In the Kyoshi books it's confirmed that a skilled earthbender can also bend glass since it comes from sand. Kyoshi used that glassbending to take out small pieces of it from her neck in a fight
@@Someone-dy5ui Not to sound like an ass but- Air: gliding (bending the air around their glider- not a sub element), superspeed (bending the air around them so they go faster- not sub bending), superagility (literally has nothing to do with bending), wind sensitivity (what exactly did you mean), sound bending (i'll give you that, I did miss this one when I was writing the video), vacuum bending (you mean airbending all of the AIR out of an area- not sub bending) Fire: hot breath (fire breathing out of their mouth - not sub bending), toxic gas bending (not mentioned in the series- therefore I didn't include it), blue fire
@@erikapayneintheass A lot of it comes to what exactly do you define as subbending. Even in this very video, do you define soul bending as a separate subbending or just a part of healing. So yeah, you don't sound like an ass, I can see all your points. As for the confusions, Agility has something to do with air bending, like when Aang used air bending to jump on trees while everyone else used Jack pulling thingies. But anyways, it's preety much the same as gliding and speed. By air sensitivity I mean that moment from avatar Korra when one of new airbenders detected a net with his bald head. Toxic gas bending was mentioned. Sozen used it on a volcano in the Roku centered episode. By dust bending I mean that iconic Toff trick she used in her intro episode and near the drill. Crystals were also used by Aang and Tai li in old Basingse. Candy was used by Bummi. You know, those gemonite ring.
@@Someone-dy5ui are you a fucking idiot? A SUBELIMENT IS A SKILL ONLY SOME BENDERS CAN DO, IF EVERY BENDER CAN DO IT, ITS NOT A FUCKING SUB ELIMENT, GET IT RIGHT
To this day i still wonder if blood bending could be used to heal internal wounds, by litteraly channeling energy trough the victims blood aswell as said blood
@@Flamexoxo cauterizing wounds requires fire, maybe the avatar could ignite a little flame near said internal or external wound, cooking water doesnt cauterize wounds, it damages the skin differently and in a way that doesnt allow the damaged/dead tissue to be used as a kind of bandage to close said wounds
It more than likely could, the issue is, the majority who do know it have used it for such horrible things, that it is something that nobody will trust as a viable bending technique, especially for the wounded.
I feel like they passed over lightning redirection fairly quickly. I think the history behind it is super important. Iroh only learns how to redirect lightning after giving up on trying to have the fire benders take control. He then traveled the land and learned how to flow energy through your body from the water benders. Then using that skill to learn how to redirect lightning
Then when Zuko allowed the technique to be practiced by everyone they could have developed easier methods of using it most likely just generating small charge that don't immediately kill.
My theory about lava bending is that it's one of the few exclusively genetic bending abilities requiring the user to be an earthbender with fire bender ancestry. Everyone responding with "but the Avatar can lava bend" my response is YES, the avatar IS THE of being the exception
Even before we learned of lava and sand bending as a sub skill of earth bending. I’ve also wondered as to why ice or steam bending wasn’t seen as a sub bending for water. Moving and manipulating ice could be more ridged like earth bending and difficult for water benders outside of the poles to learn
@@spinylightgaming that makes me think that oil bending and natural gas bending are a thing since chemically oil and gas are similar to coal same for plastic
@@leafynar3256 ice bending is too far a strench to call a sub bending, a lot of "sub bending" mentioned in this video are more like abilities, or masteries of the element, like sand bending, its just being skilled enough to control a lot of little particles of sand, its not unique, and seismic bending is an ability, ice bending is something even the most basic of waterbenders learn, freezing water to create more powerful projectiles
Air benders can also regulate their temperature as seen in the Kyoshi novels, and let's not forget super speed by being able to control the flow of air around their bodies as shown in the Blue Spirit episode and also "Spider-sense" as they are able to feel the minimal changes in air as seen in Korra.
A friend pointed out to me that lightning bending became more common in Korra's time because many firebenders were of mixed fire/earth nation heritage. The firebenders of these pairings were more... grounded... and found it easier to lightning bend. I had to groan, but then admit she was 100% right. The same for Bolin, since he was of fire and earth nation heritage he found the fire in lava easier to manipulate.
In my headcannon once they started using electricity firebenders would have more awareness to lightning compare to previous Era with methods involving batteries and wires for practice. Also they seem to be able to generate more manageable level compare to the insta-kill that the Royal family use.
@@blackpowderkun Well, the thing with the Royal family is that, as far as I remember, whenever they used lightining, it was always to go for a kill and since they were all extremely talented, I don't think that they did not have control to use lightning in a "weaker" state, they probably just did not care enough about their opponents to tone it down.
I thought it became more common because in my headcanon at least, lightning was restricted to the royal family. After zuko took the throne, he released it, and the more creative minded of the fire nation crafted a much easier, much less powerful version of the original technique. Of course you also could be correct too. 😅😂
It'd be an interesting surgery. Healing is very nurturing and compassionate, while blood bending is dark and surgical at best. Finding the proper movements and spiritual state to combine them would be difficult. You'd practically need the spiritual education of a doctor.
Fire benders like Uncle Iroh and Zuko also have heat regulation due to Breath of Fire utilizing and magnifying their internal heat through their breath also i do agree they missed the Fire bending form of healing technically it should be possible to utilize heat to heal since Hot springs are known for their healing properties ^w^ though i guess full on healing through fire would be a sub of a person with both fire and water heritage ;p
Good lord they would be a god Imagine a blood, metal,lava,lightning,energy, bone,glass,steam,ice and combustion bending plus flight and healing. S tier god status
Quite true, especially as Korra learned Metal Bending. And with their inherent connection to all the elements, they wouldn't need any genetic links if that is what some of them might need.
