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Ailurophelia — Elements
#air #airbending #avatar #avatarthelastairbender #earth #earthbending #elements #firebending #water #waterbending #legendofkorra #fire
Published: 2014-10-03 19:34:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 18914; Favourites: 231; Downloads: 60
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Something I've always loved about Avatar is the ability to build such elaborate and rich worlds. That, and magical elemental powers!So with Legend of Korra adding to that mythos, I wanted to try and map out just how the elements are connected.
Naturally, Fire and Water, Earth and Air are opposites. But from there, what about fire benders who can channel or create lightning? Can plant benders waterbend?
I separated the abilities out into the primary four, from there creating advanced techniques that each bending type can learn, Blood, Metal, Lightning, and Void.
Then, there are the special bending styles that few traditional benders can perform or are only born being able to do. Plant, Lava, Combustion, and Spiritual Projection act as a bridge between two different bending styles.
-Plants are bent by controlling the water within, while being firmly in the ground.
-Lava is a superheated, super dense form of Earthbending that creates heat and fire.
-Combustion is a rare offshoot of Firebending that sends the heat and energy through the air.
-Lastly, Spiritual Projection is a master form of Airbending in which the practitioner lets go of their physical body, allowing their spirit the freedom to flow though the world as if it were a fluid.
EDIT: Thank you all for the enthusiastic comments and suggestions. It's been quite a while since I worked on this, and there are so many other projects to work on. But your continued interest has led me to go back and update it.
Many of you have pointed out how Sand Bending and even Healing are specialized skills in the Avatarverse. With that, I hope to upgrade this whole project again sometime, to include these ideas as well.
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Comments: 46
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So the symbols for extra elements are your designs? I must know because me and my friend are looking to get Avatar related tattoos, and the moment I came across this chart I was inspired to get one of those, but I never saw them before so I traced it back to your account here, and I need to know if those are legit and just slipped my mind or if they are fanmade
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Oh cool!
And, yeah. All except the original four elements are my own design. (though the combustion design is taken directly from Combustion Man himself, so it's kinda official)
Still, if one of them inspires your next tattoo, I'd love to see it!
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Haha those do inspire me, but I want to get one of the official symbols. Either Earthbending, firebending or fire nation emblem, not sure yet. I kinda want them all XD
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1: I always assumed that to lava bend you needed a fire bender in your ancestry and it wasn't just tied to being a descendant of earth benders. It's probably not a coincidence only two people can lava bend and we know one of them has a fire bender parent so I would tie that to fire as well.
2: I don't think combustion is a form of fire bending since none of the people that do it ever fire bend. Wouldn't they be shown doing that at some point at least once? Metal benders don't just only bend metal for example.
3: I would've replaced plant bending with healing since I think all basic water benders can use water that's in plants but not all of them heal.
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All valid opinions. This is just the way I interpreted the show's backstory.
It seems to come down to a more cultural aspect, since Plant benders and Combustion Man/P'li choose to use these elements/way of life over the fundamental four elements.
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1. By that logic, a water bender with the ability to create steam would need fire ancestry. A more likely scenario would be that, similar to how only some waterbenders can heal, some earthbenders can just lavabend. I mean I guess you could argue that there is no evidence for all the lavabenders we've seen not being of firebender decent but at the same time we know nothing about the backstory of only other lavabender besides Bolin so in the same way you could say there's a chance he could have firebending ancestry you could also say he doesn't, there's no real information one way or the other.
2. in Legend of Korra P'Li literally firebends normally while raiding the metal bender city(although to be fair its a really really brief seen you can find the scene on youtube). Also, Sparky Sparky boom boom man generally specialized in long-range explosive attacks and would have little reason to use it and even if he did he might just not want to. Also idk what other forms of bending the ability to create fiery explosions, an ability so far only scene from fire nation people, would be beside fire even if it was never directly shown to have a correlation.
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I found the scenes where p'li firebends in this video just go to these times in the video to see the scenes where she's not combustion bending 0:23, 0:43/0:45(at 0:45 she actually creates fire). www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiqyLf…
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Sure. It's one of the techniques Waterbenders can master. We first learn about it in the episode, The Puppetmaster .
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I took voidbending from the season 3 episode of LoK where Zaheer masters the ability to fly. Since it is called "Enter the Void" and Zaheer talks about meditation and the need for an airbender to completely let go of earthly attachment to achieve this ability, I decided to call it Voidbending or the ability to move through the void of space.
I've definitely gotten a lot of confusion or doubt from others in comments about 'Void' and how it connects to the AtLA universe.
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Do you think it's possible then to force that "void-like" state onto others, gaining a form of telekinesis in the process?
