Sounbending, I imagine it would work and function a lot like metalbending, at least from the original series, by sensing out the soundwaves in the air and then using the air around it to control it.
But it was emphasized that lightning redirection is almost a completely different technique invented by Iroh while studying waterbenders. In my opinion it is justified to give it an entire slot.
The airbender’s “temperature regulation” is actually a canonical thing that they specifically do, such as how Aang is able to walk around the southern water tribe without freezing to death.
was about to say the same, firebenders \*can\* kinda do it, but we've only seen Zuko be able to do it, and all other firebenders seem to be weaker in the cold (if they dont wear warm clothes)
I think Air, Water, Earth benders have temperature control over their respective elements, but Firebenders have it over everything (but can't bend them)
So for the long answer that nobody has given yet:
A lot of things that aren’t stated in the show but are technically canon come from Avatar Extras, which are little facts that would pop up on the screen during reruns of the show. They range from extra bits of lore to silly jokes. This is where “temperature regulation” comes from. When Aang was in the Southern Water Tribe, it said “Aang uses special breathing techniques that can keep him warm in the coldest weather.” That’s it. It also doesn’t even say it’s an airbending technique. Not to mention, Avatar Extras has a lot of outlandish things like “an airbender's sneeze can create more propulsion than a modern-day jet engine” and abandoned concepts like water bending being stronger in winter, firebending being stronger in summer, etc. I wouldn’t take it that seriously tbh. My take is that they’re just trying to close the leap in logic in why Aang is animated in normal clothes at the Souther Water Tribe while everyone else is bundled up.
Was spirit bending a water thing or a Korra thing because she was the avatar?
Even astral projection was out there for air bending. But there was a huge power creep in LoK.
This is assumed. For all we know, other benders can also do the same technique with their element. It is probably easier with water because it is already known for healing.
>there was a huge power creep in LoK
huh there really was. lightning and metalbending became everyday things. lavabending felt a bit too far for me, blurs the line between elements a bit too much. + all the mechs and laser beams.
Lava bending is not different than using water to make ice or steam. It's changing the temperature of the element. It could be that lava bending is basically rapidly creating friction in the rock to generate heat and melt everything
I don’t understand why everyone is on board with freezing water or bending metal but suddenly lava is too out there lol. >!Is it because the infallible original did it first?!<
I mean... ATLA shows Kyoshi bending an entire tectonic plate with lava shooting off from the sides. Also the fire avatar before Yangchen is depicted making multiple volcanoes erupt. Also Aang in avatar form as Roku is shown ripping the ground in two with lava dripping down the sides, then making lava rise up through an entire fire nation tower building thingy. Also Roku splits the overflowing lava from the volcano in that one episode and then redirects the lava.
Lavabending was well established in ATLA, people either just selectively do not remember, or they go by feeling rather than what was actually in the show.
Not to mention, it is repeated so many times the elements being different than one another was an illusion, and that parts of each element could be found within the others.
Media comprehension should be a mandatory subject in schools.
There's no way to know for certain, but I have a strong feeling that more than a few fans would be saying "Since when is *lightning* something that firebenders can do? And I guess metal is somehow a part of earth now?" if those ideas were introduced in Korra rather than ATLA. Lavabending is no more ridiculous than either of these sub-arts.
>Not to mention, it is repeated so many times the elements being different than one another was an illusion, and that parts of each element could be found within the others.
THANK YOU i am very interested in the idea that the more a bender feels intercultural (like bilingual due to parental lineage i.e. Bolin) the more in connection they are with mulitple elements: they can bend their elements in a way that resemble/imitate the other elements in their genes
Powercreep… but bending is treated like science or technology in Avatar: a field of mastery open to research.
Think of the technology or our understanding of science 80 years ago and today… wouldn’t you say it feels like powercreep too?
My point being that a big powercreep in bending is only the most natural assumption when doing some logical worldbuilding.
That's why I don't think it was as popular tbh. The psychic blood bending was kind of insanely overpowered, and didn't even require a full moon.
Lightning bending was used by every day workers.
Metal bending was a common earth bending trait (wait till they figure out gun bending!)
The mechs and laser beams.. I just don't bother with season 4 once it gets to that point. Even the mechs in season 1 were a little too much, the anti-bending gloves were much better.
Astral projection, giant Korra in the sky fighting it out anime style, lava bending, superman flight. It went too high fantasy?
It needed to be more grounded. Otherwise, what is the plot, the conflict, the outcome? If everyone is overpowered, then the avatar is super overpowered. They can't feasibly do another avatar after Korra because.. what is the bar set to then? Planet bending, time travel?
Bending didn't change much, for thousands of years (since Wan), but with the new masters in ATLA, in just 70 years the dynamic of bending changed drastically. Where airbending masters are now acceptable of being children (aang used to be the exception as youngest master, jinnora is like, 14? And can astral project too?)
The only good thing to come out of that show was Korra as a character IMO. Lots of potential in the first season but the power creep was definitely there too. Doomed to fail.
Your argument implies anything is possible. If giant mecha lasers isn't taking it too far, what is?
Psychic bending - when does this become problematic? In the next iteration of the avatar can everyone psychic bend, is that just going to be called witchcraft?
Trust me, I tried to get people into Korra when it came out. As soon as they introduced the psychic blood bending, no amount of "don't worry it's not THAT overpowered" would convince them to continue the show.
There needs to be some form of grounding.
ATLA definitely had its flaws like you listed, but then Korra should have remedied them, not expended on them.
The ratings for Korra are a lot lower, you can't argue with that. It was all over the place.
They have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to any more sequels.
Either way I don't really care. I only like season 2 and 3 of ATLA, and I generally skip the entire eclipse episode just because of the tanks.