Probably... But who has got the time for that. I mean they'd probably be able to get the best teachers but mastering the elements is one thing people struggle to do in their lifetime. Let alone becoming good enough to master one subbending thing
Toph metal bending on the airship always makes me chuckle a bit. Imagine being one of the fire benders and, not only is she bending the metal, but crawling on the ceiling like a damn eyeless spider. What nightmare fuel! 🤣 🙃 "Hi there!" 😈 😱
Nah only the avatar can learn it because it's all the elements combined. Earth for food, fire for cooking, water for the broth, and air for carrying the flavor.
@@lorekeeper685 should airbenders be able to bend swiss cheese? Even if food somehow originated in earth, then earthbenders would also be able to bend bodies of other humans, animals etc.
@@idkwhattoputhere6321 hmmm that might be more of a earth bending thing well, I guess it would be water since milk contains water maybe both? Air could be used to make tasty food but vegans and stuff Earth benders should be able to bend other's bodies I think it's just that they are stubborn and take a direct approach to fighting so no fancy stuff like blood bending, dodging out of the way, combusting bending ect
I wonder if someone could master every sub category of their element? This would be particularly deadly for Water and Earth due to just how versatile these elements have been shown to be. Imagine one individual being able to bend Lava, Sand, Metal and Earth at the same time
I mean that's just Toph. She mastered all of them except Lava bending (she showed that she perfected Sand bending by making that Ba Sing Se replica out of sand) and I guess she only couldn't get to Lava bending because she didn't know it was possible or she was just too old by the time she learned it could be done (and maybe didn't care).
@@Jakokokoroko according to theory, you need to have one parent that is an earth bender and one that is a fire bender (or just at least have fire benders in your ancestry) to be able to lava bend, so toph would have never been able to do that as we know she is a pure earth bender with no known fire bender ancestor
It was just so confusing when they said that the bending ability came from the Lion Turtles when it was mentioned in Legend of Korra. While during the ATLA, it was mentioned on different occasions where the element bending came from. Dragons taught the Fire Bending, The Moon taught the Water Bending, Badger Moles taught the Earth Bending and the Sky Bisons taught the Air Bending.
I don't think they ever said explicitly in ATLA that the dragons or the badgers moles etc. gave the ability to the people, just that they were the original masters of the elements. So when the time came that people gained the ability to bend from the Lion Turtles they ended up going to the "masters" to get the skills.
@@ixisten5455 I disagree, they mentioned it explicitly in ATLA. You might want to re-watch some of the episodes to understand what I am trying to say. For an example, it was said in Season 1 that water benders came from the first people who watched the moon push and pull the sea, becoming the first water benders. It was also in Season 1 when they told the story of Oma and Shu (The first earth benders according to ATLA), that they learned the ability of earth bending from badger moles, they were all not benders before but became one after learning from the OG benders.
Fire-benders in theory could also learn to disinfect medical equipment through heat. With enough skill, maybe even create UV light and eventually x-rays...which is also terrifying.
In Wans story arc of Korra he comes to an air bender city and the air benders are shown to be flying while they pick fruit. This is the earliest example of flight, although they do depict it as riding a cloud. The thought is that this was before they discovered flying bison and became attached to them, gaining a worldly tether and losing the ability to fly
I remember seeing someone saying the Kyoshi had her friends had "flying" habilities through their bendings, where they "stepped" on their element for foothold; miststepping, jetstepping. I suppose it could be related to that.
@@sapphirII they summon pillars of their element beneath their feet and jump off them so they can 'walk' on air. u should read the books theyre super good! and theres a yangchen one now
Nah, it's not the same. They were simply using a nimbus cloud. Any air bender with some practice should be able to do it. Levitating in the air like Zaheer did means you have to literally let go of all emotion and worldly desires, which is impossible for most people. Basically you have to be depressed and dead inside in order to fly.
@@controlman7490except zaheer definitely had desires, he had the desire to change the world and to fulfill his mission, his desires were in fact so strong he was willing to kill and die for them. It is truly what tethers you to the ground in the way of being chained by connections to living beings or materialism, since zaheer sought a greater purpose in life and was willing to let everything on earth go to pursue that greater purpose it can be said that the ancient airbenders had one purpose: being as spiritual as possible and not forming emotional bonds with anything. Therefore they were able to fly. We literally see wan fly as well ONLY after being in the avatar state and all of his human friends being dead, and he fought to protect the world and let even his own body and normal life go to fuse with raava and become the avatar, he sacrificed his life and everything to make sure darkness and chaos wouldn’t spread, yet he was still able to fly. Aang for example was always in love with katara, and we saw how only after finally letting go in the crystal cave he was able to fly. I don’t think the creators necessarily planned it, but it came out perfectly for them in the end. Sorry for the long comment but i hope it makes sense. This whole topic could better be made into a 10 min video explaining everything.
@@Monyato Did you not read my comment? Those air benders and Wan were NOT flying. They were using a nimbus cloud beneath their feet. Flight is what Zaheer did. Complete levitation similar to Superman and for that the show explained that one must lack worldly desires in order to fly. You're right though that Zaheer clearly does still have desires because he wants the world to be in chaos, so that's a plot hole on the writers part, but still ancient air benders didn't fly. Neither did Wan.
