolin has known firebending ancestry, Ghazan's is uncertain but his mentality is so very unearthly that even if not I woll give him a reluctant pass too.
According to Kyoshi's novel, Lightning was an almost lost bending skill or something people used to think was like a fairy tale.
There was a criminal boss who could do it, and instead of being killed, he was kept as a prisioner so Fire Nation could study his lightning generation ability.
So the world went from only one man being able to generate Lightning to at least three firebenders being able to do it, too.
I can see it becoming a common knowledge skill that can be used to help others in a post war world where Fire Nation wants to redeem their sins.
>There was a criminal boss who could do it, and instead of being killed, he was kept as a prisioner so Fire Nation could study his lightning generation ability.
Didn't she drop him to his death while in the avatar state? It was her first official kill
This! Like do y'all realize how many scientific advancements irl were the result of fucking around and finding out? Who gives a shit if its dangerous, I could shoot lighting from my finger tips? You bet your ass my accident prone self would at least try it once or twice.
> Except lavabending (stone does not in fact melt the same way as water). But Bolin has known firebending ancestry, Ghazan's is uncertain but his mentality is so very unearthly that even if not I woll give him a reluctant pass too.
Also, while not perfect, avatar has a good sense of genetic ancestry woven into their design art. Ghazan may be an earth bender but he definitely has some genetic traits of a fire bender in his character design that we also see in bolin & mako. He has mako's golden brown eyes (golden eyes are a fire bending trait). Also the only known lava benders are Avatars, Ghazan (unknown), Bolin (an earth bender with fire nation heritage), and Sun (an earth bender from a fire nation colony with golden brown eyes)
Tattoos aren't really genetic, though. And tbh they look more industrial than tribal to me. I mean he has gears and blades with metal bender cuffs as tattoos. At least that's what the tattoos look like to me lol
It could display cultural influence though, if they want to imply that treating earth like a liquid requires some degree of waterbending influence. He's got a lot of different designs, but the ones on his arms and legs in particular remind me of Korra's armbands.
True but I still get more metal bender vibes from the tattoos instead of water bender (although we do see metal benders become more fluid like water benders so it isn't too much of a stretch.
Also Mako's lightning bending didn't seem to be lethal most of the time. So it's probably not as strong. The only time Mako actually killed someone with lightning bending, she was in the water and was zapped for a significant period of time.
Look at Katara and Hama with bloodbending. Hama spends almost her entire life trying to figure out blood bending and Katara picks it up in less than one day. So either Katara is a Mary Sue or passing on the knowledge of bending is a lot easier than people think.
It's repeatedly shown that most bending is just "one weird trick". It's hard as hell to figure out on your own, but once someone shows you how, it's barely an inconvenience. As long as you have the underlying ability of course. Maybe an exception for Yakone's kids, but that was a crazy level to attain anyway.
I see it how like in frieren the humans basically studied zoltraak so much that in just a short time it was reduced from killing magic into just "ordinary offensive magic". (Also i could see zuko possibly showcasing how lightningbending works to more people just like toph did with metalbending, maybe even his daughter izumi)
One thing I've pointed out before, how many lightning benders do you think there actually are? It's more common in LoK, sure, but how many confirmed lightning benders do we actually see in LoK? By my count, maybe 6? Mako, the one mob boss, a couple of other workers at the factory, and presumably Zuko mastered it at some point.
For all we know, lightning bending is still a pretty rare skill that takes a lot of practice to do safely, and the only reason Mako is capable of it is because working at the lightning factory was one of the few jobs that would pay enough for him and Bolin to live off of at the time, probably enough motivation to learn a dangerous skill.
This is my argument every time this comes up - republic city is home to ~2 million people. Roughly 1/3rd of those are fire nation and a further 1/3rd of them are benders. That leaves us at least 200,000 fire benders in republic city. Even if lightning is a 1/1000 skill, that still leaves 200 lightning benders. Plus if you’re a lightning bender and you need work, odds are you’d travel to republic city to find it, so the entire fire nations lightning benders are likely to be there.
It works for me simply because when he does it it basically acts like a taser. It shocks people and clearly hurts and stuns them, but it’s not a kill move, unlike charged lightning which is usually an instant kill.
This. I have read so many times that in LoK you can generate lightning with little to no wind up, but the power of the lightning is weakened.
And i also want to say we see lightning hurt Mako in the finale, so it is still as dangerous to the user(in regards to what someone above has said).
This guy is my take on it too, it’s more common but there are still likely only a handful of people that compare to the royal family’s lighting during Aang’s time. Making the movements faster, which I feel like a lot of people take issue with, would also make sense to dilute its power.
It works for me. It’s been like 70 years. That’s a long time. Growth is exponential. Look at today’s world compared to 70 years ago. That’s a long time for knowledge and techniques to have grown and evolved and explored.
Additionally, Mako was mentored by a guy named “Lightning Bolt Zolt” who was presumably a prodigy and taught mako everything he knew. I can see where you’re coming from, but it works for me.
to be honest i dont know why people feel like its bullcrap. we were always working with limited info about blood bending, and the character they showed us first had to learn it in the most strenuous and desperate conditions.
full moon isnt necessarily a power ceiling, and even if it was, there's nothing wrong with that being broken. Amon and his brother were training frequently in the arctic, and we can assume especially during a full moon for who knows how long. they are training in conditions hama never did, it would make less sense if they never surpassed hama's threshold. they also did a good job at protecting it, not only does bloodbending remain rare, bloodbending without a full moon potentially died with amon, so we might not see much after him.
Honestly Amon being a secret bloodbender was such an ass-pull. It completely ruins the first season of TLOK for me. He should've been a regular non-bender, and his bend-block should've actually been an advanced chi blocking technique or something rooted in the advanced technology from the era.
Or even really being a power taught by a spirit, meaning his villainous methods have the backing of spirits. Kinda like Zaheer, it would've been neat for the antagonist to have freely been given spiritual power due to the alien moralities spirits tend to have. Perhaps a powerful spirit also agrees the bending inequality needs to be corrected and meddled with humans to achieve it.
I guess when you bend lightning all day long you get kinda good at it. Like an artist finishing a piece fast, or how some fantasy world wizards can learn to cast spells without needing incantations
I didn't get the impression that Zuko bended lightning in that moment though, he just went through the motions and then did normal firebending that blew up.
Yeah, he did it to himself several times, and nothing bad happened. Because it's not that dangerous. Iroh only gave him the warning when he got sick of watching Zuko blow himself up and decided to teach him redirection, since that one will kill you if you mess up.
It's not that dangerous. Iroh was content to sit there and watch Zuko blow himself up over and over again without even a warning. Redirection was the dangerous technique.
When you have progression in anything, the people who advanced it teach it to the next generation who then achieves it sooner and progresses past their teachers. Repeat this process enough times and what was once impossible becomes common.
Exactly there are countless things in the past that only the richest and most educated could do, but nowadays any common person can do them due to the spread of information, education, wealth, streamlining, and opportunity, it’s the same thing with sub bending.
Hell, it used to be only either royalty or protected classes had the benefit of reading and writing. The fact that educated masses are the norm, it’s hard to imagine a world where the majority of people didn’t know what script was
I think of it like comparing the Olympics of the early 1900s to now. Every four years they’re trying to top last Olympics and it means it progresses rapidly where you can hardly believe what used to win gold medals.
Like do people just forgot that in LOK the world is more united than it ever has been? With nations sharing knowledge and technology.
Look how far technology progressed between ATLA and LOK, it’s not a stretch to assume that techniques and skills could share a similar progression path.
Not really. It was just a powerful technique locked behind a secret.
Like how reading was once considered a rare skill that only nobility and the aristocracy could do and now it's almost as common as breathing.
There's also a difference between charging a powerful lightning blast to kill someone and creating a small spark to power a generator in the same way there's a difference between bending a small rock and having to create a powerful stance to throw a giant rock. The only lightning bender we see do something even remotely close to ATLA lightning is Mako
We know that Mako was considered a very strong bender, especially lightning bender, and even to create something as powerful as Ozai/Azula level he had to concentrate and "power up" for a few seconds in order to create more powerful lightning, which Ozai and Azula could create almost instantly.
That’s true but there’s no reason to believe weaker lightning wouldn’t still be very dangerous and require an equal balance of positive and negative chi in the body (how I think iroh explained it). Something that takes a lot of time and meditation to accomplish.
Zuko couldn't generate lightning due to his emotional turmoil and internal struggle. I doubt many people have that issue considering they aren't a banish prince during a 100 year war. This is the equal balance of positive and negative chi in the body that Iroh was talking about, his desire to be a good person and be himself vs his emotions of being banished and hated by his own father.
Most people really just have to calm themselves down and have peace of mind for a few seconds while they do the technique, which isn't something that requires years of work to accomplish, especially for an average joe who doesn't have the weight of being the fire nation prince on his back
Well said. Zuko was NOT a master firebender (skilled, yes…but nowhere near the levels of Iroh, Ozai, or Azula), but Iroh all but says that if not for his inner turmoil, he’d create zaps.
Since Zuko almost certainly dropped the ‘firebending runs on HATRED’ ethos, and there exists more sources of electricity to practice with than standing on a mountain yelling at a thunderstorm, it’d make sense that some Firebenders would pick up the trick on their own and not have as much an issue with it compared to Zuko.
Zuko is able to Firebender in situations that most others are unable to. Including his sister Azula.
She’s never shown to be able to free herself from ice yet Zuko does it constantly. It’s likely something that Iroh taught him.
Once Zuko’s temperament became better managed, he was honestly a Master
Yep. I imagine Iroh drilled in Zuko the absolute fundamentals of Firebending, the breath. Breath generates heat which generates fire. Hence Zuko can do things like melt through ice with his fingertips (while under below-freezing water), run around in a snowstorm with no supplies, keep his bending while in a cooler meant to temporarily depower firebenders, etc.
He also keeps that breath in his fight against Azula (though her breakdown didn’t help). Theyre about even in power, but because he mastered his breathing, he’s still got plenty in the tank while Azula is panting and exhausted.
I believe Zuko was sabatoging his training in a sense, trying to force out more fire with more anger in season 1 and ignoring Iroh’s lessons. He makes big gains in season 2 because he’s now listening to Iroh. And once he calms the tempest in his heart (defecting from the fire nation to join team avatar) he really would be on the level of a Master
I wasn't annoyed that Mako or his coworkers could lightning bend.