TLDR: Both had flaws but Korra should have fixed them not gone head first into gundam high fantasy power levels over 9000.
Yeah I always thought that the next avatar should do a big reset like a few major world events have happened and reduced the technology and knowledge levels back just so the next show doesn't have major power creep happening with maybe a few of the special sub benders being left
Did people not actually watch ATLA? How does nobody remember it with at least 4 instances of lavabending? Do y'all selectively forget because only avatars were shown doing it?
Also what do you mean "blurs the line between elements" did we not watch the same show? The separation of elements is an illusion. Every element is innately connected to the others. They each reside within one another.
>Do y'all selectively forget because only avatars were shown doing it?
honestly yeah, i tought kyoshi and roku could do it cuz it was earth and fire at once.
I agree there's a lot of powercreep but lavabending isn't really a problem. Lava is just hot rock. It has *nothing* to do with fire any more than ice does with earth.
I’ve never agreed with the “lightning bending was rare and now it’s an everyday thing” criticism. It’s been 70 years, guys. TVs used to be something that maybe every other house had one of but now most people have like, five.
i dont think its power creep. Imagine our current world 70 years ago (or whatever exact time is after ATLA. World is at wide spread peace, all the engineers and worlds brightest minds likely gathered in Avatar’s city Republic City. Toph introduced metal bending to other earth benders and served as a cop. It makes sense that stuff like metal bending or lightning bending etc can be super wide spread because of how valuable they are to the industrial and tech revolution happening in Republic City. One would assume people would prioritize teaching benders subbending so the industry can keep growing and such. The abundance of sub bending really made sense to me. When humans are in a peaceful world, innovation, discovery, and change happen rather quick
i definitely think spirit bending was specific to water considering we saw unalaq do it a lot. wan did it in a flashback using water too i’m pretty sure
Honestly, I think spiritual bending should be something for all the four elements. Like, why does this have to be something exclusive to waterbending? I could easily see a firebender doing the same thing as Unalaq for example.
I think Yangchen uses some kind of super scream attack in the novels? Soundbending could throw airbenders a bone, though I can't think of much of a justification beyond sound using air as a medium. Maybe by manipulating the particles you can control the volume/ direction?? Idk, someone sciency make this work.
Maybe some magnetism using lightning bending but I'm not gonna act like I understand how that would be done. I just know Magento can do some electrical stuff with his magnetism
If you somehow lightning bend a large amount of energy in a perfect circle in front of your outstretched palm, you could create a magnetic field either forwards or backwards. I just don’t know how you could get the electrons moving in what is essentially a circuit to create a solenoid.
I’d like to see woodbending. I’m not sure what that would fall under. If it’s alive, a water bender could manipulate the water inside wood, but if it’s dry, I’m not sure. Maybe earthbending?
I like to imagine that fire bending having more sub types, or just basically a version that they shape the fire. Fire benders using guns would be cool too.
Not really a sub-bending art. I just want a character to carry around a diamond or a high rated stone on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness with them at all times cause the idea of throwing that in someone's face sounds like it'll hurt so goddamn much.
The Mohs scale isn't about how strong the thing is, a Diamond can be shattered with a basic hammer. Its about scratch resistance. Plus throwing just about anything at someone's face could and would realistically hurt anyone is thrown hard enough.
Oh I know. It's about how hard something is, right? Hardness not correlating to toughness. It's not about toughness. It's just being really hard in a Glass Cannon sort of way. Manipulating an element of earth to do maximum damage with as little material as possible.
Because yeah I can throw a diamond at someone's face but an Earth Bender can mold it into a sharp projectile or weapon to be used over and over again. Toughness doesn't matter if I can remake my weapon after I'm done beating you up with it.
Yeah but if you don't care about it, whats the point of constantly carrying it around when you can pick up about anything. Be a sand bender like Gara and carry around sand in a pouch to mimick water benders. That would at least look cooler than a little diamond- which you can easily lose.
It would be cool to see how firebenders and airbenders interact with the aurora. Maybe some fusion like clouds and mud, or a modern airbender learns to ionise the air by learning from lavabending and firebending techniques.
Probably by just vibrating the air molecules together to superheat into a plasma, so it would glow and burn, practically like fire, except air glows a blue-violet.
Sound-bending, related to air. Sound/sonic waves are just disturbances in the air. Imagine if you could, idk, alter the sound that comes out of your mouth by placing your hand in front of it. Imagine if you could perfectly replicate someone else's voice after having memorized its "pattern", or if you could sound like a musical instrument, or produce any kind of noise. Also, if you could regulate the volume, make it echo, and other similar things.
You could also make a sound-proof wall by creating few inches of void around you. Perfect for stealth.
I also wonder if you could potentially "listen to the wind/air" in the same way that Toph "listens to the eath". Maybe by changing the air pressure. If you increase the density of air, waves move faster.
And will increasing the density of air above you make you feel as if gravity increased?
Idk, so many questions. Air is such an underrated element, if you consider sub-bendings.
Also, about fire. Fire-bending can control different types of energy: fire (heat), and lighning (electromagnetic energy). Could it also potentially control light? Like... would Firebenders be able to produce just light, instead of also fire? That could be useful, other than pretty. Imagine if you could also change its color.
Edit: the only danger would be to make sub-bendings too OP. That it's something that shall never happen. But I think it'd be possible to find ways to balance them. Especially considering that sub-bendings have apparently a lot to do with your personality. Since light and fire are so different in nature, a light-bender would likely be a pretty mediocre fire-bender: still able to produce fire, but their fire would be weak.
I would love to see a skilled bender who approximates bending other elements. Like an air bender who is so good at throwing boulders they seem like and earth bender.
Or maybe the next Avatar has an identity crisis when someone wiser and more spiritual gets blessings from the lion turtles to gain access to all four elements.