We need a avatar show about an avatar who learned all the subtypes (including a few new ones probably) and an "avatar" who willed themself into being one ex:an earth bender bending water via almost liquid mud bending fire via lava and bending air via bubbles of mud or something and literally willing themselves into being an avatar
I always thought Jinora could spirit project because of her strong spirituality, not exactly because of airbending. For example, maybe someone like Iroh could meditate and achieve spirit projecting without being an airbender, or maybe Guru Pathik due to being someone who already unblocked all of his chakras. 🤔
It is indeed canon that despite not being an airbender Iroh was so spiritual and enlightened that instead of simply dying he transcended his body into the spirit world permanently as seen in Korra. And honestly, I enjoy the idea that spirits enjoy his company alot.
yeah, I firmly believe it's not an airbending skill, it's just that Jinora, who's very spiritually attuned and spiritually talented, can spirit/astral project in the material world, and just happens to be an air bender as well. I think anybody from any nation can project if they're spiritually skilled enough. Like we have Aiwei from korra who's an earth/ metal bender who can travel to the spirit world using astral projection, I don't see why someone like him couldn't have the potential for projecting in the material world.
6:41 There's actually a few instances in the original series. The Fire Avatar making 4 Volcanoes erupt when Roku teaches Aang about the Avatar State, Kyoshi when she separates her island from the mainland, and Roku when he overshadows Aang to destroy the Fire Sage's temple.
is that confirmed to be lava bending, tho? cause it might just be him heating up the volcanoes a lot, so they erupt, and in that case wouldn't that be like a water bender raising a glass of water? its water bending, not glass bending, even though it has a reaction on the glass
@@raulguimaraesreis6640 I agree you don’t need to lava bend to make a volcano erupt or to cause lava in a huge crack in the earth. These are both instances of plain earth bending where lava was already under the surface. Also all the lava bending in legend of kora is the lava bender heating up the earth on the surface and then earth bending the lava they just made. Kyoshi and Roku didn’t show the ability to make lava from plain earth.
@@Playingwithproxies I don't think lava bending is specifically being able to turn rocks into lava though. No bender but a lava bender is able to move lava in the first place. When Bolin lava bends the first time he doesn't make his own lava he is just moving the lava that was already there. Roku brings lava up to the temple in the Winter Solstice part 2, he doesn't turn anything into lava but he just moves it. I would say that is lava bending cause what other bending element would you use but lava bending to move lava. Kyoshi does the same thing where she brings the lava up from the layers of the Earth.
I feel like breath bending should also count cause respiratory air is not the same as atmospheric air due to the negative pressure in the Lungs but Zaheer was able adjust the pressure accordingly specifically for her breathing without disturbing the one in the atmosphere. Humans took decades to engineer space crafts and vacuum chambers to achieve such a feat he was able to do in seconds. It should be a master level technique.
Could you argue that Monk Gyatso figured this out first; since we saw that his body was killed in the Fire Nation attack during Sozin's Comet, but only after killing numerous Fire Nation soldiers; and, seeing as how we didn't actually see how Gyatso did it; I would like to believe he physically bended the air out of their systems, effectively suffocating them
Things that were forgotten or might be considered sub-skills: 1. Ice Bending (though very common) 2. Vine Bending 3. Crystal and Glass Bending 4. Truth Detecting 5. Fire Spirit Healing/Diagnosis (it's unkown if it heals but it helps diagnose spirit issues)
There is also Energy Bending (taking/restoring bending) which isn't a sub element but seems to be given to the Avatar directly, though, I feel it should still be considered.
@@markhanna3306 I didn't include energy bending because it's not a sub bending category. It's a different form of bending all together. It's not a sub of one of the four, it is its own thing.
You forgot Energy Bending as well. Remember when the lion turtle taught Aang and he was able bend the energy of Ozai to remove his firebending permanently?
I dont think Energy Bending would count as a sub-bending type, its more the parent bending style, infact id consider it the only true bending style, as every other form of elemental bending revolves around bending the chi of the element through your own chi.
@@xaviermartin390 Pretty much yea. Its my headcannon that lineage and mentality both impacts a persons ability to bend specific sub-elements, like, just the knowledge of blood bending might awake the capacity to perform the art in some people even if theyd never show it since the stigma around it is so bad. Lineage i think is a factor for example because of people like Bolin, we can infer from the fact Bolin is an earthbender and Mako is a firebender that thier parents were probably an earthbender and firebender respectively even if thats not confirmed, he has the lineage of a firebender and an earthbender giving him access to Lavabending. These are just my opinions and headcannon tho
@@xaviermartin390 Amon doesn't bend energy, he uses blood bending as a parlor trick to achieve more or less the same result. He's basically doing a blood version of the pressure point chi blocking that all the anti-benders learn.
@@aGoshDarnTravesty I understand that Amon doesn't energy bend. I'm saying they just shoehorned that explanation of how he was able to take one's bending without energy bending.
In avatar comics and extended lore, Earth liquification was an extremely rare skill, that allowed a bender to move a liquified, non molten rock like water. We’ve also seen toph mud bend in lok, which appears to behave similarly. And glassbending exists in the comics, since glass is just smelted sand it retains its earthen nature
Air has a similar sense to seismic. The airbender’s focus must be much more precise and relaxed due to the fact vibrations travel more quickly through air than earth. A lot of sub-bending is actually just the same ability translated to the different elements. There’s specific commonalities when it comes to opposite and adjacent elements in the cycle.
the speed of the vibrations would depend on what its going through. if it was going through rubber then it would be a lot slower. if its going through diamond etc then it would be a lot faster
Vibrations travel faster through earth, but have a more limited range. The vibration is due to movement of molecules, so the more densely packed earth will transmit those vibrations faster and clearer, but they lose energy faster. This is why sound travels better through metal then through air.
@@michaelmurphy2112 but wayyy slower through rubber apparently. wren from corridor digital made a vid bout the speed of sound through different mediums a while ago
In theory water benders would be able to feel vibrations in the water (probably the easiest to learn) Fire benders might be able to sense sources of heat? could sense where someone is by their body temperature compared to their surroundings
I've heard somewhere that airbenders can purposefully regulate their own body's temperature, though tbh I don't remember where I got that from. But firebenders can definitely bend heat, like taking the heat away from an object or giving more to it, without necessarily using fire: Zuko used it in the Northern Water Tribe to melt the ice above him before drowning, and before Roku's death scene, while he was fighting the volcano, there's a moment in which it seemed like he was taking the heat away from the eruption.