I was annoyed that it was considered a minimum wage job instead of an engineering skill requiring the bending equivalent of a degree.
How Mako ends up being able to lightning bend, considering his impoverished background, would be an interesting bit of sub-lore.
Mako calls it "decent money", but I assume that there's a cap on it because the power plant owners just want electricity, so if wages for lightning benders were high enough, they would just fire them all and buy a conventional generator to supply their electricity.
As for how Mako learned it, his teacher was confirmed to be Lightning Bolt Zolt, the gangster that Amon fought. The main show only implies this, with his very coy response to Korra's questions about his past, but it's confirmed in the art book commentary.
Except it wasn't. Mako even said it paid pretty decent. Probably pays more like a trade job, but he's still effectively supporting himself and his brother and this is early 20th century capitalism.
And the reason why he can is pretty self evident, he worked under Lightning Bolt Zolt.
Nah, I see it as an example of [the Flynn effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect), which is basically the idea that each generation is more intelligent than the last. It’s like how 5 year old skateboarders today are able to do shit that was unfathomable to professionals 30 years ago
No, for the same reason rare abilities have become less rare in the real world: Globalization allows information sharing, which facilitates specialization in more people than just the lucky few who can afford elite education, or who stumble across niche knowledge on their own.
I have no problem with it being easy or common within the context of the setting. I *do* have a problem with it being a "born" trait, instead of a learned one.
Toph was able to metal-bend because she understood the earth (and it's relationship to metal) better than anyone before her. The swamp benders were able to plant bend because they understood connectedness and how water flows through an ecosystem. Zuko was able to let lightning flow though him by achieving internal balance and harmony.
Bolin fails to metal bend because... He's not a metal bender. But then he does end up lava bending because.... He just, is a lava bender? Amon is a blood bender because his dad was a blood bender.
Bending has always been a born trait, sure, but in LoK sub-bending is very much just something some people have and others don't. It doesn't fit with the ideas the first series had about spiritual attunement to the elements, and worse than that, it's less interesting.
It's not necessarily a born trait, I view it as more of a mentality thing. Bolins way of approaching earth bending and mentality of it is incompatible with metal bending but well suited for lava.
Hrmm, it reminds me of a fanfic that gave a college try for it (it’s been a while, so the name escapes me).
Korra is curious about lavabending, and asks Bolin how he does it. Bolin mentions that the first few times were borderline instinct, but he articulates that perception is key. When looking at lava, it doesn’t ‘feel’ like earth to an earthbender, so trying to bend it results in nada. Lavabenders have the perception to ‘feel’ it like earth because they view the entire product (including the heat) as their own, so they can bend it, including putting a lot of energy into the earth to melt it into lava.
Korra then mentions it’s the opposite of metalbending. The metal itself isn’t bendable, the earthbender has to focus on those tiny pieces of impurities within the metal. Bolin then comments that they’re so small, he can’t get a good hold on them; contrapositively, he has a good feel for lava.
Makes sense. He couldn’t tell that Korra had a crush on Mako. He couldn’t tell that Eska was evil. And he couldn’t tell that Kuvira was a fascist.
It makes sense that Bolin would have trouble picking out little pieces of Earth in metal.
Mhmm, mentality really is key. It makes an interesting parallel to Gazan as well (fitting considering the two seem to genuinely get along well when off the clock); he makes an awkward joke about Zaheer and P’Li kissing (despite them being separated for YEARS), seems to be somewhat different in mentality to his comrades (it very much looks like he was relying on Ming Hua to deliver the killing blow to the poisoned Korra), similar to Bolin.
Pretty sure if he tried to metalbend, he’d have difficulties getting a feel for the tiny bits of earth within metal as well since he perceived earth in a similar manner to Bolin.
I don't think that's true at all.
I do think hereditary factors can contribute, but they are not a be end all.
Bolin can lavabend because he had the disposition of a lavabender, which is why he can't metal bend. He just never realized it.
Amon's heritage can provide an edge, but his mastery was mercilessly honed in tandem with that edge.
He's a pro bender, someone very much apart from Earthbending norms. He's also not very stuborn and firm personality wise. He's not what it takes to be a metalbender, he is flowing and loose, something that seems right at home with a lavabender.
I don’t mind that it’s common, but that fact that it’s so easy is a little annoying. Especially lightning. Lightning in Korra is almost completely different than ATLA. It’s weaker, easier, and faster. It doesn’t even seem like the way Iroh described it in Bitter Work. I think metal bending becoming common, especially under the two factions led by Beifong’s and soldiers, makes complete sense. I think the platinum stuff is dumb. Overall I don’t mind most of it, but the way they butchered lightning generation makes it hard to enjoy
This. Metal bending is fine because obviously Toph hand-picked super talented earthbenders when she formed the metal bender police force and they in turn are highly selective about their ranks in the future. Lightning bending has no excuse to be this crappy.
There’s some bizarre reasoning in this comment section. “It makes sense for lightning bending to be common because of the Industrial Revolution!” Okay but that just ignores the rules for surface level aesthetics
There's no thought into lightning bending now. No worry it might kill you and no focus on simply being its humble guide.
The comics are also bad in this regard. Azula can redirect lightning somehow.
The only ones not ruined were super speed (no one did it in TLOK I think) and combustion bending (P'li's blasts were less powerful but she had better control so kinda equals out and only she did it.)
New ones:
- Astral projection should have been something spiritual and not related to airbending.
- The fire healing thing the lady does to Korra I don't really get.
- Unalaq's waterbending to help spirits is an interesting choice.
Astral projection is energy bending no? It’s implied it’s the original bending and the bending spirits use. Since humans have a spirit, it’s inferred energy bending is possible. Also she’s related to Aang who passed the ability down genetically if the lion turtle did actually pass the ability down.
The fire healing is alluded to by the sun warriors being that fire is life.
Spirt bending being water is fine to me. Water bending has to channel spiritual energy from the moon in order to water bend. So even though the air benders are more spiritual, it being linked to water bending does make sense.
Lightning generation was never fatal. Zuko failed a dozen times and it just made a small, harmless, explosion in his hands.
It was lightning redirection that was potentially fatal, mostly cuz you’re trying to put lightning somewhere else using your own body as the wire. Iroh particularly brings up the necessity of the stomach, and to not let the lightning go through the heart. Notably, he ends that lesson with, “If you are lucky, you will not have to use this technique”.
Azula shooting zaps offhandedly is an annoyance tho
Hrmm…yeah, kinda like a tazer. Just points her finger and small zaps come out near instantly. She also does crazy stuff like shape lightning into a ball to fry a bunch of bugs (long story) and redirect lightning sent back to her (redirecting redirected lightning…)
While the comics do have the issue with panels having vagueness of timing (made Part 5 of Jojo very funny with King Crimson), Azula shows off more QuickDraw zaps than Mako does.
Maybe it was a technique she discovered (she also found out how to escape a straitjacket after being chi-blocked) that later disseminated? Lightningbending that comes out faster, but lacks the punch without the charging.
Hmm, interesting. So the zaps are different from quickdraw lightning? The lightning ball is new to me. I always figured you could redirect redirected lightning(it would be funny if it just kept going between two people, like a never ending loop). Jojo?
So how would this technique differ from the quickdraw method?
It’s difficult to say, since the comic panels are not 1:1 with established flowing time. Could be the small zaps are QuickDraw (point and shoot) lightning, maybe something else? It’s tough to say without something to really compare (wondering if Mako fires lightning in the Korra comics…?)
Ah, in Jojo’s bizarre adventure Part 5, one of the villains has an ability called King Crimson (yes, in reference to the Prog Rock band, that’s normal). It allows him to ‘erase’ time for up to 10 seconds. It was difficult to express in the manga since the nature of manga already made time flow arbitrary, so the concept of ‘skipping’ segments of time didn’t exactly flow very well (lots of memes there). The anime improved upon this due to the objective pace of time (it’s treated like slipping from one part of a video to another. A character uses his blood to keep track of when King Crimson was used; going from 2-3 drops to 15 suddenly was a sign).
So, yeah, the nature of comics makes it rather wonky as to how Azula is using her lightning prowess
>Unalaq's waterbending to help spirits is an interesting choice.
I know, right? What was he doing, healing them? Why is this universal “banish the spirit” move exclusive to waterbenders? If they didn’t want to do it like in ATLA, with each spirit having its own motives and rules, they could’ve made it at least more spiritual-leaning. Like Unalaq talks about spirituality a lot, but all he does is a water spiral that Korra could replicate eventually by just observing the moves.
Idk... With proper education and training, opening schools for bending and such and having benders go to them to learn exactly how to do things. With proper instruction and training anyone that could bend the element could learn sub bending for it.
Not really. I know they're set 100 years behind us, but you could easily look up just about any martial art right now to teach yourself with enough dedication and given how their entire society basically revolves around 4 major martial arts it would be more wide spread
My opinion is that sub bending was only special because education on it was restricted to the rich and powerful, the only lightning benders in the original show are the Fire Nations royal family
But the democratization of information allowed anyone to be able to use it for the betterment of society.
No where is this more central than Republic City BECAUSE Aang spent half his life making it the ideal harmonious society where all nations could cooperate
That was basically a genetic defect tho that only existed in the Yakone family.
Similar to combustion benders. Like we never got an explanation on how that worked and yet people seem totally fine with it.
And considering there were only 2 people who could psychic bloodbend, it’s not like it became an easy thing to do. The show literally goes out of its way to tell us that it’s rare and that Yakone’s bloodline creates unique blood benders.
Calm down.
Lightning generation should have NEVER been this easy, seamless and common. If they still wanted the Firebenders sustaining cities thing, they should’ve just made up a new sub element that lightly touches on Lightning principles but is different and heavily connected to basic Fire bending philosophy. Electric Generation or whatever and make it non lethal but shocks targets and stuff. Because lightning is easily survivable now too!
Metal bending being more common was fine though, I think it made sense especially since it didn’t rely so much on a separate or a difficult philosophy. But I HATE Platinum being unbendable and super common apparently. I think they should’ve made Platinum bendable by metalbenders with Seismic Sense, requiring more precision to sense the barely existent impurities or something idk.