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Personally, no. Airbenders are very spiritual and the meditation was all about freeing the 'self', letting them break free of the bonds of gravity to float through the air. So it's very much a mental-spiritual connection that let Zaheer do it to himself.
But that is entirely open for interpretation!
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I've generally considered Healing to be an innate ability of Water benders, something ordinary in Southern and Northern Tribe studies, rather than a unique and specialized type of bending.
Still, it probably belongs somewhere on the chart above...
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I must say this is still a very good project. Perhaps you can add bridging arts between each of the four standard elements but please keep the "bridging" arts that are exclusive to the specific benders. I could only imagine the Earthbending Avatar to master all four elements thoroughly thereby literally warming up for his first firebending lesson inside one of the volcanoes lavabending, just so he could have his own native element completely mastered before his avatar training (for I imagine him to grow up as part of the Metal clan)
Firebending has blue fire
Airbending has flight
Waterbending has healing
Earthbending has sand
Magnetism really sounds like a combination of lightning and metal, thereby bridging between earth and fire.
I'm not sure about Fire and Air, though. Whether it is willpower, energy, chi, smog, odor, or some form of dangerous toxic gas, the bridge between Fire and Air would most likely be something a bit intangible. This is to contrast greatly with waterbenders and earthbenders which both used their abilities for construction, even entire fortresses.
Air and water obviously have cloudbending. It took both air and water for Aang to bend clouds as mentioned in the Fortuneteller episode.
Water and earth have mud. 'Nuff said.
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Thank you so much, Monguin!
It would be great to see the Avatar after Korra, an Earthbender, who masters lavabending before moving on to actually learning firebending. It would be a great way for the Avatar to move from element to element!
Magnetism would be a really cool new technique to see in this universe! Who would be able to perform it? Firebenders with lightning or earthbenders with metalbending?
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I'm actually working on a thesis for "Magnetbending" (dork alert )
All humans actually do possess a natural biomagnetism (which is the "power" basic for comic heros/villains like Magneto and Polaris). In theory, could a firebender augment their natural magnetic force through lightning generation?
Golden Rule: Current and Moving Charges are the source of all Magnetism
My theory for magnetbending is that the firebender has to turn their body into a closed "circuit" where a (electric) current can indefinitely travel in a loop. With the stable "circuit" they can augment their biomagnetism that will allow them to magnetbend.
Firebenders cannot control lightning/electricity; they can only guide its direction. In the case of magnetbending, firebenders learn to keep a loop "circuit" of lightning/electricity circulating in their body (while still avoiding to electrocute their own vital organs, esp. their heart) rather than shooting it out of their fingertips.
In bending combat, magnetbenders have to keep their feet on ground when bending because the human body is obviously not meant to contain so much electricity, "grounding" is meant to help expel and stabilize the excess electricity to keep the current flowing without risk of electrocuting the bender's own body. If the bender did lose their ground with they had their current going, they would immediately electrocute themselves. Since mobility is actually dangerous in magnetbending, firebenders have to adopt a more "hold your ground" kind of approach when utilizing magnetbending in combat, making the subskill of firebending resemble earthbending in many respects, rather like how lavabending resembles waterbending.
I had always thought Mako from LoK might have had the potential to learn a skill like this being such a "talented" firebender and particularly skilled at lightning generation (as Amon would attest). If he had, he could have potentially been a major trump card in season 4 against Kuvira and his army of metalbenders, esp. in regards with "pure metals" like platinum that metalbenders cannot bend.
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True. You have a point there. I was thinking of a Marvel character, Magneto, and the science and pseudo-science that inspired his character and powers. I was also thinking of the very essentials of how computers work, and they come of two key components: the charge of electricity and the movement and switching of the metals that conduct it.
This idea came to my mind, just like mud (Water and Earth) and cloud (Water and Air).
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Comes to think about it, by pondering the scientific inspiration behind the concept of bending, Fire and Air might share one thing in common: Chi. Both are virtually intangible and you can't build structures with fire or air like you can with water or earth. Fire is plasma or energy. Air is gas or spirit. Willpower is associated with freedom.
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Before lavabending, however, there would be sandbending first, which could be difficult for the Avatar since he grew up in the Metal Clan specializing in metalbending. This is because I figured sand and metal would be extremely different forms of earth.
It might require both firebenders and earthbenders to perform magnetism, just like clouds with both air and water and mud with both water and earth.
One question: what about the natural disasters? Can a collection of benders force one to happen? If so, which combination of benders would cause which disaster?
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I always assumed waterbending was as follows:
Water, Ice, Blood
Also what about the 5th chi bending, allowing to grant bending to a non bender (lion turtles teach it).... it unlikely to be an airbending art, as there are simular skills in other deciplins.