I think a airbender could invent sound bending using instruments that involve using wind/air. We have already seen special doors at air temples that require airbending and make sounds as they open. Aang even used airbending when blowing into his bison whistle so it could be heard at a greater distance both to summon Appa quickly to rescue them and again when Aang was moving the zoo animals in Ba Sing Se. I believe this could be taken another step further by using sound to affect certain parts of the enemies ear or by placing small objects that produce sound like bells as traps and causing them to produce sound from a great distance using airbending to trick a enemy.
This same method could also be used offensively as an attack as well. Air has more effects on our bodies than we think. Think of how an airplane takes off. The amount of air pressure buildup is too much to isolate outside the plane as it can travel through solid objects similar to soundwaves. The added pressure is what causes our ears to pop. No doubt, the loud vibrations produced by a skilled airbender could burst someone's eardrums. Nasty.
Sound bending could also be used differently cause sound waves travel through air right? So an airbender can bend the air to make different sounds, and when mastered can even imitate voices
Please read the avatar yangchen books she does soundbending alot and even grew up in the western air temple, which has an all day echo chamber to practice
tbh my theory with lava benders is the reason it's so rare is because only those born of both firebender and earthbender ancestors can do it(Aside from obviously the avatar as we've seen three past avatars lavabend in atla during flashbacks). If you'd note that Bolin clearly has both firebender and earthbender ancestors since he's an earthbender and his brother is a firebender. Now we can't really confirm for sure with Ghazan(from LOK) but we can't rule out that it's possible. Now there is also another character seen lavabending which is in the graphic novel "Toph Beifong's Metalbending Academy" called Sun who was supposedly born and raised in Yu Dao aka a Fire Nation Colony where the Earth Nation and Fire Nation lived peacefully(until the end of the 100-year war ofc, when Aang and Zuko ran into a problem removing Fire Nation Colonies from the Earth Kingdom). Now technically this means that the three people(except those who think that Toph learned to lavabend for some reason) are confirmed lavabenders with only one technically having confirmed firebender and earthbender heritage, but imo the other two we know very little about their past so it's still very much a possibility.
@@Rhino-Prime here's the thing: lava is STRICTLY earth, while smoke pertains to heat in general. both fire and air are the elements most pertaining to heat as smoke is air, and smoke is hot, but because it's open to both elements, firebenders are able to bend the smoke. i know what i said sounds contradictary to my previous statement, but there are some exceptions to that rule.
I find lava bending to be earth bending with water technique/style. Using both the state of matter change between liquid and solid, and flowing movement on earth instead of water. Similar to how iron explains lightning style as flowing and is stylized on fire bender using water bender techniques.
There also an Earthbending technique I heard that the previous avatar Kyoshi used to halt her aging to be still like a mountain, resulting her to love far longer than the average avatar. Quite interesting to see it be done in any future series
i think that sub bending skills are combinations between the elements, or between chi and spirit. those would be: fire+earth= lava air+water= mist fire+water= lightning (because it was developed by using waterbending moves to use firebending) air+earth= sand air+fire= smoke earth+water=mud fire+chi= combustion water+chi= blood and heal earth+chi= metal and sismic sense air+chi= fly water+spirit= spirit bending air+spirit= spiritual projection earth+spirit= not discovered yet fire+spirit= not discovered yet
@@dextergray1670 Basically the same thing, but okay? Also, anyone else reminded of Naruto’s chakra nature system when looking at this? Like, I get it’s not the same, but this list makes them look quite similar, wouldn’t you say?
1.Ligthning bending isnt based of water bending only one singular technice of Ligthning bending is 2. There isnt such a thing like chi bending but there is energy bending wich is pretty much the same thing but with a diffrent name same with spirit they are the same thing 3.in this logic how those glass bending works? Is it a sub sub element? (Yes there is such a thing like glass bending it was in the kiochi book wich is canon so it oficialy exist) 4.i personally disagree as most of those feel like they are added on to existing sub elements not like they were made with this mixing thing in mind (sorry for my bad grammar)
Plus mud is actually whether this is true or not a mix of water and earth bending as it can only be used in a stable way with combined power of a earth and water Bender for all we know
I feel like katara was able to do blood bending because she already knew how to heal..If you think about it it really makes sense. Both water subcategories. Healing has a lot to do with blood and the body. So yeah, it makes sense.
I was always curious when air benders lost the ability to fly, in korra when looking at the first avatar the airbenders in that fly no problem to gather fruit and to get back onto the flying lion turtle, but I guess some time ago they lost it only for those two mentioned to regain it.
The difference is that the air benders on the lion turtle were using air bending to create a cloud to stand on. The flying he’s talking about is flying effortlessly or without doing any bending whatsoever. They fly like super man kind of just willing themselves to move and effortlessly moving through space. Of course it might be the air is now bending to their will so it changes pressure on each side of their body however they will it to move in any direction.