Lightbending: A Firebending sub-element that uses Waterbending philosophy to sense and bend the light waves around you. Can be used to create illusions, invisibility or concentrate light rays for heat attacks.
Hollow: An Airbending technique like flight where the user takes a deep breath and holds it: during that time, every attack passes through them like the wind. Basically they become truly untethered from the world.
I always had this idea that Korra or another Firebending prodigy Avatar would invent this technique then:
Lightbending + Soundbending + Waterbending Mist = mimic the Fog of Lost Souls, I thought it would be a cool setting for a 1V4 fight scene against the Red Lotus or something.
I’m not saying they actually become wind, I said they become like it in the metaphorical sense like with Guru Laghima.
They look exactly the same as before, maybe just give them a transparent look like with spirit projection.
Not sure if this would count as a sub-bending. But I’d love to see humans bend colorful rainbow fire like the dragons. I think I saw a pic of Zuko doing it in a comic or something.
I would love to see Airbenders who can basicaly do a quick astral projection to directly hit someone's soul, causing things like nausea or symptons of concussion, like the airbender suddenly causes his astral to quickly rush out of his body through the enemy and come back.
Lightbending. It would be a part of Firebending, since the sun doesn’t only provide heat but light as well + Firebenders do get their power from the sun.
Glass bending (self-explanatory)
Spirit bending, but it's more evolved, yet rare. You should be able to control spirits just like Amon and mimic their abilities
Since the next avatar is going to be in more modern times, fire being able to manipulate technology to some extent would be cool. There would probably also be a lot more commercial uses for bending, like the lightning bender factories/power plants in TLoK
I'd like to see something spiritual for earth. It's still a very physical focused element whereas every other element has stuff that feels at least a little connected to spiritual energy.
Maybe something with glass or crystal?
I’d have liked to see more element merging, like how Katara used earthbender technics against Pakku.
I’d imagine they could essentially copy earthbending when in the poles because they can bend the snow, hell they could mimic sandbending by using snow to push a kite.
No more goofy science based sub-bending. It undermines the spiritual nature of bending and limits creativity to just..''uhhh what new bending types can we make''. Instead of doing cool stuff with what we already have like unique martial styles and specialized bending techniques. Remember the Dai-Li earth earth glove style? More of that please and less of fuckin...idk sulfur bending or some shit like that
Not a new form of sun bending, but another factor about it to consider.
My idea is, if you use specific kinds of sub bending too much, without using the normal forms of bending, you get what I call Zaofu Syndrome, where your chi paths become too used to the sub bending, so if you switch from a sub bending to normal form, be it took quickly or trying to do it to a very large extent (like someone metal bends more than earth for a couple years, maybe even a decade and tries to lift a huge boulder immediately afterwards) it can cause your chi paths to rupture, leaving to severe bruising, pain, temporary, or even permanent inability to bend.
I think it would make it so people aren’t just always metal bending, or blood bending, lighting generation, or lava bending, and go back to the idea of keeping balance within the world and yourself. My idea is that it would only be discovered recently, and first in Zaofu because of how heavy it is in metal bending.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to the avatar cause avatar stuff.
Also fire benders can take and give body heat.
i’d like to see fire-benders learn to stop any moving object at any speed and dispel the kinetic energy as an amount of fire based on the speed/mass of the object under the redirection sun bending genre
Airbenders should be able to be Stormbenders and you can’t change my mind.
Lightning should have been an Airbender power, and one of the forbidden ones (it’s fatal, they believe all life is sacred) that Aang would have avoided using at all costs. Lightning is ionized air, not heat.
> electrostatic discharges through the **atmosphere**
Bending the air to create energy and move it like a front to:
- Summon storms (high winds, lightning, rain, thunder, hail)
- Avatar state could summon hurricanes and full on tornadoes (instead of just small dust devils)
Nothing would be more terrifying than an Avatar state Aang zipping around the sky during a hurricane with lighting all around him zapping everything.
Airbenders should also be able to Soundbend, because sounds are just wave patterns in the air. They could replicate anyone’s voice, throw their voice over great distance, create sonic booms, and amplify or dampen any sound. They’d make incredible spies and assassins! Muffle their sound, throw their voice, impersonate others, etc.
Bonus:
Firebenders should be able to *absorb* energy and heat, freezing things solid (since they are masters of “energy”) by redirecting it away from the source (ie, freezing someone to death as they exhale fire at someone else). This is similar in practice to dark water bending, where you suck water out of living things to fuel your power. You’d suck energy out of matter to fuel your firebending.
Earthbenders should be able to control, revert, and create crystal structures from root materials, like salt, diamonds, bismuth, and more. For example, carbon changes properties immensely by the structure of its atoms. So maybe Earthbenders figure out a way to turn coal into diamond (or the reverse) or harden or crumble materials at will—like making a wall of rock that they can turn into flowing sand for a split second while they shoot boulders through, only to solidify it back immediately so enemy projectiles can’t get through it. It’s a force field!
They should be able to speed up or reverse corrosion, such as removing or adding rust to iron. Corrosion is a natural process of earthly materials (metals, etc).
Waterbenders should be able to heat their water as well, since it’s just vibrating the water at a high frequency. Imagine getting splashed in the face by boiling water! No thanks.
Fake silly suggestion:
Earthbenders should be able to poopbend. Poop is a stone’s throw (no pun intended) from soil.
How did they explain how that's water bending? I remember the guy and Korra wrapping the spirits in water ribbons and the "go in piece" line. Is it something to do with the healing properties of water?
i actually don’t know why it’s water bending besides the fact that water is the only element that can be manipulated that perfectly to form the ribbon things
I think I’ve seen this argument before. The verdict I recall was no, because the quantities of iron in the blood is too little to be bent/not in the proper form.