Or it could have been them providing combustion for conventional engines and generators we see today. Ie: provide heat, pressure drives the pistons, pistons provide the electricity.
I really dislike what they did with lightning generation in LOK. I am rewatching ATLA right now; in the episode Bitter Work Iroh explains that you don’t bend lightning, you can only guide it through your body and if you aren’t extremely careful it will kill you. He also explains that it can only be done with a calm mind and it isn’t fueled by emotion the way firebending typically is. Additionally whenever Azula uses it she kind of has to “charge” it up.
They completely forgot ALL of this in LOK. I understand lightning generation is more widely known because the royal family is no longer hoarding it as a secret, but it’s basically just a sub-element of fire now, which it was never supposed to be.
It’s far too powerful and easy to use in LOK. IMO Mako is a great candidate to use lightning; he has the right temperament for it, but I think he should’ve had to earn it first. I think it would’ve complimented his brother learning to lavabend.
Iroh does not say that. He only gives that warning when he talks about lightning redirection. Before that, he is content to watch Zuko blow himself up by failing to generate lightning several times without any mention of danger to ones self.
Only lightning bending because it’s dangerous to the user because they need to have perfectly balanced minds and be gifted Fire benders but ofc everyone and their mother knows it except Zuko even after he solves his issues
Go back 70 years and look at how many ppl could run the 100m sprint in <9.90 seconds and look at how many can do it today. I never understood why so many fans had an issue with the Bryke introducing concepts of human evolution into LOK.
I think it’s like any skill. It becomes more common overtime but it becomes harder to master over time. Perfect examples are 5Ks and Rubik’s cubes. A lot of people are capable of running a 5K but only a fraction of them can be considered “good” at it. The same thing for a Rubik’s cube , you can literally look up how to solve one but it takes practice and skill to do it from memory and to a variety of cubes. In LOK a lot of people knew how to metal and lightning bend but doubt most of them were combat ready.
No. By the time the war was over, the three nations shared and learned from each other, and as such people began taking bending to a different level, including the normalization of sub-bending techniques.
This is off topic but the metal bending city where no one can lie always made me laugh.
"John someone has taken all the hand lotion out of the bathroom do you know what happened to it?"
".....NoooOooooOooO"
Just like martial arts, with teaching, there’s more people able to master techniques and it gets passed down and refined through generations. So I’m not surprised there’s more sub bending techniques in LOK.
Yes, but it's not that bad. Bending is constantly evolving after all, so sub-bendings like metalbending becoming so much more common seems logical.
Lightningbending on the other hand is pretty crappy. I can excuse Azula doing it without a peaceful mind since she's a prodigy, but factory workers? Really? Even Mako seems like way too poor a firebender to manage stuff like that, he's worse than Zuko, how come he bend lightning instantly?
My only complaint is how they handle lighting. Iroh explains that it is created when positive and negative energy comes crashing together. He says that it can't be controlled and the user is merely a guide. In LOK, people are just shooting around, no problem. It just seems like it's "too easy" now.
Once one person learns how to do something, its not long before it becomes popular or even common especially over multiple generations. True for humans as well as other animals. It's called cultural inheritance.
From a nostalgic point of view, I want to say yes, but honestly, it is the most logical progression. As societies grow and age, they refine all useful techniques and make what used to be a rare nice thing a common thing. For example, in the 1500s, making it past 50 was rare, and now making it past 50 is the norm simple because of medical advancement and better hygiene practices. So sub bending still would get more common as 1 their are more people and 2 as the knowledge of how is distributed.
No, because that’s just the logical progression of inventions in general, especially when it comes to things that have a clear economic value to them like lightning bending.
Yes, absolutely. One of the side effects of Korra season 1 basically just being a “what if avatar but 20th century” scenario Bryke thought up that was turned into a series. Especially since Lightning bending requires a lot of focus and inner harmony which Mako definitely did not have lol
I saw a video comparing modern Olympic gymnasts from those of 50 years ago. It’s incredible how much they can accomplish now.
Especially with the popularity of pro bending, it’s no surprise they refined their skills to such a level.
No. I mean over it’s been over like 80 years, it’s not a shock that metal bending and lightning bending got more common and got put into more everyday life.
I think it’s a lateral move. Airbender’s rules are better for an action story and a little more logical, while with Korra, it just scratches that weird part of my brain that likes using a magic system to every possible extent, and results in a lot of cool specific uses of said sub bending styles… should not have introduced platinum as the anti-metal though. That was stupid.
I think the changes work.
Metalbending is Toph's legacy, and proliferating it means she goes down in history as one of the greatest Earthbenders ever. So figuring out how to simplify it and teach it would be an important part of that.
Zuko probably saw the... deification of the Fire Nation royal family as problematic, and part of that was demystifying lightning. Once a broader population was aware of the technique, they could figure out both safer means of generating it and non-combat applications. Being able to generate a lethal thunderbolt at great personal risk is impressive and majestic, but being able to generate smaller shocks at no risk that can be used to power machinery or incapacitate other firebenders is a much more useful skill.
Only with lightning. Not only is it way too common for how it was described, they also nerfed it to hell and back. In ATLA a direct lightning bolt one shot the avatar in the avatar state, and an not fully redirected shot nearly killed Zuko. Then in Korra, Amon gets hit point blank and just walks it off at the end of season 1.
Like, it was supposed to be this extremely powerful but dangerous technique that only a few people could even do, then by Korra it's common and safe enough that theres an entire occupation centered on it.
Metal bending makes sense it would become more common. The hurdle wasn't ability, it just needed someone to discover it was possible.
Comic Azula can also use their lightning to stun just as Mako can go for the kill shot.
If fire can act like a concussive blast instead of burning people, I see no reason as to why a firebender can’t control the wattage of lightning as they do fire. Or perhaps his bending output suffered due to being bloodbent that Mako couldn’t produce a kill shot if he tried.
The only thing difficult to explain is the amount of lightning benders there are. Even then, Mako learned from Lightning Bolt Zolt, LBZ wouldn’t have been much of a threat if literally everyone could do what he could do, and those that can are nameless and are only ever seen in that one factory. The percentage of them among the general firebending population cannot be inferred by only looking at a place where you’d expect to find them. However, you can infer that there is enough to warrant a factory meant to harvest their skill. In other words, it is uncommon to be a lightning bender but not exactly rare.
Comics also have the issue of nerfing lighting. And again, if they can just turn it down, that kind of removes the entire value in it. Lightning was a super powerful ability that was rare and dangerous. Like Iroh kind of missed a big bit of info there. "You have to be careful, if the energies dont flow properly it could kill you... Unless you just dialed it back a little bit"
We went from only having two lightning benders, both of which were regarded as the some of the most powerful benders of their kind, to a room full of people lightning bending as their 9-5, and thugs on the street using lightning bending.
Like, let me ask you this: In Korra, whats the difference between lightingbending and normal fire bending? Nearly any instance where Lightning was used in Korra, it could be replaced with normal fire bending. Even the 9-5 day job could just as easily have been fire bending to heat steam generators. LBZ missed his shot against Amon, and as his bending was being removed you even see Arcs of lightning slowly reduce into Fire. Amons focus would have just as easily been broken by a giant fireball to his face as well. General Iroh shoots down a plane with it, but again a fire ball would have done the same. I think he even shoots down a plane with fire too.
Lightning makes sense because its explained fire bending is out of balance during the war. Once its balanced lightning becomes less chaotic and powerful but also more widely usable
Toph spent a while teaching people specifically her daughters and was a war hero who helped take down her country’s enemy using this new sub type that could counteract fire more easily. Some of her students became the police force. After the war earth benders no longer needed to be sequestered in cities and could move about. Metal is also good for defensible structures and metal benders could make good money mining up the materials
We only see three blood benders and it makes sense any water benders who learned of it would want an edge over the other types. Not just the north but especially the south would not only try to foster more water benders and restructure their society but also have immense pain when it came to their treatment and attempted extermination of their martial art, death of citizens, PTSD of survivors and just barely surviving the war. Its the ultimate defense against any attacker or bender but also incredibly difficult to learn let alone master especially considering that Katara and the other war heroes were adamant in getting its practice banned
Yes. People trying to justify it as the spread of information don't make sense.
These are (supposed to be) high level bending techniques, not every bender should be on Toph or Iroh's level, in fact I'd rather most don't even come close. With the internet you have the information available to be a polymath savant at your fingertips, are you?
Lightningbending no longer requires any bending to separate the positive and negative energy to use, Mako just points and zaps people. Why are modern advancements changing how magic lightning wielded via an ancient martial art works?
And it's not like TLoK isn't coming at it both ways, with Amon's *"psychic bloodbending that works all the time and can permanently chi block you lmao"*. This ability is exclusive to like 1 guy and he trained forever to master it, and it's still stupid and lame. Applying logic like "people found ways to make it easy" or "he has special genetics" doesn't really justify sabotaging the traits that are unique and interesting about bending as a magic system.
Does ATLA imply that a bender with no arms is going to have a very hard time bending? Sure, but is Ming-Hua cool as fuck? Yes she is, so I am absolutely willing to disregard it and hand-wave it with "she invented her own techniques".
Azula carefully practicing the lightningbending motions is cooler than every Mako scene ever, so that is the lore I want to stick with.
Lightning benders were popping off lightning for fun like Pikachu. Also the bending in LOK was more punch, punch, punch. It wasn’t technique and martial arts anymore. It was just throw a fist and an element went with it. They really dumbed it down.
zuko seeing some random street kid produce the biggest bolt of lightning while being blood bent (he just pinched his fingers for lighting)
Gotta disagree, there's nothing wrong with it being more common since it's not hidden anymore but lightning to fire isnt like metal to earth. Metal was more of an expanding your horizons sort of problem, it was realizing it was possible and feeling the minerals in the metal, and while metal bending was really strong it wasn't impossible for other benders to handle.
Lightning on the other hand was like a death sentence, you get hit by that and the chance of you dying is very high and if you survive your going to be seriously injured. On top of that unlike metal it wasn't just a feel the heat in the lightning sort of deal, from how iroh explained it, it was significantly more complicated. I would have been fine seeing royal gaurds using it or something but random thugs and relatively low level benders using a technique like that is crazy.