just a note on spirit bending, i dont think it specifically doesnt work on vines, I believe spirit bending works fine on vines, but the reason the vines come back could be due to the press immediately creating a vibe that annoys the spirits
I would also like to chip in with a theory on how combustion bending is initiated and targeted: depth perception and focus. You would need to sharpen both in order to access it. When Combustion Man failed to use it, he was hit in the head and thus lost focus and had his depth perception hindered heavily. The trigger of the combustion shot has to be gut related, since Combustion Man's stomach sorta wretches or goes inward when he triggers it (minus the misfire)
To me combustion seems to be a process of compression. They compress their (fire?) chi (in the area around the stomach) before they shoot it out. Then finally it decompresses, and that together with the heat causes an explosion
@@moortucombustion benders are focusing all their chi in one place making a huge reaction of explosions and to learn this skill they will need to be tortured severely and placed under water for hours on end a theory that the community came up with after the dawn of yangchen(yangchen handles some in a city one time)
I understood how the flying worked. A lot of air benders were monks and spirituality is in their lifestyle. When you get into a meditative state it would feel like a weight has been lifted. Kind of like in religious ceremonies when someone with a high charisma talk about something inspirational you (sometimes) feel a different sensation like you feel lighter, powerful or full of energy. The sensation of process and freedom, when Zaheer lost his girlfriend, he felt Greif but with his religion background allowed him to let go to earthly attachments, the feeling is like when we dream that dream of falling from somewhere high but allowing it to happen where you fall into a non pressurized space as you float.
Although it was only shown once in LOK, you forgot Firebenders ability to use Chi Divination, as well as heat bending, as used by Firelord Sozin in ATLA.
just curious, since korra's era was already modern as we saw in TLOK, will we see a more advanced society in the next avatar? perhaps a virtual society like what we have now?
I would like to point out that lightning redirection and lightning generation is not the same thing because in theory anyone can use lightning redirection but only firebenders can generate lightning.
@@isaac_aren there's no fire bending specific elements to it and Iroh explains that All you need to do is attract it through one had through the stomach and out the other hand
My favorite part about sub-bending is the theoretical potential for cross-elemental styles; alternative bending styles that can be achieved through multiple elements, because they are are either inherently a combination of the two, or can be manipulated in similar ways by two.
@@Playingwithproxies Theoretically Earth benders bending blood via the minerals in one's body. Air benders using the oxygen and/or other gasses in blood to blood bend. Not sure if fire benders could do it even in theory. I will say he use of suffocation tactics via Air bending would likely outweigh the "need" for blood bending that way.
Earth Benders: -bending water via Mud -bending fire by combining lava and dustbending -bending air by bending very fine sand and dust Water Benders: -bending air by bending steam -bending fire by bending gasoline? ;) -bending earth by bending wet clay Fire Benders: -bending air by redirecting heat and introducing artificial air flow -bending earth or water? no idea Air Bender cant really imitate any element only the subbending like sand but nakes up for it by spritiual potential
I think mastering all Earth Bendings sub tree will help a bender to become closer to an Avatar. He can use Lava bending as a fire, Sand Bending similar to water, He can fly using Earth finally his original Earth Bending.
I was just about to mention that. Him funnelling the heat out of the volcano to calm it was one of the most extraordinary feats in all of bending. It put Roku, a fully realized avatar, to shame in my opinion.
Ya air kinda got shafted on the sub skills. Heck flight can actually be done in like 3 easier ways and 2 of them a non avatar could do, so I personally don't really count it to often. I am more likely to count smoke and/or poisonous gas bending. it might be easy and no air nomad would actually use it to it's combative peak, mostly because that is forcing you opponents to choke on smoke/poison, but at least it is both visually more interesting and has a functional difference to the base skills. A good theoretical air bending sub skill is sound bending. We actually see a couple times in both series of using air bending to amplify sound, now they just need some nullification and directing then we have the perfect bending for stealth.
@@risingdarkness A Poison canister could be carried around much like Waterbenders carry a container on Water. I'd imagine Firebenders could create Smoke. They'd likely be a more common Smokebender.
@@joesunday199 i mean, we saw Iroh (The Winter solstice part 1, while aang was dealing with that panda spirit then entered the spirit world with roku and his dragon. Whilst Uncle Iroh was in a hot tub he just released hot air/steam through his nose)create smoke. And we also saw Sozin redirect it.
Bone bending I thought was interesting. Haven't heard as much about it, but basically, someone learned to bend the calcium within the bones. Almost like an earth version of blood bending.
@@Nenerii if you stretch it enough with physics in mind you could say air benders could just simply bend the oxygen in someones blood, or bend the oxygen directly in the brain. Or maybe a firebender could manipulate the electricity needed to run your mind. Or an earthbender like you said could bend the iron, or calcium, or any other metal on the periodic table that is found inside someone's body.
I always imagined that because Amon used bloodbending to (relatively) permanently block chi and disable bending, a bloodbending healer could reverse it themselves during a full moon. Plenty of unexplored territory there
And Iroh did a similar thing on a smaller scale, heating up his bath water and tea. Arguably Zuko did it too melting ice in the North Pole. Heat transfer/manipulation definitely ties into the “fire is energy” ideas presented by the sun warrior episode.
I always wished the dark avatar learned all of these skills as well as the basic elements. Plus the entire potential of energybending and even wielding all non-bender skills. Making him one horrifying threat.
Everyone always forgets about bone bending as an earthbending subset. It is the rarest subset of all types but still extremely powerful and worth noting
We haven’t seen it in the show but I would love to see sound bending. Like how Toph’s seismic sense works through earth, I think air benders could detect vibrations in the air, although because vibrations travel slower in air then in earth, it would have a reduced range, but at the added ability that the airbender could create large vibrations akin to thunderclaps. Also it is my personal head cannon that a devoted air bender could sand bend, but not by moving the gains of sand, but by kicking up the sand using air currents.
ive seen two Avatars doing lava bending. And all of them were fire avatars. And fire lord sozin also kinda did lava bending even though it looked allot like heat bending.