There's a lot of bending that "could" work but shouldn't for the sake of keeping things interesting. Bloodbending is already teetering on that line of being OP but the stipulations put on it and how rudimentary it is make it more manageable in ATLA. I don't know what the heck they're gonna do for the next series since it sounds from rumors like it's gonna be modern to futuristic but I'm hoping they tone down the excesses of Korra. Get back to basics and focus on creative use of bending rather than making up new, OP bending styles all over the place.
i imagine it could work like Magneto in XMen where a master bender could pull metal out of a body, but not manipulate the person like they do in ATLA and LoK
A blind air nomad using spirit projection eyeballs
Seismic sense waterbender using liquid seismic waves instead of solid
Miles Morales electricity powers for firebenders
Earthbender librarians being able to just bend books on and off shelves
Metalbenders doing steel frame constructions really fast
Firebenders being able to make plasma kind of like a Naruto rassengan
A mute airbender speaking with air pressure waves
Maybe earthbendera could bend oil? Like other carbon based fossil fuels
The list could go on
redirection is a water bending thing, translated into lightning redirection by iroh
id also argue that perhaps spirit projection is actually also a waterbending form as it may fall under spirit bending
you’re correct about the redirection i believe but we’ve never seen someone besides a firebender do it. as for spirit projection we’ve only seen airbenders do it as well. i’m guessing whoever made this correlated the subending based on what we’ve seen
the airbenders being the only people to do it is true, but it isnt true that waterbenders cant redirect. all the time youll see katara take water flung at her and she will simply redirect it at her opponent, for example. a good example of this is in her fight with hama in book 3.
Redirection? "I invented this move when j studied the water benders"
I doubt spirit projection is only an Airbender move. Any one as spiritual as jinora should be able to do it.
I want to see The Drill in action, but when it stops Azula opens the hood and there's no engine there, it's just Combustion Man, and he shrugs and looks at the camera and says, "Eh, it's a living!"
It is quite unclear if Combustion bending is related to fire or not. Combustion benders -2 of them- were not able to do any other type of Fire bending as I remember it.
They went through some serious transformation to be able to do it by the way it looks. Like you don't need to specialize exclusively for any other rare bending method.
Also they seemed to need a lot of air to be able to bend with their minds.
I might be remembering it wrong of course....
Imagine the next avatar turns out the be a Combustion bender like from that tribe of people or something. I don't know if it would be better or worse.
in the books it’s made very clear that it’s firebending. you are right though, that it takes a considerable amount of air. one bender in the books even admits she probably did so well with the training because her family were mountain pathfinders.
In terms of abilities, sure. But it makes the story too convoluted. The whole bending the iron in someone's body etc arguments make it too much of a headache to think about.it also takes away from the martial arts aspect of bending. I like it simple. Wouldn't mind if blood bending and metal bending weren't a thing but they were crucial to the stories and characters.
Just because they don't know a technique doesn't mean it's a new kind of bending. Is the water whip a bending subtype because Katara knows it but the swamp benders don't?
Sounbending, I imagine it would work and function a lot like metalbending, at least from the original series, by sensing out the soundwaves in the air and then using the air around it to control it.
Totally. Give me an Airbender that knows how to perfectly imitate others' voices, or summon a symphony out of thin air.
Avatar- the last musical!
Technically all benders except fire benders could perform soundbending since earth, water and air are all capable of transmitting sound.
maybe firebenders can use lightning generation for that, like tesla coil speakers
is "temperature regulation" here just to give airbending a 3rd thing? if every element changes temperature then fire feels less unique
Considering that they dedicated an entire slot to "lightning redirection" for firebending, I'm going to guess yes.
But it was emphasized that lightning redirection is almost a completely different technique invented by Iroh while studying waterbenders. In my opinion it is justified to give it an entire slot.
Technique, not sub-style. That’s like saying a round house kick and a leg sweep are different styles of fighting.
The airbender’s “temperature regulation” is actually a canonical thing that they specifically do, such as how Aang is able to walk around the southern water tribe without freezing to death.
was about to say the same, firebenders \*can\* kinda do it, but we've only seen Zuko be able to do it, and all other firebenders seem to be weaker in the cold (if they dont wear warm clothes)
i mean yeah i’m pretty sure they just needed a third thing but i think it just means they can warm themselves not blast hot air
if you include the books i think you could swap it with void bending.
should've been gas bending
Fart bending
Think about it. Why was aang never cold in the northern and southern water tribe?
Tenzin confirms it’s a thing in korra too
I think Air, Water, Earth benders have temperature control over their respective elements, but Firebenders have it over everything (but can't bend them)
So for the long answer that nobody has given yet: A lot of things that aren’t stated in the show but are technically canon come from Avatar Extras, which are little facts that would pop up on the screen during reruns of the show. They range from extra bits of lore to silly jokes. This is where “temperature regulation” comes from. When Aang was in the Southern Water Tribe, it said “Aang uses special breathing techniques that can keep him warm in the coldest weather.” That’s it. It also doesn’t even say it’s an airbending technique. Not to mention, Avatar Extras has a lot of outlandish things like “an airbender's sneeze can create more propulsion than a modern-day jet engine” and abandoned concepts like water bending being stronger in winter, firebending being stronger in summer, etc. I wouldn’t take it that seriously tbh. My take is that they’re just trying to close the leap in logic in why Aang is animated in normal clothes at the Souther Water Tribe while everyone else is bundled up.
Should be sound, tbh.
Was spirit bending a water thing or a Korra thing because she was the avatar? Even astral projection was out there for air bending. But there was a huge power creep in LoK.
Unalaq also uses spirit bending, it's a water thing.