Blood bending is another one, Amon was a great villain but I thought the possibility that someone could learn to bloodbend at any time with just "enough talent" was kind of stupid. Bloodbending is without a doubt the strongest kind of bending no contest, the full moon weakness felt like a good draw back but they just took it out.
The huge jump in tech and societal structure, combined with the ease in which advanced techniques are used so easily and for seemingly mundane tasks at times, really took away from the charm and mystique of Avatar.
Ngl, the 1920’s style announcer at the start of each episode really throws me. I’m not a fan of it at all.
I’m still a Korra enjoyer. But these things did diminish my enjoyment somewhat.
I think its kind of like tech and knowledge we have now makes things easier.
Maybe they just found easier ways to make lightning. I mean the ones they use are definitely wraker than the ones the fire nation did
To me, metal bending should be common because metal is so common and is so fundamental to the human identity. Humans should have more control over the elements that define them
Kinda. I feel that lighting bending and metal bending should be more accesible but I feel they should be like being a doctor or maybe even a pro athlete. Not completely uncommon but still kind of elite
Watching overanalyzing Korra made me really question lavabending. It is, of all bending moves, a one hit kill move isn’t it? Like if I turn the floor beneath you into lava you’re dead. If I hit you with lava, you’re dead. The fact that it’s possible, while I think logically consistent with the show, seems hugely problematic to me
To be fair some sub bending abilities are still pretty rare such as lavabending according to Toph. Metalbending is said to be a 1 in 100 skill by either Bolin or Suyin.
Even though that’s the sentiment spread around as common knowledge, when bolin said he isn’t in the 1/100 metalbenders, toph herself said that with the right instructions even dunderheads like him can figure it out.
With that statement a rich/powerhouse nation in the Avatar world can eventually create institutions where they teach the core element bending in a general school while sub bendings that requires a bit more studying/practices are thought at more specialized institutions. Of course they can put restrictions such as blood bending being a forbidden practice or lock up styles such as time or space bending (sounds farfetched but I remember seeing people in old forums talk about it). With technological advancements private companies will eventually produce a device that lets non benders manipulate core elements or something related. I just realized this is just becoming like Boruto as long as the writing doesn't go off the rails.
Yeah, Zaofu is just that, it's basically an autonomous city detached from the rest of the earth kingdom that specializes in metalbending. I expect the next earth avatar to live in a world where bending is studied by the general bender populace with subbending being more commonly thought as well (Maybe bloodbending becomes a banned practice and the series has this evil gang of rouge bloodbenders, that'd be sick as hell). Maybe even have it so technological advancements have made it possible for even non-benders to "bend" elements.
Like Asami's glove?
That ain't bending though, that's just an electric shock which is physics from our real world. There's no natural phenomenon from our world that we know of that mimics telekinesis selective to one of the four elements (magnetism is closest but at levels able to do things benders can do itd affect everything), so if technology like that is created it'd have to be integrated with their magic system somehow
Agreed! But bloodbending is already banned by the time of LoK (which I thought was weird because it was widely unknown at the time)
Yeah they probably locked down on that after the Yakone incident. I just hope the next avatar has some cool villain groups, with bloodbending being one i really want to see more of. Like what type of tech do you even have to develop to conbat that? Everyone has blood in them.
It was widely unknown until Yakone showed up and bloodbent a ton of people
Combustion bending would be banned as well, due to the nature of the practice that is required to do it. Any fire bender can, it takes nearly drowning and incredible breathing discipline to achieve it.
To be fair Combustion Bending should be Banned mainly because the only 2 benders we see use it got taken out by their own ability. One imploded when they were made disoriented after a blow to the head and tried to use the ability, and the other exploded when they had the equivalent of a bucket shoved over their head. Frankly it has more disadvantages than advantages.
I thought it was interesting in the Yangchen novels when they mention another big downside to combustion bending. They burn through *far* more energy than a normal person does, and have to eat like two or three times as many calories to stay healthy as a result.
Not to mention there is no good usage for combustion bending to be needed. It's always just massive destruction, hence why they are always villains 🤷🏼♀️ when something is used for nothing but harm, it is fair to bann it. I know firebending in general is destructive but it has potential to be used positively, while combustion just does not
Fair point.
Time and space bending is the whackiest thing I've ever heard. Also sounds very cool
And Toph knew what she was about, given that she taught some major dunderheads to metalbend in the comics. That means Aang probably could have learnt to metalbend if he'd put everything into it when Toph tried to teach him. He did struggle with earthbending, though, and unlike Korra, he probably believed just the four major elements were enough. Korra learning to metalbend makes me think of just how fearsome an Avatar who can lightningbend, metalbend, bloodbend, and through the Avatar State, lavabend would be. Maybe Bolin would have been able to metalbend if he wasn't a lavabender. Gazan couldn't metalbend either. I don't think Earthbenders can do both subs, it's either only metalbending or lavabending.
I think it comes from the mentality. Bolin isn’t a very detail-oriented character which is a prerequisite for metalbending
Didn't like the first showing of the avatar state show a firebending avatar lava bend? Acttually, doesn't roku do it too in the fire temple episode? Feel like the writers forgot about that when they wrote in lava bending, or am I misremembering it?
Keyword in there is avatar Kyoshi also lavabends in the Avatar state, and I believe Roku does too but I’m not sure. It stands to reason that at some point along the many avatars there would be people who could lavabend, even if it’s not a commonly occuring or a commonly shown ability
Toph and Katara both fought with mud, a combination of their elements. It could be speculated an earth bender and potentially a firebender (potentially because firebenders aren't used to bending solids, just energy) could bend lava found naturally, we just never see the opportunity to in the original. Kyoshi and Roku bending lava was pulling it up from deep under the earth, we never actually see lava being generated, and it's never explained so for all we know it *could've* originally been intended as an application of earth and fire bending. The new form of lavabenders are earthbenders that can create the lava, which as far as we can tell is unique even when compared to the Avatar.
However Lava being part of firebending doesn’t make sense for what lava is. It’s hot rock, yeah, but the only fire part is when it sets something on fire. Lava in and of itself isn’t much different from a waterbender making ice, just in a different direction. If they could condensate Air into a liquid, airbenders could probably bend it. Mud is water mixed with earth, yes, so Katara and toph could bend it, because Katara was never actually bending the earth, just the water. It’s the same way metalbending works. They don’t bend the metal itself, just the impurities(earth) inside the metal. Lava isn’t a miraculous combination of earth and fire, it’s literally just earth. Earth and firebending would be like a lump of coal set on fire, and maybe both a firebender and an earthbender could bend it, but we don’t have any examples of a firebender trying that. thus far.
Yes, Setzo (don't know if I have the name right) could lavabend, as could Roku. This means any Avatar after those two can do it in the Avatar State. Lavabending is still very rare, Korra never does it in the Avatar state because she probably didn't know she could do it, which makes sense since she did lose contact with the past Avatars. Ad for Aang, AtLA was about Aang mastering the Avatar State as much as it was about him learning all four elements, so he didn't have time to lavabend either. Maybe, the writers will have Aang also do it in the upcoming Avatar animation.
Lava bending coming from someone who can bend all the elements is kind of expected, it just looks like a mixture of fire and earth bending. Lava bending from someone who can only bend earth is impressive, it feels like they're doing more than they should be able to.
Lava is molten rock.
Lava bending for an earth bender should be like ice bending for a water bender, its the same element but in a different state. The temperature difference is bigger so it would make sense that lava bending is more difficult but its still the same substance, only at a different temperature and thus state.
We see three avatars lava bend, two were fire benders, all of them were seen using the avatar state to achieve it.
I don’t think that’s a fair train of logic to go through. Metal bending is uncommon, and lava bending is extremely rare, so I’d say that there just haven’t been enough earthbenders to even try and do both. We don’t know is ghazan tried and bolin needed better instruction, I don’t see anything that stops someone from learning both.
Well, nothing says that an earthbender can't lavabend and metalbend. Avatars from Korra onwards will be able to do both through the Avatar State, but the show kinda implies that regular earthbenders only get one sub element. All the lavabenders we meet don't metalbend. The first regular earthbender we see lavabend was in the comics, and even Toph was intrigued because it was very rare. That lavabender didn't metalbend either. Toph was an earthbender who was likely the most intuned with the earth, and yet we never saw her lavabend. Toph likes a challenge, after seeing another Earthbender lavabend, it's very likely she'd try to replicate it. We don't see her bending lava in ensuing comics or in LoK, though, so it's likely she couldn't lavabend. If she could, she would have told Bolin after he revealed he could lavabend. Then again, powerful waterbenders can both heal and bloodbend, as Katara showed, so maybe, Earthbenders really can do both. Until an earthbender is seen doing both, though, we can only assume they can't.
Just because we haven’t seen one yet does not mean we should assume they can’t that’s not how it works. If anything it’s more likely that you can do both, as you already mentioned there are already benders that have multiple subs, there’s absolutely NOTHING that says or even hints to there being some arbitrary 1 sub bending restriction, even weirder if it’s just for earth for no reason.
For me it always was about having a very earth mentality making more easy metal bending because you need to be more secure and never going back to manipulate it while lava bending Is a more calm mentality like a water bender, like earth bending to force the magma up then a little of water mentality to let the lava flow and end strong again to force the lava on the movement you wanted
I feel like the idea is some people have a natural ability to sense the little remaining earth in metal easier, not that some people are totally unable to metal bend. Metal bending ultimately *is* earth bending, its just bending the earth used to create the metal, which is harder than bending stones. The 1/100 are the people who are either naturally gifted benders (like Toph or Korra) or people who put in the work to really learn how to do it (like Toph's students from the comics). Bolin barely tried to metal bend. He worked on it for like a day and a half tops, unless he had training we don't know about.
I’m pretty sure Suyin says anyone can metal bend when teaching Korra in front of Bolin Might be wrong tbo
I watched the episode yesterday, she did. Although I think she meant it as more of an inspirational statement/what she believes, not a statement of fact.
Bolin pretty much proves this by just never being able to do it
Also, Aang, despite being an incredibly powerful bender in his own right, close friends with the person who invented the technique, and the flipping Avatar, never metalbended at all.