It would be awesome if a new villain could do something like Shadow Bending. Just hear me out: Imagine in the Spirit World there is a demonic spirit of Shadows. A wandering human discovers this spirit and becomes its vessel similar to Raava but the spirit is in control. This power would allow them to control and manipulate shadows like a mix between Shikamaru and Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog
I cant say for sure because I don't think it was ever brought up in the episode but there was a instance where Katara blood bent without the use or at least the mention of a full moon. This was in the episode where she was seeking revenge for her mother.
There can be other possibilities. One can be soundbending, used by the Air Nation for bending sound waves in the air and using it to throw/mimic voices and sounds, send secret messages through the wind, or bend sound waves at opponents. Heatbending for firebenders can be used to bend the heat waves surrounding objects, thus raising temperatures up to boiling points or enhancing their own firebending abilities, adding extra heat to their attacks. Soulbending, being a darker version of spiritbending, giving the water bender the ability to corrupt or extract one’s essence from their bodies and place it in other bodies or even objects. Seismic pulse allows an earth bender to vibrate the earth around them to the point of earthquakes.
I would’ve love to see other nations from beyond the known Avatar world that revolves around the sub bendings like an Egyptian nation of Sandbenders or a Greek nation of Lavabenders
I think what the airbenders can achieve with flying and spirit has more to do with the monk aspect than their bending ability. Like in reality, monks have been known to achieve incredible things by having complete control over their mind and body. The entire goal is to give up their earthly connections. I think Avatar had a cool interpretation on what monks could achieve with such focus, not just airbenders specifically. I say this because uncle Iroh has also been a very spiritual man and has accomplished entering into the spirit world.
Great video. But I’d like to add that Gahzan wasn’t the first time we’ve seen lava bending, Avatar Roku did it twice in atla. First during the volcano scene and then during the destruction of the fire sage temple. I wouldn’t have realized this if it weren’t for me just rewatching the show the other day lol.
You forgot to talk about Ice bending as it’s a sub form of bending for water benders and it’s the most common for them as well as explain what “Temperature Regulation” is in Air being and I’ve never heard of that sub form of bending.
If I remember correctly, spiritual projection wasn't presented as a type of air bending, I think it's just a rare ability that some people have/can develop.
i do remember Jinora saying something along the lines of "its a high level airbending technique, with some spiritual stuff sprinkled in" which would imply that it does require one being an airbender
My theory : Aang can metal bend, he just didn't learn how. I believe every avatar can bend anything that is 'bendable' as long as someone teaches them. So it doesn't make Korra automatically stronger because she can metal bend, since Aang could have if he took enough lessons with Toph (he just didn't have time).
I always thought spiritual projection was something anyone could do in theory, it's just that the airbenders' culture makes them particularly prone to learning the ability.
Agreed, as Iroh did do something quite similar when he left for the spirit world. Remember its explicitly stated he didnt die, but ascended. Which considering he is as enlightened as a non airbender gets, says it may be possible for other bending types. But it would be ALOT harder for them.
No because many avatars also could, for example Avatar Kyioshi when creating Kyioshi Island and her parents were earth and airbenders. Also Avatar Roku and he didn't have and earth parent. Actually the only lavender I know of is Bolin.
@@esaucorrales actually avatar kyoshi used earth bending to split open the tech tonic plate separating a plot of land from its natural structure causing the lava from the center of the earth to rise it was a natural reaction and avatar roku wasn’t alone at that moment he was with fire lord sozen and the merely used fire bending to Chanel the fumes out of the volcano to cause the molten rock to dry up again a natural occurrence lava bending wasn’t officially introduced until legend of Korra also I was going based off the description given in a UA-cam video by a purely avatar the last air bender content filled account where he said that exact description saying it was from something called the avatar handbook
@@Thunderstrike2002 if kyoshi actually in anyway shape or form effected the flow and movement of a tectonic plate then that is by far with no competition the most impressive physical feat that any character in avatar has ever done
@@esaucorrales stop using avatars as a basis for rare feats when they can bend all elements. It's a mute fken point if we talking about a bending brought up by genetics of fire and earth when they can use earth and fire bending.
Smoke-bending, one method by air-benders, and another by fire-benders. As well as mud-bedding, a sub-bending form shared between earth-benders and water-benders. Lastly, there is energy-bending done on-screen by only fire-benders, but people differ whether it is specialised, or whether what we saw was a type of healing done by fire-benders.
Flying requires detachment Spiritual protection requires strong bonds to be used efficiently Both are shown to be exceptional rare within the franchise. It appears that airbending may be the single most difficult element to truly master.
@@mathematicalgamer7692 because he’s the avatar and was born an air bender? Korra had mastered water bending by a young age and was great at fire bending if I recall correctly
I love that all these sub-bending originated in ATLA and then in the next line gets immediately disminished in TLoK. Most of these subclasses were specialized skills that requires certain conditions, but in TLoK they became trivialize.