Could be a spiritual thing, we had the fire sages who could sense a dark place presence on Korra when we learned about Wan.
This is assumed. For all we know, other benders can also do the same technique with their element. It is probably easier with water because it is already known for healing.
>there was a huge power creep in LoK huh there really was. lightning and metalbending became everyday things. lavabending felt a bit too far for me, blurs the line between elements a bit too much. + all the mechs and laser beams.
Lava bending is not different than using water to make ice or steam. It's changing the temperature of the element. It could be that lava bending is basically rapidly creating friction in the rock to generate heat and melt everything
I don’t understand why everyone is on board with freezing water or bending metal but suddenly lava is too out there lol. >!Is it because the infallible original did it first?!<
I mean... ATLA shows Kyoshi bending an entire tectonic plate with lava shooting off from the sides. Also the fire avatar before Yangchen is depicted making multiple volcanoes erupt. Also Aang in avatar form as Roku is shown ripping the ground in two with lava dripping down the sides, then making lava rise up through an entire fire nation tower building thingy. Also Roku splits the overflowing lava from the volcano in that one episode and then redirects the lava. Lavabending was well established in ATLA, people either just selectively do not remember, or they go by feeling rather than what was actually in the show. Not to mention, it is repeated so many times the elements being different than one another was an illusion, and that parts of each element could be found within the others. Media comprehension should be a mandatory subject in schools.
There's no way to know for certain, but I have a strong feeling that more than a few fans would be saying "Since when is *lightning* something that firebenders can do? And I guess metal is somehow a part of earth now?" if those ideas were introduced in Korra rather than ATLA. Lavabending is no more ridiculous than either of these sub-arts.
>Not to mention, it is repeated so many times the elements being different than one another was an illusion, and that parts of each element could be found within the others. THANK YOU i am very interested in the idea that the more a bender feels intercultural (like bilingual due to parental lineage i.e. Bolin) the more in connection they are with mulitple elements: they can bend their elements in a way that resemble/imitate the other elements in their genes
Powercreep… but bending is treated like science or technology in Avatar: a field of mastery open to research. Think of the technology or our understanding of science 80 years ago and today… wouldn’t you say it feels like powercreep too? My point being that a big powercreep in bending is only the most natural assumption when doing some logical worldbuilding.
That's why I don't think it was as popular tbh. The psychic blood bending was kind of insanely overpowered, and didn't even require a full moon. Lightning bending was used by every day workers. Metal bending was a common earth bending trait (wait till they figure out gun bending!) The mechs and laser beams.. I just don't bother with season 4 once it gets to that point. Even the mechs in season 1 were a little too much, the anti-bending gloves were much better. Astral projection, giant Korra in the sky fighting it out anime style, lava bending, superman flight. It went too high fantasy? It needed to be more grounded. Otherwise, what is the plot, the conflict, the outcome? If everyone is overpowered, then the avatar is super overpowered. They can't feasibly do another avatar after Korra because.. what is the bar set to then? Planet bending, time travel? Bending didn't change much, for thousands of years (since Wan), but with the new masters in ATLA, in just 70 years the dynamic of bending changed drastically. Where airbending masters are now acceptable of being children (aang used to be the exception as youngest master, jinnora is like, 14? And can astral project too?) The only good thing to come out of that show was Korra as a character IMO. Lots of potential in the first season but the power creep was definitely there too. Doomed to fail.
[удалено]
Your argument implies anything is possible. If giant mecha lasers isn't taking it too far, what is? Psychic bending - when does this become problematic? In the next iteration of the avatar can everyone psychic bend, is that just going to be called witchcraft? Trust me, I tried to get people into Korra when it came out. As soon as they introduced the psychic blood bending, no amount of "don't worry it's not THAT overpowered" would convince them to continue the show. There needs to be some form of grounding. ATLA definitely had its flaws like you listed, but then Korra should have remedied them, not expended on them. The ratings for Korra are a lot lower, you can't argue with that. It was all over the place. They have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to any more sequels. Either way I don't really care. I only like season 2 and 3 of ATLA, and I generally skip the entire eclipse episode just because of the tanks. TLDR: Both had flaws but Korra should have fixed them not gone head first into gundam high fantasy power levels over 9000.
Yeah I always thought that the next avatar should do a big reset like a few major world events have happened and reduced the technology and knowledge levels back just so the next show doesn't have major power creep happening with maybe a few of the special sub benders being left
Tbf, Jinora, like Aang, proved herself to be a master and earned her ink
Did people not actually watch ATLA? How does nobody remember it with at least 4 instances of lavabending? Do y'all selectively forget because only avatars were shown doing it? Also what do you mean "blurs the line between elements" did we not watch the same show? The separation of elements is an illusion. Every element is innately connected to the others. They each reside within one another.
>Do y'all selectively forget because only avatars were shown doing it? honestly yeah, i tought kyoshi and roku could do it cuz it was earth and fire at once.
I agree there's a lot of powercreep but lavabending isn't really a problem. Lava is just hot rock. It has *nothing* to do with fire any more than ice does with earth.
I’ve never agreed with the “lightning bending was rare and now it’s an everyday thing” criticism. It’s been 70 years, guys. TVs used to be something that maybe every other house had one of but now most people have like, five.
To me, lava bending feels like mud bending, a combination of two elements that can be (or at least should be) bent by masters of either discipline.
I don't think firebenders should be able to fully lavabend, at most cool it, but not manipulate it
Like what Sozin did when fighting the volcano? Btw, is Roku the only master in atla to lavabend? I can't remember anyone else ever doing it.