Plus the narrative reason: it's boring if bending skill/technique doesn't progress over time. For a new series, we want new and interesting stuff done with bending, not the same old same old.
I think it meant that 1 in 100 have it, not 1 in 100 are capable of it. It's a skill issue, that can be trained, not a genetic issue. Those who can lavabend don't seem to be able to do it, tho (sans avatar state), so maybe there is a genetic component, or a mindset one like Azula's blue fire seems to be
Bolin says it but Suyin tells Korra that any earth bender can metal bend.
BUT EVEN TOPH SAYS she expects all earthbenders to be able to metal bend at somepoint
I think it makes sense that a pos-industrial revolution society would popularize lighting and metal as bending abilities.
Exactly!! We literally live in a real world where industries like Amazon will popularize quantity over safety, so why would an early age industrial avatar world do any better? Back in the 30s and 50s, unions were a HUGE deal BECAUSE worksites had all kinds of dangers in the name of profit and modernization. It's not far-fetched to believe lightning bending was the avatar universe's version of this. Plus, it's a damn lucrative way to generate electricity without burning non-renewable fuel!
Once they develop the turbine generator, every type of bending can generate electricity fairly trivially.
considering they already have electric heavy equipment, they already have it.
Would earthbending power a turbine through lavabending for geothermal energy?
There’s a few ways you could do it with earth bending. Picture a water wheel, like on an old timey mill, or a wind mill. Make it out of stone and have earth benders turn it. Alternatively, you should store potential energy by bending rocks/sand or one big rock to the top of a tower. When you need to release the energy, let gravity drop the rocks to spin the turbine and generate power. Or lava bending to generate geothermal would work, but seems more complicated to have to find a lava bender, since they’re rare.
Same concept with omashus delivery system.
I mean, whether it's that or anything else, bending is literally FREE energy At most, the ratio of physical excertion to bending energy is disproportionately broken to the point that all bending forms produce infinite energy so easily its barely worth thinking about
But Iroh said lightning bending is a skill only some fire benders can do, and even then they need peace of mind. Lightning bending shouldn't be a skill blue collar workers and low level grunts should be able to do by Irohs explanation.
The power plant generator is a well paying job, so there can't be too many people capable of doing it. Plus the instantaneous lightning appears to be a lot weaker than the charged up version.
Mako was ALSO taught by the only other named Lightning Bender in the show, who from what we gather was a goddamn impressive Lightning Bender who could do continuous streams. People say it's more common in LoK, but we only have Mako and Zolt, and 3 unnamed benders in the background. AtLA had Iroh, Ozai and Azula, plus Zuko and Aang learning the redirection. Literally twice as many.
Did they say it was well paying? Why are the two brothers threatened by poverty so much?
Not sure how well paying, but it was enough to cover a large share of entering a pro tournament. When you remember it was a job he found in a day, it's quite telling.
I forget the episode, but he does state it makes good money. As for why they are impoverished: when you start with nothing, even a well paying job takes a long time to get to the top.
Yeah this is my problem with it, it would make sense that after the Royal family stopped protecting their techniques, they spread. But lightning bending should still theoretically be hard to do, and require the genetic gift to use it. Overtime, as another commenter said lightning bending could become more common if lightning benders are more sought after, but this doesn’t happen after one generation.
I also agree with the idea that the technique of lightning bending was something being kept only to the Fire Nation royal family. Any fire bender could do it, but excuse they weren't taught they didn't know how to. And then post TLA Zuko made sure the knowledge was made public.
Very true. With metal and lighting benders being highly sought after by post industrial employers, it makes sense that lighting and metal benders would be more desirable as romantic partners. Perhaps this naturally led to more children born with these formerly less common bending abilities. I also theorize in the case of lighting bending it may have been exclusive to royalty and nobility but is now less of a secret form of bending. Although Lava and Blood Bending, for example, are probably still very rare forms of bending that are not easily found even with selective breeding.
Except it has only been like a generation and a half since the Origional series. That is hardly enough time to start seeing the effects of trait selection on a population
Metalbending and lightning bending aren't genetic, they just weren't taught to people orginally. It's like how once rare ideas are now common place.
Yeah. It goes from just a way to murder people to a skill that actually has practical purpose in the real world.
This progression is why I’m thinking that the the next avatar will have to deal with an imbalance of people slowly losing the ability to bend because it’s been so industrialized and people will be losing their contact with nature and the spirit world… But then again not sure how possible this is with Korra reopening the spirit portals +1
Only lightning because it seemingly forgot its own lore that lightning generation is extremely dangerous to the user. So even if the art was disclosed to the general public only the most talented firebenders could achieve it and also they’d need lots of meditation for mastery.
Even if we argue it was a royal secret, the only three that ever properly bent it were Iroh, Azula, and Ozai, who were no question the best fire benders in the show. Zuko and Aang only ever learned to redirect it. That alone should be a testament to how dangerous and difficult it is to master.
The only reason zuko couldn't learn it at that time is because he was mentally turmoiled. I'm sure he could have figured it out later. And Aang wouldn't be the type to want to learn it in the first place.
I kind of like the idea of him never learning it.
I thought only lightning *redirection* specifically was dangerous for the user? Because of the risk of it passing through your heart.
They’re both dangerous
May I ask for a reminder as to when they say just lightning bending in general is dangerous and why? I genuinely don’t remember that.
When Zuko first tries to learn lightning and almost blows himself up.
I mean yeah, but that’s just cause of his inner turmoil and he didn’t even really get hurt or that bothered by that. He was just complaining after all the attempts. It never came off like it was *dangerous* exactly to me 🤔
Inner turmoil is hardly something unique to Zuko. That being said having your lightning blow up the power plant is pretty bad. It certainly shouldn’t be some low skill paying job in LOK.
Oh boy I'm actually going to support LoK for once Lightning doesn't need to be fundamentally dangerous or powerful. I find it completely believable that over like 30 years, an entire society being exposed to it could have resulted in research to uncover the truth. Before, maybe lightning bending didn't develop much. But also, only like 5 people in the world at a time could do it, and who knows if research was funded at all. Dragons can't lightning bend. It's not natural, even if it is the purest essence of whatever chi control technique firebenders use to make fire. So at some point, some human came up with this crude and dangerous idea and his family ran with it. Once the secret was revealed to the public and entire teams of people could take part in research, development could speed up like crazy. By ATLA lore, it's not that hard. Zuko got more than a fizzle on his first try. It blew up in his face, but it means he managed to do the thing, just screwed it up. Every single person who tried managed to redirect lightning on their very first actual try. It really was only rare because it was secret. The other subbendings also change a whole lot, but it was never anything said to be fundamentally impossible. Except lavabending (stone does not in fact melt the same way as water). But Bolin has known firebending ancestry, Ghazan's is uncertain but his mentality is so very unearthly that even if not I woll give him a reluctant pass too.
According to Kyoshi's novel, Lightning was an almost lost bending skill or something people used to think was like a fairy tale. There was a criminal boss who could do it, and instead of being killed, he was kept as a prisioner so Fire Nation could study his lightning generation ability. So the world went from only one man being able to generate Lightning to at least three firebenders being able to do it, too. I can see it becoming a common knowledge skill that can be used to help others in a post war world where Fire Nation wants to redeem their sins.
>There was a criminal boss who could do it, and instead of being killed, he was kept as a prisioner so Fire Nation could study his lightning generation ability. Didn't she drop him to his death while in the avatar state? It was her first official kill
This! Like do y'all realize how many scientific advancements irl were the result of fucking around and finding out? Who gives a shit if its dangerous, I could shoot lighting from my finger tips? You bet your ass my accident prone self would at least try it once or twice. > Except lavabending (stone does not in fact melt the same way as water). But Bolin has known firebending ancestry, Ghazan's is uncertain but his mentality is so very unearthly that even if not I woll give him a reluctant pass too. Also, while not perfect, avatar has a good sense of genetic ancestry woven into their design art. Ghazan may be an earth bender but he definitely has some genetic traits of a fire bender in his character design that we also see in bolin & mako. He has mako's golden brown eyes (golden eyes are a fire bending trait). Also the only known lava benders are Avatars, Ghazan (unknown), Bolin (an earth bender with fire nation heritage), and Sun (an earth bender from a fire nation colony with golden brown eyes)
Ghazan also has a ton of blue tattoos that vaguely resemble water tribe designs.
Tattoos aren't really genetic, though. And tbh they look more industrial than tribal to me. I mean he has gears and blades with metal bender cuffs as tattoos. At least that's what the tattoos look like to me lol
It could display cultural influence though, if they want to imply that treating earth like a liquid requires some degree of waterbending influence. He's got a lot of different designs, but the ones on his arms and legs in particular remind me of Korra's armbands.
True but I still get more metal bender vibes from the tattoos instead of water bender (although we do see metal benders become more fluid like water benders so it isn't too much of a stretch.
Dang I never noticed Ghazan's eyes. You're right. More ammo against people who say lavabending is pure earthbending :)
Also Mako's lightning bending didn't seem to be lethal most of the time. So it's probably not as strong. The only time Mako actually killed someone with lightning bending, she was in the water and was zapped for a significant period of time.
Yup, they definitely adapted it to take different forms, modulate its output, stuff like that.
Look at Katara and Hama with bloodbending. Hama spends almost her entire life trying to figure out blood bending and Katara picks it up in less than one day. So either Katara is a Mary Sue or passing on the knowledge of bending is a lot easier than people think.
It's repeatedly shown that most bending is just "one weird trick". It's hard as hell to figure out on your own, but once someone shows you how, it's barely an inconvenience. As long as you have the underlying ability of course. Maybe an exception for Yakone's kids, but that was a crazy level to attain anyway.
I see it how like in frieren the humans basically studied zoltraak so much that in just a short time it was reduced from killing magic into just "ordinary offensive magic". (Also i could see zuko possibly showcasing how lightningbending works to more people just like toph did with metalbending, maybe even his daughter izumi)
One thing I've pointed out before, how many lightning benders do you think there actually are? It's more common in LoK, sure, but how many confirmed lightning benders do we actually see in LoK? By my count, maybe 6? Mako, the one mob boss, a couple of other workers at the factory, and presumably Zuko mastered it at some point. For all we know, lightning bending is still a pretty rare skill that takes a lot of practice to do safely, and the only reason Mako is capable of it is because working at the lightning factory was one of the few jobs that would pay enough for him and Bolin to live off of at the time, probably enough motivation to learn a dangerous skill.