I have some problems with how the "flanderized" bending in LoK. In LA, lightning bending was only mastered by a handful of people IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. In LOK, it's like flipping a switch, no difficulty what so ever. I KNOW that the writers really wanted the "Steampunk-esque" setting, but they could have easily thought of some other contraption that required fire, or earth bending, something. (Or just not go with a setting that didn't really make sense for the time gap, but that's a different discussion) They really left me salty about Lava-bending. 1st off, it's a ret-con. In the Avatar extras S1 E8 (pretty sure). It is said that ONLY THE AVATAR could lava-bend because it is such a hard mix of earth and fire bending. And I mean yes, it IS a REALLY COOL form of bending, don't get me wrong. However, if you HAD to have it in the show, instead of pulling another Amon and say, "Oh, only he can do it because he won the genetics lottery." Why not make it tied to the character instead? Make it a Lightning-bending-esque form where, anyone CAN do it, but it takes a certain type of person, years of practice and a certain mindset. (You must be so filled with rage and hatred that you'll melt any mountains in your way.) Something like that? Imagine how that could move some character progression? Spiritbending... Should really just get rid of all of season 2 (Minus Varrick he can stay :3) Glassbending I can't really tell if that should be an earth or fire bending thing. Both? I'm on the fence about that. Airbending... Fartbending, need I say more? What Zaheer did the Earth queen was just super cool, I liked it. Air Flying on the other hand, just feels like it's taking my suspension of disbelief for a ride. I can understand the Jet propulsion like at the end of LA where fire benders were given enough of a boost to just fly, it makes enough sense. I completely understand the character progression, spirituality and Zaheer's goal for it, however he doesn't really even "bend" much so it kind of looks like he turned on creative mode, which just looks down right silly. Spiritual projection, neat addition. Don't know why it needs to be exclusively an airbending thing though. Spiritual sense (When Korra had amnesia the fire sages were blazing it up over her comatose body to see her spirit). If this WAS what they were doing, I don't see why it was necessary. They could have just physically felt her up and we would have been just as convinced. TLDR; Korra is a Pandora's box of bending ideas. Most of them either unnecessary, or downright bad. However there are a couple of neat additions.
Calcium and mercery being a metal I believe that metal benders actually learn to bend iron over time not just impurities in metal. And maybe metal benders could learn to bend platinum it would just take specific practice.
I'm a smidge surprised that you didn't mention ice and snow, but I guess those were part of the "this is too obvious to be mentioned in the list over more interesting apsects" club
I have the opposite theory earth bending is bending any element commonly found in the ground. And metal benders actually learn to bend iron as they become better at metal bending.
There is a comic where an air bending avatar rips a channel through the ocean, parting it like Moses, with a scream of rage. I think sound bending make sense as a more emotional potentially dark subset of air bending.
I think it would be near impossible if not completely impossible for the avatar to gain the ability to fly. This is due to the fact that skill and strength can only take you so far in achieving this ability. The most important part of flying is letting go of all earthly tethers hence why Zaheer was only able to accomplish this feat after the woman he loved, P'Li, died. She was an earthly tether for him and her death severed that tether which allowed him to take flight. Its hard for me to imagine an avatar that served and had compassion for the people and brought balance to the world while simultaneously being disconnected from them enough to possess the ability to fly. It would be interesting to see an avatar navigate that thin line though.
When Aang talks to his predecessor airbender, she said that the avatar can never achieve true spiritual high, because he is bound to the world. Also, 1/4 earthbender.
@@moortuno he actually doesnt…if that was the case he would not have ended up with katara in the end and korra wouldnt have ended up with mako or that one girl forgot her name
Interestingly, there was a past Avatar mentioned in the Yangchen novels named Gun who slowly developed a disdain for humanity over the course of their life, which only worsened upon the death of their companion Mesose. I think if any Avatar were to have the ability to gain flight, it would be Gun, who had no attachment to humanity and who had already lost the one person they cared about.
yeah air benders only really get flight... and only 2 airbenders in existance can do that...(unless you count the avatar) air benders shoulda been the ones to do spirit bending IMO... water already has enough sub-bending..
I consider cloud bending as one of those subs that aren't specifically called out. in one of the episode the airbenders and Wan would make clouds they can ride instead of rotating air currents. It's clearer to see as a cloud during his fight with vatuu as he creates it then rides it. it's probably a forgotten technique.
Hey sound bending makes a whole lot of sense I never thought of that its just a vibration of the air no matter the source so yea manipulation cancellation soundproof bubbles etc should all be possible with a crazy level of control. We would need the Toph of Airbenders with her level of sensitivity to their element
@@dextergray1670 you know how in the first episode aang said he manipulated the air around him to stay warm I'd like to imagine that sound could work in a similar way but for a nomadic group of airbenders that are ninjas, they manipulate the vibrations around their body to make no sound and so sneak around causing pranks.
Soundbending is actually a thing, and Aang does it while he's in Ba Sing Se looking for Appa. Admittedly, he's not sociopathic, so he doesn't even attempt to use the more obviously lethal applications that Soundbending would present to him; matching the resonant frequency of bone would literally turn someone's skeleton into splinters in mere moments, for instance. Sound can also carry enough energy to cause physical concussive damage, which is what a sonic boom is. A Soundbender would theoretically be able to _pulverize_ stone and concrete, and _mush_ an enemy into paste... plus their attacks would be impossible to dodge.
Also noted that all 4 elements has some sort of temperature changes they can do to their bending. Waterbenders can freeze water to make ice Earthbenders can make the earth hot to make lava Firebenders can make hotter flames (mainly just azula's blue flames tbh) And airbenders can regulate their body temperature, also aang kinda used cold air when he fought vs ozai
Also combustion bending seems to need really concentrated breath. And I've always been curious about HEAT bending as we see Sozin do in the "Avatar and the Firelord" episode. He literally bends the heat out from rock into the air. Moments like that really make me see the connection of all the elements.
One random day, I was thinking: what if the zodiac signs were given sub bending abilities. So… Water: Cancer-healing Pisces-Spirit Scorpio-blood Earth: (all know seismic sense) Taurus-Sand Capricorn-Metal Virgo-Lava (Cap and Vir could switch) Fire: Sagittarius-Lightning Aries-Redirection Leo-Combustion Air: Aquarius-Flying Gemini-Spirit Projection Libra- possibly temperature related? (Aqu and Libra could switch)
You forgot Icebending (Water), Mudbending (Water and Earth), Steambending (Air, Water, and Fire), Crystalbending (Earth), Cloudbending (Air and Water), Paintbending (Earth), Glassbending (Earth), Smokebending (Air and Fire) And maybe even Sweatbending (Water) (Sweatbending I could let slide though.)