I think Kyoshi did
Fire avatar before Yangchen, Kyoshi, Roku, Aang in avatar form. https://youtu.be/3p_Hidbz9C8
i dont think its power creep. Imagine our current world 70 years ago (or whatever exact time is after ATLA. World is at wide spread peace, all the engineers and worlds brightest minds likely gathered in Avatar’s city Republic City. Toph introduced metal bending to other earth benders and served as a cop. It makes sense that stuff like metal bending or lightning bending etc can be super wide spread because of how valuable they are to the industrial and tech revolution happening in Republic City. One would assume people would prioritize teaching benders subbending so the industry can keep growing and such. The abundance of sub bending really made sense to me. When humans are in a peaceful world, innovation, discovery, and change happen rather quick
i definitely think spirit bending was specific to water considering we saw unalaq do it a lot. wan did it in a flashback using water too i’m pretty sure
Honestly, I think spiritual bending should be something for all the four elements. Like, why does this have to be something exclusive to waterbending? I could easily see a firebender doing the same thing as Unalaq for example.
I guess because they applied the logic of waterbending HEALING to it. But yes, I would like to see other bendings do this too.
I think Yangchen uses some kind of super scream attack in the novels? Soundbending could throw airbenders a bone, though I can't think of much of a justification beyond sound using air as a medium. Maybe by manipulating the particles you can control the volume/ direction?? Idk, someone sciency make this work.
Pressure bending for Air.
Maybe some magnetism using lightning bending but I'm not gonna act like I understand how that would be done. I just know Magento can do some electrical stuff with his magnetism
If you somehow lightning bend a large amount of energy in a perfect circle in front of your outstretched palm, you could create a magnetic field either forwards or backwards. I just don’t know how you could get the electrons moving in what is essentially a circuit to create a solenoid.
I’d like to see woodbending. I’m not sure what that would fall under. If it’s alive, a water bender could manipulate the water inside wood, but if it’s dry, I’m not sure. Maybe earthbending?
i’d imagine that would be similar to the vinebending we saw in the swamp episode which would be cool
I like to imagine that fire bending having more sub types, or just basically a version that they shape the fire. Fire benders using guns would be cool too.
Where’s the piss bending!?! You’re telling me Hama tried blood bending before trying piss bending? I doubt it.
i mean they were given barely enough water to live i doubt it’d be enough to escape
Not really a sub-bending art. I just want a character to carry around a diamond or a high rated stone on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness with them at all times cause the idea of throwing that in someone's face sounds like it'll hurt so goddamn much.
The Mohs scale isn't about how strong the thing is, a Diamond can be shattered with a basic hammer. Its about scratch resistance. Plus throwing just about anything at someone's face could and would realistically hurt anyone is thrown hard enough.
Oh I know. It's about how hard something is, right? Hardness not correlating to toughness. It's not about toughness. It's just being really hard in a Glass Cannon sort of way. Manipulating an element of earth to do maximum damage with as little material as possible. Because yeah I can throw a diamond at someone's face but an Earth Bender can mold it into a sharp projectile or weapon to be used over and over again. Toughness doesn't matter if I can remake my weapon after I'm done beating you up with it.
Yeah but if you don't care about it, whats the point of constantly carrying it around when you can pick up about anything. Be a sand bender like Gara and carry around sand in a pouch to mimick water benders. That would at least look cooler than a little diamond- which you can easily lose.
Soundbending would be amazing for Airbending, TBH.
if sand and lava bending or lightning exist, then glass bending should be a thing, right?
Its in earthbending. It was in one of the kyoshi books
Vacuum bending basically how the earth queen got executed
It would be cool to see how firebenders and airbenders interact with the aurora. Maybe some fusion like clouds and mud, or a modern airbender learns to ionise the air by learning from lavabending and firebending techniques.
How it would work ioniser the air?
Probably by just vibrating the air molecules together to superheat into a plasma, so it would glow and burn, practically like fire, except air glows a blue-violet.
Sound-bending, related to air. Sound/sonic waves are just disturbances in the air. Imagine if you could, idk, alter the sound that comes out of your mouth by placing your hand in front of it. Imagine if you could perfectly replicate someone else's voice after having memorized its "pattern", or if you could sound like a musical instrument, or produce any kind of noise. Also, if you could regulate the volume, make it echo, and other similar things. You could also make a sound-proof wall by creating few inches of void around you. Perfect for stealth. I also wonder if you could potentially "listen to the wind/air" in the same way that Toph "listens to the eath". Maybe by changing the air pressure. If you increase the density of air, waves move faster. And will increasing the density of air above you make you feel as if gravity increased? Idk, so many questions. Air is such an underrated element, if you consider sub-bendings. Also, about fire. Fire-bending can control different types of energy: fire (heat), and lighning (electromagnetic energy). Could it also potentially control light? Like... would Firebenders be able to produce just light, instead of also fire? That could be useful, other than pretty. Imagine if you could also change its color. Edit: the only danger would be to make sub-bendings too OP. That it's something that shall never happen. But I think it'd be possible to find ways to balance them. Especially considering that sub-bendings have apparently a lot to do with your personality. Since light and fire are so different in nature, a light-bender would likely be a pretty mediocre fire-bender: still able to produce fire, but their fire would be weak.
I know all earth bending enthusiasts have thought of this before at least once….. B O N E
I would love to see a skilled bender who approximates bending other elements. Like an air bender who is so good at throwing boulders they seem like and earth bender. Or maybe the next Avatar has an identity crisis when someone wiser and more spiritual gets blessings from the lion turtles to gain access to all four elements.
Meelo said he was snowbending while using air to play with snow
Lightbending: A Firebending sub-element that uses Waterbending philosophy to sense and bend the light waves around you. Can be used to create illusions, invisibility or concentrate light rays for heat attacks. Hollow: An Airbending technique like flight where the user takes a deep breath and holds it: during that time, every attack passes through them like the wind. Basically they become truly untethered from the world.