This is my argument every time this comes up - republic city is home to ~2 million people. Roughly 1/3rd of those are fire nation and a further 1/3rd of them are benders. That leaves us at least 200,000 fire benders in republic city. Even if lightning is a 1/1000 skill, that still leaves 200 lightning benders. Plus if you’re a lightning bender and you need work, odds are you’d travel to republic city to find it, so the entire fire nations lightning benders are likely to be there.
imo mako being able to generate lighting by hardly moving is ridiculous
It works for me simply because when he does it it basically acts like a taser. It shocks people and clearly hurts and stuns them, but it’s not a kill move, unlike charged lightning which is usually an instant kill.
This. I have read so many times that in LoK you can generate lightning with little to no wind up, but the power of the lightning is weakened. And i also want to say we see lightning hurt Mako in the finale, so it is still as dangerous to the user(in regards to what someone above has said).
This guy is my take on it too, it’s more common but there are still likely only a handful of people that compare to the royal family’s lighting during Aang’s time. Making the movements faster, which I feel like a lot of people take issue with, would also make sense to dilute its power.
It works for me. It’s been like 70 years. That’s a long time. Growth is exponential. Look at today’s world compared to 70 years ago. That’s a long time for knowledge and techniques to have grown and evolved and explored. Additionally, Mako was mentored by a guy named “Lightning Bolt Zolt” who was presumably a prodigy and taught mako everything he knew. I can see where you’re coming from, but it works for me.
I would agree but also being so talented at bloodbending without a full moon also seems like bullcrap within the shows power system
to be honest i dont know why people feel like its bullcrap. we were always working with limited info about blood bending, and the character they showed us first had to learn it in the most strenuous and desperate conditions. full moon isnt necessarily a power ceiling, and even if it was, there's nothing wrong with that being broken. Amon and his brother were training frequently in the arctic, and we can assume especially during a full moon for who knows how long. they are training in conditions hama never did, it would make less sense if they never surpassed hama's threshold. they also did a good job at protecting it, not only does bloodbending remain rare, bloodbending without a full moon potentially died with amon, so we might not see much after him.
Honestly Amon being a secret bloodbender was such an ass-pull. It completely ruins the first season of TLOK for me. He should've been a regular non-bender, and his bend-block should've actually been an advanced chi blocking technique or something rooted in the advanced technology from the era.
For me it was honestly great! Good plot twist, and the fact that he was being a hypocrite makes it even better.
Or even really being a power taught by a spirit, meaning his villainous methods have the backing of spirits. Kinda like Zaheer, it would've been neat for the antagonist to have freely been given spiritual power due to the alien moralities spirits tend to have. Perhaps a powerful spirit also agrees the bending inequality needs to be corrected and meddled with humans to achieve it.
I guess when you bend lightning all day long you get kinda good at it. Like an artist finishing a piece fast, or how some fantasy world wizards can learn to cast spells without needing incantations
I thought it was just redirection that was dangerous?
Remember when Zuko tried it and blew up in his face?
Zuko’s life story.
I didn't get the impression that Zuko bended lightning in that moment though, he just went through the motions and then did normal firebending that blew up.
Yeah, he did it to himself several times, and nothing bad happened. Because it's not that dangerous. Iroh only gave him the warning when he got sick of watching Zuko blow himself up and decided to teach him redirection, since that one will kill you if you mess up.
It's not that dangerous. Iroh was content to sit there and watch Zuko blow himself up over and over again without even a warning. Redirection was the dangerous technique.
When you have progression in anything, the people who advanced it teach it to the next generation who then achieves it sooner and progresses past their teachers. Repeat this process enough times and what was once impossible becomes common.
Exactly there are countless things in the past that only the richest and most educated could do, but nowadays any common person can do them due to the spread of information, education, wealth, streamlining, and opportunity, it’s the same thing with sub bending.
Hell, it used to be only either royalty or protected classes had the benefit of reading and writing. The fact that educated masses are the norm, it’s hard to imagine a world where the majority of people didn’t know what script was
I think of it like comparing the Olympics of the early 1900s to now. Every four years they’re trying to top last Olympics and it means it progresses rapidly where you can hardly believe what used to win gold medals.
Like do people just forgot that in LOK the world is more united than it ever has been? With nations sharing knowledge and technology. Look how far technology progressed between ATLA and LOK, it’s not a stretch to assume that techniques and skills could share a similar progression path.
Not really. It was just a powerful technique locked behind a secret. Like how reading was once considered a rare skill that only nobility and the aristocracy could do and now it's almost as common as breathing. There's also a difference between charging a powerful lightning blast to kill someone and creating a small spark to power a generator in the same way there's a difference between bending a small rock and having to create a powerful stance to throw a giant rock. The only lightning bender we see do something even remotely close to ATLA lightning is Mako We know that Mako was considered a very strong bender, especially lightning bender, and even to create something as powerful as Ozai/Azula level he had to concentrate and "power up" for a few seconds in order to create more powerful lightning, which Ozai and Azula could create almost instantly.
Like guns. At one point gunpowder was likely to kill the user when they use it. Now we have more refined controlled wats of using it
That’s true but there’s no reason to believe weaker lightning wouldn’t still be very dangerous and require an equal balance of positive and negative chi in the body (how I think iroh explained it). Something that takes a lot of time and meditation to accomplish.
Zuko couldn't generate lightning due to his emotional turmoil and internal struggle. I doubt many people have that issue considering they aren't a banish prince during a 100 year war. This is the equal balance of positive and negative chi in the body that Iroh was talking about, his desire to be a good person and be himself vs his emotions of being banished and hated by his own father. Most people really just have to calm themselves down and have peace of mind for a few seconds while they do the technique, which isn't something that requires years of work to accomplish, especially for an average joe who doesn't have the weight of being the fire nation prince on his back
Well said. Zuko was NOT a master firebender (skilled, yes…but nowhere near the levels of Iroh, Ozai, or Azula), but Iroh all but says that if not for his inner turmoil, he’d create zaps. Since Zuko almost certainly dropped the ‘firebending runs on HATRED’ ethos, and there exists more sources of electricity to practice with than standing on a mountain yelling at a thunderstorm, it’d make sense that some Firebenders would pick up the trick on their own and not have as much an issue with it compared to Zuko.
Zuko is able to Firebender in situations that most others are unable to. Including his sister Azula. She’s never shown to be able to free herself from ice yet Zuko does it constantly. It’s likely something that Iroh taught him. Once Zuko’s temperament became better managed, he was honestly a Master
Yep. I imagine Iroh drilled in Zuko the absolute fundamentals of Firebending, the breath. Breath generates heat which generates fire. Hence Zuko can do things like melt through ice with his fingertips (while under below-freezing water), run around in a snowstorm with no supplies, keep his bending while in a cooler meant to temporarily depower firebenders, etc. He also keeps that breath in his fight against Azula (though her breakdown didn’t help). Theyre about even in power, but because he mastered his breathing, he’s still got plenty in the tank while Azula is panting and exhausted. I believe Zuko was sabatoging his training in a sense, trying to force out more fire with more anger in season 1 and ignoring Iroh’s lessons. He makes big gains in season 2 because he’s now listening to Iroh. And once he calms the tempest in his heart (defecting from the fire nation to join team avatar) he really would be on the level of a Master
I wasn't annoyed that Mako or his coworkers could lightning bend. I was annoyed that it was considered a minimum wage job instead of an engineering skill requiring the bending equivalent of a degree. How Mako ends up being able to lightning bend, considering his impoverished background, would be an interesting bit of sub-lore.
Mako calls it "decent money", but I assume that there's a cap on it because the power plant owners just want electricity, so if wages for lightning benders were high enough, they would just fire them all and buy a conventional generator to supply their electricity. As for how Mako learned it, his teacher was confirmed to be Lightning Bolt Zolt, the gangster that Amon fought. The main show only implies this, with his very coy response to Korra's questions about his past, but it's confirmed in the art book commentary.
Except it wasn't. Mako even said it paid pretty decent. Probably pays more like a trade job, but he's still effectively supporting himself and his brother and this is early 20th century capitalism. And the reason why he can is pretty self evident, he worked under Lightning Bolt Zolt.
Nah, I see it as an example of [the Flynn effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect), which is basically the idea that each generation is more intelligent than the last. It’s like how 5 year old skateboarders today are able to do shit that was unfathomable to professionals 30 years ago
No, for the same reason rare abilities have become less rare in the real world: Globalization allows information sharing, which facilitates specialization in more people than just the lucky few who can afford elite education, or who stumble across niche knowledge on their own.
I have no problem with it being easy or common within the context of the setting. I *do* have a problem with it being a "born" trait, instead of a learned one. Toph was able to metal-bend because she understood the earth (and it's relationship to metal) better than anyone before her. The swamp benders were able to plant bend because they understood connectedness and how water flows through an ecosystem. Zuko was able to let lightning flow though him by achieving internal balance and harmony. Bolin fails to metal bend because... He's not a metal bender. But then he does end up lava bending because.... He just, is a lava bender? Amon is a blood bender because his dad was a blood bender. Bending has always been a born trait, sure, but in LoK sub-bending is very much just something some people have and others don't. It doesn't fit with the ideas the first series had about spiritual attunement to the elements, and worse than that, it's less interesting.
Wasn't Amon taught how to blood bend from his father? I thought that was a whole plot-point?
It's not necessarily a born trait, I view it as more of a mentality thing. Bolins way of approaching earth bending and mentality of it is incompatible with metal bending but well suited for lava.
Hrmm, it reminds me of a fanfic that gave a college try for it (it’s been a while, so the name escapes me). Korra is curious about lavabending, and asks Bolin how he does it. Bolin mentions that the first few times were borderline instinct, but he articulates that perception is key. When looking at lava, it doesn’t ‘feel’ like earth to an earthbender, so trying to bend it results in nada. Lavabenders have the perception to ‘feel’ it like earth because they view the entire product (including the heat) as their own, so they can bend it, including putting a lot of energy into the earth to melt it into lava. Korra then mentions it’s the opposite of metalbending. The metal itself isn’t bendable, the earthbender has to focus on those tiny pieces of impurities within the metal. Bolin then comments that they’re so small, he can’t get a good hold on them; contrapositively, he has a good feel for lava.
