"In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements, but the energy within ourselves. To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed."
"In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements, but the energy within ourselves. To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed."
Again, why would the Avatar bother to teach animals how to bend? It makes no sense.
Perhaps the energybenders were indeed the first benders. With the inclination towards proper chi pathways, they would already have the genetics for bending. Depending on the bender's environment, certain situations would call for certain types of beinding, with the most useful types settling in their optimal environments: the nations we know today. As bending the elements rather than chi is much more useful, deadly, and less risky to the user, the remaining energybenders either adapted to using the elements or died out, likely from conflicts with elemental benders (try getting close enough to a bender in order to do that energybending stance without the help of the other elements).
I think the thing that people learned from animals how to bend it's not really mythology. I mean , they already knew how to bend they were born with it and when they encountered the animals corresponding to each nation they did what Toph did when she met the Badgermoles. She learned from it a new technique and that's all that is to it.
My guess is that at first when people descovered bending they didn't know they could bend the elements instead they used energybending.
Somehow I fail to understand why when Tui was killed by Zhao the waterbenders lost their bending. I mean I know they are linked to the moon in the same way firebenders are linked to the sun. But does that mean that bending is only spiritual ? If it was the case then everyone were to be born a non-bender and then become a bender via it's nation's spirituality and teaching.
But it's not the case as we saw that genetics have a lot to do with bending ability. It's passed on in some cases or it can skip a generation or two.
Its a bit of both, and can get rather confusing.
Spirituality does seem to affect the frequency of bending alleles. Thats how you get pure bending civilizations like the Air Nomads, Sun Warriors, Sandbender Tribes, and Foggy Swamp Tribes. Each of these civilizations keep more in touch with their natural environment and spiritual sides, often having religious leaders like the sandbender priests of Huu of the Foggy Swamp Tribe.
That said, the spirituality explination does seem to break down a bit when a nation becomes more advanced. There is a decrease of benders, but not to the point of becoming a rarity. There seems to be a minimum percent of the population that retains their abilities, even if the population itself is rather agnostic, as with the Ozai-era Fire Nation.
Yeah , because imagine spirituality in the Ozai-era or even Sozin era. They did what the real world dictators did. Except they didn't tore down their shrines and temples . The Firelord made the Fire Sages obey him instead of the Avatar. And if the Avatar was against him then it was against the Fire Sages as well.
And yet, they still had plenty of benders. The show has yet to really delve into the background of bending, though I don't really see how they could work in a lesson on Mendellian inheritance in between the action and exposition. Maybe if Korra has to go to school at one point, but who knows if the Avatar universe has even had a Mendel or Darwin figure?
Slightly more on topic, I wonder if we will get to see the lion turtle again? He had survived since time immemorial, so unless we find out someone beached him, chances are he's still kicking. Maybe someone wants to gain energybending to counter the Avatar, developing sort of a Moby Dick obsession with the titanic creature. Or perhaps Korra will find that the Avatar's powers and wisdom, as they are, are quickly becoming moot in the modern world, and needs the wisdom of the age before her lives began.
Just no deus ex machina. If the show requires someone to die, just do it and hide the blood like every other time someone gets killed.
I'm not sure if this is official, but I remember seeing something somewhere that said that the reason Aang's spirirt was unbendable was because he had all the previous Avatars behind him and all those lives combined wouldn't be able to lose to one spirit. I don't where I saw this, but it made sense to me. So, if that's true, maybe it was less dramatic for Korra because she had all her past lives behind her plus Aang. I figured since he was the first person to energybend in a really long time that it was more difficult and maybe passing it to Korra made it easier for her kind of like Toph finding the impurities in metal for the first time and now there's a whole police force of metalbenders. That's just my take on it
Makes sense to me. It was probably a shock to Aang's past lives to have an Avatar energybend after hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, given how long it took them to help out Aang against Ozai's will.
I'm suggesting that experience made it easier. Think of learning something on your own vs having someone to teach you. It's why Katara wasn't a great waterbender at first. Aang was able to teach Korra energybending after being the first human to use it in maybe thousands of years. It was like a new skill when he learned it, but once he did he could pass it on more easily. That's why I compare it to metalbending. Once thought impossible, it's now widespread. I was saying that might be why energybending looks so easy compared to before
Could be that too that's true. But since we were told it was such a difficult and dangerous thing which no one has done in thousands of years I don't think it could catch up that easily I mean I doubt it Aang used it on anyone else except Ozai and Yakone.