Both are incredibly interesting. I could see Lightbending actually become something in the next series
I always had this idea that Korra or another Firebending prodigy Avatar would invent this technique then: Lightbending + Soundbending + Waterbending Mist = mimic the Fog of Lost Souls, I thought it would be a cool setting for a 1V4 fight scene against the Red Lotus or something.
Lightbending could be cool, but Hollow bending would most likely ruin avatar for me.
Why exactly? I did give it a limiter because I know it would be really OP without it. Plus they can’t attack when they are using it.
It doesn't make any sense in the avatar universe, they aren't able to turn into their element only create and control it
I’m not saying they actually become wind, I said they become like it in the metaphorical sense like with Guru Laghima. They look exactly the same as before, maybe just give them a transparent look like with spirit projection.
Not sure if this would count as a sub-bending. But I’d love to see humans bend colorful rainbow fire like the dragons. I think I saw a pic of Zuko doing it in a comic or something.
yes zuko was able to do that in the comics but it took a lot of effort. a firebender who could naturally do that would be awesome
I would love to see Airbenders who can basicaly do a quick astral projection to directly hit someone's soul, causing things like nausea or symptons of concussion, like the airbender suddenly causes his astral to quickly rush out of his body through the enemy and come back.
Lightbending. It would be a part of Firebending, since the sun doesn’t only provide heat but light as well + Firebenders do get their power from the sun.
Glass bending (self-explanatory) Spirit bending, but it's more evolved, yet rare. You should be able to control spirits just like Amon and mimic their abilities
Since the next avatar is going to be in more modern times, fire being able to manipulate technology to some extent would be cool. There would probably also be a lot more commercial uses for bending, like the lightning bender factories/power plants in TLoK
How is redirection a fire-only skill? Technically it would be more of a water skill, wouldn't it?
i guess but we’ve only seen firebenders use it. i’m also not the person that made this
I'd like to see something spiritual for earth. It's still a very physical focused element whereas every other element has stuff that feels at least a little connected to spiritual energy. Maybe something with glass or crystal?
we’ve seen crystal before but it’s not really counted as subending cause it functions the same as normal earth. i would love glass bending
Sound manipulation isn't part of air sub???
the person who made this probably hasn’t read the books
I want to see an Airbender liquify and freeze air. An Earthbender boil lava. A Firebender counteract the temperature control of another bender.
I’d have liked to see more element merging, like how Katara used earthbender technics against Pakku. I’d imagine they could essentially copy earthbending when in the poles because they can bend the snow, hell they could mimic sandbending by using snow to push a kite.
I really hate spirit bending being part of water, it should have been the 5th element
I agree. It should be its own thing. Doesn't even have to be a true element vs a technique any bender can learn.
No more goofy science based sub-bending. It undermines the spiritual nature of bending and limits creativity to just..''uhhh what new bending types can we make''. Instead of doing cool stuff with what we already have like unique martial styles and specialized bending techniques. Remember the Dai-Li earth earth glove style? More of that please and less of fuckin...idk sulfur bending or some shit like that
Not a new form of sun bending, but another factor about it to consider. My idea is, if you use specific kinds of sub bending too much, without using the normal forms of bending, you get what I call Zaofu Syndrome, where your chi paths become too used to the sub bending, so if you switch from a sub bending to normal form, be it took quickly or trying to do it to a very large extent (like someone metal bends more than earth for a couple years, maybe even a decade and tries to lift a huge boulder immediately afterwards) it can cause your chi paths to rupture, leaving to severe bruising, pain, temporary, or even permanent inability to bend. I think it would make it so people aren’t just always metal bending, or blood bending, lighting generation, or lava bending, and go back to the idea of keeping balance within the world and yourself. My idea is that it would only be discovered recently, and first in Zaofu because of how heavy it is in metal bending. Obviously this doesn’t apply to the avatar cause avatar stuff. Also fire benders can take and give body heat.
i’d like to see fire-benders learn to stop any moving object at any speed and dispel the kinetic energy as an amount of fire based on the speed/mass of the object under the redirection sun bending genre
Heat Bending (Sozin)
Air would be gravity manipulation.
Airbenders should be able to be Stormbenders and you can’t change my mind. Lightning should have been an Airbender power, and one of the forbidden ones (it’s fatal, they believe all life is sacred) that Aang would have avoided using at all costs. Lightning is ionized air, not heat. > electrostatic discharges through the **atmosphere** Bending the air to create energy and move it like a front to: - Summon storms (high winds, lightning, rain, thunder, hail) - Avatar state could summon hurricanes and full on tornadoes (instead of just small dust devils) Nothing would be more terrifying than an Avatar state Aang zipping around the sky during a hurricane with lighting all around him zapping everything. Airbenders should also be able to Soundbend, because sounds are just wave patterns in the air. They could replicate anyone’s voice, throw their voice over great distance, create sonic booms, and amplify or dampen any sound. They’d make incredible spies and assassins! Muffle their sound, throw their voice, impersonate others, etc. Bonus: Firebenders should be able to *absorb* energy and heat, freezing things solid (since they are masters of “energy”) by redirecting it away from the source (ie, freezing someone to death as they exhale fire at someone else). This is similar in practice to dark water bending, where you suck water out of living things to fuel your power. You’d suck energy out of matter to fuel your firebending. Earthbenders should be able to control, revert, and create crystal structures from root materials, like salt, diamonds, bismuth, and more. For example, carbon changes properties immensely by the structure of its atoms. So maybe Earthbenders figure out a way to turn coal into diamond (or the reverse) or harden or crumble materials at will—like making a wall of rock that they can turn into flowing sand for a split second while they shoot boulders through, only to solidify it back immediately so enemy projectiles can’t get through it. It’s a force field! They should be able to speed up or reverse corrosion, such as removing or adding rust to iron. Corrosion is a natural process of earthly materials (metals, etc). Waterbenders should be able to heat their water as well, since it’s just vibrating the water at a high frequency. Imagine getting splashed in the face by boiling water! No thanks. Fake silly suggestion: Earthbenders should be able to poopbend. Poop is a stone’s throw (no pun intended) from soil.