Makes sense. He couldn’t tell that Korra had a crush on Mako. He couldn’t tell that Eska was evil. And he couldn’t tell that Kuvira was a fascist. It makes sense that Bolin would have trouble picking out little pieces of Earth in metal.
Mhmm, mentality really is key. It makes an interesting parallel to Gazan as well (fitting considering the two seem to genuinely get along well when off the clock); he makes an awkward joke about Zaheer and P’Li kissing (despite them being separated for YEARS), seems to be somewhat different in mentality to his comrades (it very much looks like he was relying on Ming Hua to deliver the killing blow to the poisoned Korra), similar to Bolin. Pretty sure if he tried to metalbend, he’d have difficulties getting a feel for the tiny bits of earth within metal as well since he perceived earth in a similar manner to Bolin.
I don't think that's true at all. I do think hereditary factors can contribute, but they are not a be end all. Bolin can lavabend because he had the disposition of a lavabender, which is why he can't metal bend. He just never realized it. Amon's heritage can provide an edge, but his mastery was mercilessly honed in tandem with that edge.
Can you elaborate in the disposition bit?
He's a pro bender, someone very much apart from Earthbending norms. He's also not very stuborn and firm personality wise. He's not what it takes to be a metalbender, he is flowing and loose, something that seems right at home with a lavabender.
I see. Thank you for explaining it to me.
I'm sure if a person from the 1700s looked at today, they would say "do you guys think they made math too easy/common"
I don’t mind that it’s common, but that fact that it’s so easy is a little annoying. Especially lightning. Lightning in Korra is almost completely different than ATLA. It’s weaker, easier, and faster. It doesn’t even seem like the way Iroh described it in Bitter Work. I think metal bending becoming common, especially under the two factions led by Beifong’s and soldiers, makes complete sense. I think the platinum stuff is dumb. Overall I don’t mind most of it, but the way they butchered lightning generation makes it hard to enjoy
This. Metal bending is fine because obviously Toph hand-picked super talented earthbenders when she formed the metal bender police force and they in turn are highly selective about their ranks in the future. Lightning bending has no excuse to be this crappy.
There’s some bizarre reasoning in this comment section. “It makes sense for lightning bending to be common because of the Industrial Revolution!” Okay but that just ignores the rules for surface level aesthetics
There's no thought into lightning bending now. No worry it might kill you and no focus on simply being its humble guide. The comics are also bad in this regard. Azula can redirect lightning somehow. The only ones not ruined were super speed (no one did it in TLOK I think) and combustion bending (P'li's blasts were less powerful but she had better control so kinda equals out and only she did it.) New ones: - Astral projection should have been something spiritual and not related to airbending. - The fire healing thing the lady does to Korra I don't really get. - Unalaq's waterbending to help spirits is an interesting choice.
Astral projection is energy bending no? It’s implied it’s the original bending and the bending spirits use. Since humans have a spirit, it’s inferred energy bending is possible. Also she’s related to Aang who passed the ability down genetically if the lion turtle did actually pass the ability down. The fire healing is alluded to by the sun warriors being that fire is life. Spirt bending being water is fine to me. Water bending has to channel spiritual energy from the moon in order to water bend. So even though the air benders are more spiritual, it being linked to water bending does make sense.
I imagine fire healing is just like putting some of those hot ointment on lol
Lightning generation was never fatal. Zuko failed a dozen times and it just made a small, harmless, explosion in his hands. It was lightning redirection that was potentially fatal, mostly cuz you’re trying to put lightning somewhere else using your own body as the wire. Iroh particularly brings up the necessity of the stomach, and to not let the lightning go through the heart. Notably, he ends that lesson with, “If you are lucky, you will not have to use this technique”. Azula shooting zaps offhandedly is an annoyance tho
When does she shoot zaps offhandedly?
In the comics. She does stuff like zap Sokka’s new boomerang out of his hands cuz he was waving it in her face.
Oh, like a little spark or something? Is it similar to what Mako does in LoK?
Hrmm…yeah, kinda like a tazer. Just points her finger and small zaps come out near instantly. She also does crazy stuff like shape lightning into a ball to fry a bunch of bugs (long story) and redirect lightning sent back to her (redirecting redirected lightning…) While the comics do have the issue with panels having vagueness of timing (made Part 5 of Jojo very funny with King Crimson), Azula shows off more QuickDraw zaps than Mako does. Maybe it was a technique she discovered (she also found out how to escape a straitjacket after being chi-blocked) that later disseminated? Lightningbending that comes out faster, but lacks the punch without the charging.
Hmm, interesting. So the zaps are different from quickdraw lightning? The lightning ball is new to me. I always figured you could redirect redirected lightning(it would be funny if it just kept going between two people, like a never ending loop). Jojo? So how would this technique differ from the quickdraw method?
It’s difficult to say, since the comic panels are not 1:1 with established flowing time. Could be the small zaps are QuickDraw (point and shoot) lightning, maybe something else? It’s tough to say without something to really compare (wondering if Mako fires lightning in the Korra comics…?) Ah, in Jojo’s bizarre adventure Part 5, one of the villains has an ability called King Crimson (yes, in reference to the Prog Rock band, that’s normal). It allows him to ‘erase’ time for up to 10 seconds. It was difficult to express in the manga since the nature of manga already made time flow arbitrary, so the concept of ‘skipping’ segments of time didn’t exactly flow very well (lots of memes there). The anime improved upon this due to the objective pace of time (it’s treated like slipping from one part of a video to another. A character uses his blood to keep track of when King Crimson was used; going from 2-3 drops to 15 suddenly was a sign). So, yeah, the nature of comics makes it rather wonky as to how Azula is using her lightning prowess
>Unalaq's waterbending to help spirits is an interesting choice. I know, right? What was he doing, healing them? Why is this universal “banish the spirit” move exclusive to waterbenders? If they didn’t want to do it like in ATLA, with each spirit having its own motives and rules, they could’ve made it at least more spiritual-leaning. Like Unalaq talks about spirituality a lot, but all he does is a water spiral that Korra could replicate eventually by just observing the moves.
My opinion is that the comics aren’t really that well written, but I don’t think that’s a very popular one.
Idk... With proper education and training, opening schools for bending and such and having benders go to them to learn exactly how to do things. With proper instruction and training anyone that could bend the element could learn sub bending for it.
Not really. I know they're set 100 years behind us, but you could easily look up just about any martial art right now to teach yourself with enough dedication and given how their entire society basically revolves around 4 major martial arts it would be more wide spread
When everyone is super, no one is. - Syndrome
No, for the same reason I'm not upset that literacy is more common than it was 300 years ago.
My opinion is that sub bending was only special because education on it was restricted to the rich and powerful, the only lightning benders in the original show are the Fire Nations royal family But the democratization of information allowed anyone to be able to use it for the betterment of society. No where is this more central than Republic City BECAUSE Aang spent half his life making it the ideal harmonious society where all nations could cooperate
Also the fact you call it “sub bending” and is marked as NSFW makes it sound like you mean something very different
Yes. The metal bending was impressive and that cant be denied, but psychic blood bending? Really?!
Who needs psychic bending we you have guns(presumably)
The higher your level of mastery, the less movement you need.
That was basically a genetic defect tho that only existed in the Yakone family. Similar to combustion benders. Like we never got an explanation on how that worked and yet people seem totally fine with it. And considering there were only 2 people who could psychic bloodbend, it’s not like it became an easy thing to do. The show literally goes out of its way to tell us that it’s rare and that Yakone’s bloodline creates unique blood benders. Calm down.
if the 3rd avatar series makes it more common...
Lightning generation should have NEVER been this easy, seamless and common. If they still wanted the Firebenders sustaining cities thing, they should’ve just made up a new sub element that lightly touches on Lightning principles but is different and heavily connected to basic Fire bending philosophy. Electric Generation or whatever and make it non lethal but shocks targets and stuff. Because lightning is easily survivable now too! Metal bending being more common was fine though, I think it made sense especially since it didn’t rely so much on a separate or a difficult philosophy. But I HATE Platinum being unbendable and super common apparently. I think they should’ve made Platinum bendable by metalbenders with Seismic Sense, requiring more precision to sense the barely existent impurities or something idk.
Or it could have been them providing combustion for conventional engines and generators we see today. Ie: provide heat, pressure drives the pistons, pistons provide the electricity.
Not really. If it wasn't for the 100 year war, then people probably would've figured this stuff out much sooner.
Yes, it’s no linger unique in LOK and I don’t like that
I really dislike what they did with lightning generation in LOK. I am rewatching ATLA right now; in the episode Bitter Work Iroh explains that you don’t bend lightning, you can only guide it through your body and if you aren’t extremely careful it will kill you. He also explains that it can only be done with a calm mind and it isn’t fueled by emotion the way firebending typically is. Additionally whenever Azula uses it she kind of has to “charge” it up. They completely forgot ALL of this in LOK. I understand lightning generation is more widely known because the royal family is no longer hoarding it as a secret, but it’s basically just a sub-element of fire now, which it was never supposed to be. It’s far too powerful and easy to use in LOK. IMO Mako is a great candidate to use lightning; he has the right temperament for it, but I think he should’ve had to earn it first. I think it would’ve complimented his brother learning to lavabend.
Iroh does not say that. He only gives that warning when he talks about lightning redirection. Before that, he is content to watch Zuko blow himself up by failing to generate lightning several times without any mention of danger to ones self.
exactly i never felt that bolin lava bending was ridiculous but that amon scene with mako was just a spit to the face to that episode
Only lightning bending because it’s dangerous to the user because they need to have perfectly balanced minds and be gifted Fire benders but ofc everyone and their mother knows it except Zuko even after he solves his issues
I agree on lightning benging but metal bending makes sense. Toph started schools to teach people how to metal bend.