Also what about sand bending or mud bending.... they are like the earthbending equiverlents of blood bending, moving and even extracting the earth from another body.... sand benders even use sand to mimic airbending to a limited degree sometimes?
Also what about aangs wind chill... does that count as it own extention.... remeber he's frozen chains & even created the cryonic ice bubble which he hibernated in with Appa
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These are some really interesting thoughts.
Personally, I never saw the ability to grant bending (energybending) as a particular subset. Rather all bending is a form of energybending. And only those with great power/knowledge can do it. Thus Aang (the avatar) and the lion turtles are the only ones we've seen capable.
As for sand/mudbenders, they are still just bending the earth and minerals in their material. But I guess, the same could be said about metal and lava. Still, I distinguished these styles as relevant or not based on how difficult it is to learn. Most anyone could bend mud or learn to bend sand. But until Toph, metalbending was unheard of. And similarly lavabending with Bolin, and bloodbending with Hama.
Now, Aang freezing chains and creating ice is probably just him using airbending and waterbending together. He is, after all, the avatar: master of all four elements!
But you do bring up a good point: what is the distinction between subsets of bending? At what point do they become distinct? This is just my interpretation of that!
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He wasn't a master of the elements at that point.
& as demonstrated, though increasing your spiritual power (some might argue a 5th element) it only seems to amplify an element you have already used at least 1.
I note his freek out at the air temple, despite his rage, he only used airbending... as we know fire bending works well when angry
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At that point, his anger and desperate need for survival (for the Air Nomad Genocide was about to happen) caused him to go into the Avatar State for 100 years. That's what happened.
The answer to your questions is spirit. That seems to be something airbenders have in common with waterbenders, and spirit projection is an advanced airbending move.
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I'm not really sold on Void, Not to mention your missing Ice which the advance form of Water like Earth & Metal and Fire & Lighting. Plus you also forgot Spirit/Energy the main center of bending, Something Ang did to defeat the Fire Lord and what Amon trick people into thinking he could do.
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You're right! Spirit should definitely be there. The reason I didn't include ice, though, is because it is shown to generally be mastered by most waterbenders. Blood, Metal, Lightning, and Void are all difficult skills that took years to understand (Except metalbending now, Toph kinda made that a common thing. Though it is still difficult for most earthbenders like Bolin to do).
And if you don't mind my asking, what is it about Void that you don't like?
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Well...having only seen Avatar and only the Amon story of Korra but I have read a little about Zaheer and his flight powers, I think officially they count that as a extended Air-bending power like you said with Ice, it's just a technique that few can do. He's not bending things like the Blood in a person's body he's let his mind free to bend the air around him to fly.
Plus Void in some translations could also count as Spirit because it's "Not of the world"
Officially it just seems like it comes a off a little confusing especially when they don't explain exactly how he's flying. I might go with a combo like Lave=Fire+Earth but he's not combining things, unless we count The idea of a Air+Spirit. But then minus the Lion Turtle and the Avatar no one is a regular Spirit Bender.
But then hey I'm not expert.
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You're right that void is an extended technique of Airbending, just as Bloodbending is an extended technique of Waterbending. Bloodbending is just bending the water in a person's body. Voidbending is the bending of the air around you in such an inherent way that you can make yourself fly!
When it comes down to it, the special technique I'm calling 'Voidbending' (because Zaheer had to enter the Void to do it) is just a very difficult airbending form that only one other airbender has ever mastered. This is true of Metalbending when Toph was the only one, and Bloodbending when Hama was the only one who could do it. And all of these are separate from Spiritbending, as anybody in each of those elements could perform their technique if they train hard enough.
Of course, you're totally welcome to have your own views on how bending works in the Avatar world. This is just my take on structuring the magic in this world.
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How about weatherbending for the bridge between water and air?
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That's a good idea. For now, though, I'm hoping to leave it until/if the canon makes it a thing.
But we only have a handful of episodes left...so what do you guys think?
Would people prefer I add another elemental bending type to complete the map?
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you should add flight to air bending 
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Have you seen the ending to season 3?
I figured that part was encompassed by Void bending.
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oh do you mean the vortex that all the air benders create? I just figured it was a tornado. I guess I'm not too sure what a void is. When I picture a void I picture like dark portal xD
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No, I actually got the idea from what Zaheer does in Season 3's "Enter the Void". It is the ability to fly without the need of propulsion, like Superman.
Yeah, 'voids' make you think of a dark, endless hole, but that was the term used in the episode and the single swirl in my drawing was meant to resemble that.
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