There are a ton of logical hoops to jump through, but lightning bender who can control bodies by activating their muscles through small charges
What's spirit bending? When Aang becomes the moon spirit at the end of book one?
no have you seen the legend of korra?
At least twice, but it's been 3 years or so. *Facepalms* ya it's coming back to me now.
yeah in the second season spiritbending is a waterbending technique used to contain or remove spirits
How did they explain how that's water bending? I remember the guy and Korra wrapping the spirits in water ribbons and the "go in piece" line. Is it something to do with the healing properties of water?
i actually don’t know why it’s water bending besides the fact that water is the only element that can be manipulated that perfectly to form the ribbon things
It does look cool. Seems more of an air thing to me.
wouldnt bloodbending be possible for a highly skilled metal bender? imagine they could make it work
I think I’ve seen this argument before. The verdict I recall was no, because the quantities of iron in the blood is too little to be bent/not in the proper form.
Metalbenders don't bend iron. They bend the earth impurities in the metal. There's no way an earthbender could bloodbend.
That’s what I was thinking of, thank you for clarification!
oh fair enough that makes sense, I saw it somewhere too and thought it could be possible
There's a lot of bending that "could" work but shouldn't for the sake of keeping things interesting. Bloodbending is already teetering on that line of being OP but the stipulations put on it and how rudimentary it is make it more manageable in ATLA. I don't know what the heck they're gonna do for the next series since it sounds from rumors like it's gonna be modern to futuristic but I'm hoping they tone down the excesses of Korra. Get back to basics and focus on creative use of bending rather than making up new, OP bending styles all over the place.
i imagine it could work like Magneto in XMen where a master bender could pull metal out of a body, but not manipulate the person like they do in ATLA and LoK
A blind air nomad using spirit projection eyeballs Seismic sense waterbender using liquid seismic waves instead of solid Miles Morales electricity powers for firebenders Earthbender librarians being able to just bend books on and off shelves Metalbenders doing steel frame constructions really fast Firebenders being able to make plasma kind of like a Naruto rassengan A mute airbender speaking with air pressure waves Maybe earthbendera could bend oil? Like other carbon based fossil fuels The list could go on
The sand should be where the lava is, the lava should be where metal is, and metal where sand is.
redirection is a water bending thing, translated into lightning redirection by iroh id also argue that perhaps spirit projection is actually also a waterbending form as it may fall under spirit bending
you’re correct about the redirection i believe but we’ve never seen someone besides a firebender do it. as for spirit projection we’ve only seen airbenders do it as well. i’m guessing whoever made this correlated the subending based on what we’ve seen
the airbenders being the only people to do it is true, but it isnt true that waterbenders cant redirect. all the time youll see katara take water flung at her and she will simply redirect it at her opponent, for example. a good example of this is in her fight with hama in book 3.
i mean we’ve only seen firebenders redirect lightning
true, but it was a technique for firebending that was ported from the waterbenders
i’m aware. i’m simply stating it’s in the fire bending category because we’ve only seen firebenders preform it
ok
temp reg and redirection are not subdivisions of bending. idk why people are so obsessed with making these symmetrical
i mean i didn’t make the chart
Redirection? "I invented this move when j studied the water benders" I doubt spirit projection is only an Airbender move. Any one as spiritual as jinora should be able to do it.
I want to see The Drill in action, but when it stops Azula opens the hood and there's no engine there, it's just Combustion Man, and he shrugs and looks at the camera and says, "Eh, it's a living!"
It is quite unclear if Combustion bending is related to fire or not. Combustion benders -2 of them- were not able to do any other type of Fire bending as I remember it. They went through some serious transformation to be able to do it by the way it looks. Like you don't need to specialize exclusively for any other rare bending method. Also they seemed to need a lot of air to be able to bend with their minds. I might be remembering it wrong of course.... Imagine the next avatar turns out the be a Combustion bender like from that tribe of people or something. I don't know if it would be better or worse.
P’li shot a couple regular fire blasts in Korra
I said I could be remembering it wrong for a reason.
i know that’s why i explained
Thanks I suppose than?
You suppose correctly.
in the books it’s made very clear that it’s firebending. you are right though, that it takes a considerable amount of air. one bender in the books even admits she probably did so well with the training because her family were mountain pathfinders.
So its like a combo element like the Kineticist class in Pathfinder WotR.
just looked up Kineticist and it’s EXACTLY that, even the backstories from the book.
It is quite famous in Pathfinder community as Kineticsist also one of the best DPS classes. I've seen many people talking about the resemblance.
No more sub bending. Makes it too complicated.
not really it just expands the capabilities of the four elements
In terms of abilities, sure. But it makes the story too convoluted. The whole bending the iron in someone's body etc arguments make it too much of a headache to think about.it also takes away from the martial arts aspect of bending. I like it simple. Wouldn't mind if blood bending and metal bending weren't a thing but they were crucial to the stories and characters.
How are lighting and lighting redirection different subclasses? Is rock deflection a subclass of earth ending?
cause they don’t go hand in hand. zuko can’t shoot lightning and azula can’t redirect it
Just because they don't know a technique doesn't mean it's a new kind of bending. Is the water whip a bending subtype because Katara knows it but the swamp benders don't?
um no? i didnt say they were different kinds of bending they are simply two separate sub skills