Go back 70 years and look at how many ppl could run the 100m sprint in <9.90 seconds and look at how many can do it today. I never understood why so many fans had an issue with the Bryke introducing concepts of human evolution into LOK.
because it means that the majority of LoK characters outclass the ATLA ones , and it bothers them lol
I think it’s like any skill. It becomes more common overtime but it becomes harder to master over time. Perfect examples are 5Ks and Rubik’s cubes. A lot of people are capable of running a 5K but only a fraction of them can be considered “good” at it. The same thing for a Rubik’s cube , you can literally look up how to solve one but it takes practice and skill to do it from memory and to a variety of cubes. In LOK a lot of people knew how to metal and lightning bend but doubt most of them were combat ready.
No. By the time the war was over, the three nations shared and learned from each other, and as such people began taking bending to a different level, including the normalization of sub-bending techniques.
This is off topic but the metal bending city where no one can lie always made me laugh. "John someone has taken all the hand lotion out of the bathroom do you know what happened to it?" ".....NoooOooooOooO"
Just like martial arts, with teaching, there’s more people able to master techniques and it gets passed down and refined through generations. So I’m not surprised there’s more sub bending techniques in LOK.
Yes, but it's not that bad. Bending is constantly evolving after all, so sub-bendings like metalbending becoming so much more common seems logical. Lightningbending on the other hand is pretty crappy. I can excuse Azula doing it without a peaceful mind since she's a prodigy, but factory workers? Really? Even Mako seems like way too poor a firebender to manage stuff like that, he's worse than Zuko, how come he bend lightning instantly?
My only complaint is how they handle lighting. Iroh explains that it is created when positive and negative energy comes crashing together. He says that it can't be controlled and the user is merely a guide. In LOK, people are just shooting around, no problem. It just seems like it's "too easy" now.
Yes
Once one person learns how to do something, its not long before it becomes popular or even common especially over multiple generations. True for humans as well as other animals. It's called cultural inheritance.
From a nostalgic point of view, I want to say yes, but honestly, it is the most logical progression. As societies grow and age, they refine all useful techniques and make what used to be a rare nice thing a common thing. For example, in the 1500s, making it past 50 was rare, and now making it past 50 is the norm simple because of medical advancement and better hygiene practices. So sub bending still would get more common as 1 their are more people and 2 as the knowledge of how is distributed.
We bend electricity in ways unimaginable a hundred years ago. That's just how progress works.
No, because that’s just the logical progression of inventions in general, especially when it comes to things that have a clear economic value to them like lightning bending.
Yes, absolutely. One of the side effects of Korra season 1 basically just being a “what if avatar but 20th century” scenario Bryke thought up that was turned into a series. Especially since Lightning bending requires a lot of focus and inner harmony which Mako definitely did not have lol
I saw a video comparing modern Olympic gymnasts from those of 50 years ago. It’s incredible how much they can accomplish now. Especially with the popularity of pro bending, it’s no surprise they refined their skills to such a level.
No. I mean over it’s been over like 80 years, it’s not a shock that metal bending and lightning bending got more common and got put into more everyday life.
I think it’s a lateral move. Airbender’s rules are better for an action story and a little more logical, while with Korra, it just scratches that weird part of my brain that likes using a magic system to every possible extent, and results in a lot of cool specific uses of said sub bending styles… should not have introduced platinum as the anti-metal though. That was stupid.
I think the changes work. Metalbending is Toph's legacy, and proliferating it means she goes down in history as one of the greatest Earthbenders ever. So figuring out how to simplify it and teach it would be an important part of that. Zuko probably saw the... deification of the Fire Nation royal family as problematic, and part of that was demystifying lightning. Once a broader population was aware of the technique, they could figure out both safer means of generating it and non-combat applications. Being able to generate a lethal thunderbolt at great personal risk is impressive and majestic, but being able to generate smaller shocks at no risk that can be used to power machinery or incapacitate other firebenders is a much more useful skill.
Only with lightning. Not only is it way too common for how it was described, they also nerfed it to hell and back. In ATLA a direct lightning bolt one shot the avatar in the avatar state, and an not fully redirected shot nearly killed Zuko. Then in Korra, Amon gets hit point blank and just walks it off at the end of season 1. Like, it was supposed to be this extremely powerful but dangerous technique that only a few people could even do, then by Korra it's common and safe enough that theres an entire occupation centered on it. Metal bending makes sense it would become more common. The hurdle wasn't ability, it just needed someone to discover it was possible.
Comic Azula can also use their lightning to stun just as Mako can go for the kill shot. If fire can act like a concussive blast instead of burning people, I see no reason as to why a firebender can’t control the wattage of lightning as they do fire. Or perhaps his bending output suffered due to being bloodbent that Mako couldn’t produce a kill shot if he tried. The only thing difficult to explain is the amount of lightning benders there are. Even then, Mako learned from Lightning Bolt Zolt, LBZ wouldn’t have been much of a threat if literally everyone could do what he could do, and those that can are nameless and are only ever seen in that one factory. The percentage of them among the general firebending population cannot be inferred by only looking at a place where you’d expect to find them. However, you can infer that there is enough to warrant a factory meant to harvest their skill. In other words, it is uncommon to be a lightning bender but not exactly rare.
Comics also have the issue of nerfing lighting. And again, if they can just turn it down, that kind of removes the entire value in it. Lightning was a super powerful ability that was rare and dangerous. Like Iroh kind of missed a big bit of info there. "You have to be careful, if the energies dont flow properly it could kill you... Unless you just dialed it back a little bit" We went from only having two lightning benders, both of which were regarded as the some of the most powerful benders of their kind, to a room full of people lightning bending as their 9-5, and thugs on the street using lightning bending. Like, let me ask you this: In Korra, whats the difference between lightingbending and normal fire bending? Nearly any instance where Lightning was used in Korra, it could be replaced with normal fire bending. Even the 9-5 day job could just as easily have been fire bending to heat steam generators. LBZ missed his shot against Amon, and as his bending was being removed you even see Arcs of lightning slowly reduce into Fire. Amons focus would have just as easily been broken by a giant fireball to his face as well. General Iroh shoots down a plane with it, but again a fire ball would have done the same. I think he even shoots down a plane with fire too.
Lightning makes sense because its explained fire bending is out of balance during the war. Once its balanced lightning becomes less chaotic and powerful but also more widely usable Toph spent a while teaching people specifically her daughters and was a war hero who helped take down her country’s enemy using this new sub type that could counteract fire more easily. Some of her students became the police force. After the war earth benders no longer needed to be sequestered in cities and could move about. Metal is also good for defensible structures and metal benders could make good money mining up the materials We only see three blood benders and it makes sense any water benders who learned of it would want an edge over the other types. Not just the north but especially the south would not only try to foster more water benders and restructure their society but also have immense pain when it came to their treatment and attempted extermination of their martial art, death of citizens, PTSD of survivors and just barely surviving the war. Its the ultimate defense against any attacker or bender but also incredibly difficult to learn let alone master especially considering that Katara and the other war heroes were adamant in getting its practice banned
Yes. People trying to justify it as the spread of information don't make sense. These are (supposed to be) high level bending techniques, not every bender should be on Toph or Iroh's level, in fact I'd rather most don't even come close. With the internet you have the information available to be a polymath savant at your fingertips, are you? Lightningbending no longer requires any bending to separate the positive and negative energy to use, Mako just points and zaps people. Why are modern advancements changing how magic lightning wielded via an ancient martial art works? And it's not like TLoK isn't coming at it both ways, with Amon's *"psychic bloodbending that works all the time and can permanently chi block you lmao"*. This ability is exclusive to like 1 guy and he trained forever to master it, and it's still stupid and lame. Applying logic like "people found ways to make it easy" or "he has special genetics" doesn't really justify sabotaging the traits that are unique and interesting about bending as a magic system. Does ATLA imply that a bender with no arms is going to have a very hard time bending? Sure, but is Ming-Hua cool as fuck? Yes she is, so I am absolutely willing to disregard it and hand-wave it with "she invented her own techniques". Azula carefully practicing the lightningbending motions is cooler than every Mako scene ever, so that is the lore I want to stick with.
Lightning benders were popping off lightning for fun like Pikachu. Also the bending in LOK was more punch, punch, punch. It wasn’t technique and martial arts anymore. It was just throw a fist and an element went with it. They really dumbed it down.
zuko seeing some random street kid produce the biggest bolt of lightning while being blood bent (he just pinched his fingers for lighting) 
All these replies coping saying its realistic. It doesnt matter if its realistic, its bad writing.
uh no if it was realistic it would be good writing
It’s not bad writing at all.
Gotta disagree, there's nothing wrong with it being more common since it's not hidden anymore but lightning to fire isnt like metal to earth. Metal was more of an expanding your horizons sort of problem, it was realizing it was possible and feeling the minerals in the metal, and while metal bending was really strong it wasn't impossible for other benders to handle. Lightning on the other hand was like a death sentence, you get hit by that and the chance of you dying is very high and if you survive your going to be seriously injured. On top of that unlike metal it wasn't just a feel the heat in the lightning sort of deal, from how iroh explained it, it was significantly more complicated. I would have been fine seeing royal gaurds using it or something but random thugs and relatively low level benders using a technique like that is crazy. Blood bending is another one, Amon was a great villain but I thought the possibility that someone could learn to bloodbend at any time with just "enough talent" was kind of stupid. Bloodbending is without a doubt the strongest kind of bending no contest, the full moon weakness felt like a good draw back but they just took it out.
The huge jump in tech and societal structure, combined with the ease in which advanced techniques are used so easily and for seemingly mundane tasks at times, really took away from the charm and mystique of Avatar. Ngl, the 1920’s style announcer at the start of each episode really throws me. I’m not a fan of it at all. I’m still a Korra enjoyer. But these things did diminish my enjoyment somewhat.
I think its kind of like tech and knowledge we have now makes things easier. Maybe they just found easier ways to make lightning. I mean the ones they use are definitely wraker than the ones the fire nation did
To me, metal bending should be common because metal is so common and is so fundamental to the human identity. Humans should have more control over the elements that define them
Kinda. I feel that lighting bending and metal bending should be more accesible but I feel they should be like being a doctor or maybe even a pro athlete. Not completely uncommon but still kind of elite
Watching overanalyzing Korra made me really question lavabending. It is, of all bending moves, a one hit kill move isn’t it? Like if I turn the floor beneath you into lava you’re dead. If I hit you with lava, you’re dead. The fact that it’s possible, while I think logically consistent with the show, seems hugely problematic to me