@@jonathanschmitt5762 They aren't quite the same. Close, very close but not quite. Steambending can be used by Air, Water, and Fire. Cloudbending can only be used by Air and Water. Also, Airbenders can ride Clouds but not Steam.
@@joesunday199 1. Clouds are litterary steam, there's no difference what so ever. 2. Firebenders are never shown to bend steam, but they can redirect heat wich is shown in the scene you're probably refering to. 3. Airbenders can't ride clouds. In Wan's story, the drawing was a little sketchy and you could think they were riding clouds, but it was just air. Also, Aang was shown getting wet from jumping onto a cloud, wich I doubt you'll get from riding ON one.
@@jonathanschmitt5762 1. I just described what is different. 2. Iroh used steam to heat up the Water he was bathing in. Steam has Heat which Firebenders can bend. So, yes, they can Steambend. 3. They can ride clouds. We see it during Wan's Era. It is very clear those were clouds. The monks were literally standing on them. It wasn't a flow of Air holding them up.
in my head cannon, a skilled enough fire bender could use there body fat to create grease fires. Each blast would use about a cup of fat and look more like shooting burning liquid then just bursts of fire. Also; in the same vain as seismic sense, a blind fire bender would be able to sense the heat of living things around them, as well as constantly generating low level electric burst to sense there surroundings; think a combination of rattlesnake and electric eel.
Is the spirit projection spasific to air bending? I can see it being easier for them since they are the most spiritual people of the four nations but if feel like it could be used in any bending style. Seems more like a meditation and spiritual technique then a bending technique.
I always saw spirit projection/spirit bending as seperate to the four elements with it coming from a different Lion Turtle. I've always seen it as a quasi-parent bending style or almost like the root to the 4 elements or it is either a completely different thing altogether since bending the elements involve bending the external environment whereas spirt bending is inherrently internal and non-tangible
In the Kyoshi books it's confirmed that a skilled earthbender can also bend glass since it comes from sand. Kyoshi used that glassbending to take out small pieces of it from her neck in a fight
And there are multiple other subbendings that this video skipped
Air: gliding, superspeed, superagility, wind sensitivity, sound bending, vacuum bending
Fire: hot breath, toxic gas bending, blue fire, rainbow fire, spiritual healing
Earth: dust bending, coal bending, crystal bending, hard candy bending
Water: ice bending, snow bending, cold breath, sweat bending, tear bending, humidity bending, soup bending, ink bending
Mixed: cloud bending (air and water), mud bending (earth and water), pollution bending (earth and water)
@@Someone-dy5ui Not to sound like an ass but-
Air: gliding (bending the air around their glider- not a sub element), superspeed (bending the air around them so they go faster- not sub bending), superagility (literally has nothing to do with bending), wind sensitivity (what exactly did you mean), sound bending (i'll give you that, I did miss this one when I was writing the video), vacuum bending (you mean airbending all of the AIR out of an area- not sub bending)
Fire: hot breath (fire breathing out of their mouth - not sub bending), toxic gas bending (not mentioned in the series- therefore I didn't include it), blue fire
@@erikapayneintheass A lot of it comes to what exactly do you define as subbending. Even in this very video, do you define soul bending as a separate subbending or just a part of healing. So yeah, you don't sound like an ass, I can see all your points. As for the confusions,
Agility has something to do with air bending, like when Aang used air bending to jump on trees while everyone else used Jack pulling thingies. But anyways, it's preety much the same as gliding and speed.
By air sensitivity I mean that moment from avatar Korra when one of new airbenders detected a net with his bald head.
Toxic gas bending was mentioned. Sozen used it on a volcano in the Roku centered episode.
By dust bending I mean that iconic Toff trick she used in her intro episode and near the drill.
Crystals were also used by Aang and Tai li in old Basingse.
Candy was used by Bummi. You know, those gemonite ring.
@@Someone-dy5ui are you a fucking idiot? A SUBELIMENT IS A SKILL ONLY SOME BENDERS CAN DO, IF EVERY BENDER CAN DO IT, ITS NOT A FUCKING SUB ELIMENT, GET IT RIGHT
@@Someone-dy5ui for toxic gas bending, I thought it was heat redirection
To this day i still wonder if blood bending could be used to heal internal wounds, by litteraly channeling energy trough the victims blood aswell as said blood
I be wondering that as well and it can be used for other things like stopping bleed for a short time
If the avatar was the one who had the blood bending abilities, do you think they would be able to cauterize wounds with just bending?
@@Flamexoxo cauterizing wounds requires fire, maybe the avatar could ignite a little flame near said internal or external wound, cooking water doesnt cauterize wounds, it damages the skin differently and in a way that doesnt allow the damaged/dead tissue to be used as a kind of bandage to close said wounds
It more than likely could, the issue is, the majority who do know it have used it for such horrible things, that it is something that nobody will trust as a viable bending technique, especially for the wounded.
@@mastere6115 yeah thats unfortunate...
I feel like they passed over lightning redirection fairly quickly. I think the history behind it is super important. Iroh only learns how to redirect lightning after giving up on trying to have the fire benders take control. He then traveled the land and learned how to flow energy through your body from the water benders. Then using that skill to learn how to redirect lightning
Then when Zuko allowed the technique to be practiced by everyone they could have developed easier methods of using it most likely just generating small charge that don't immediately kill.
We need an iroh show
@@Dodge_thisiroh spinoff needs to happen
chi block bending and oxygen bending
@@cupidok2768 chi blocking isn't a form of bending and "oxygen bending" is just normal air bending
My theory about lava bending is that it's one of the few exclusively genetic bending abilities requiring the user to be an earthbender with fire bender ancestry.
Everyone responding with "but the Avatar can lava bend" my response is YES, the avatar IS THE of being the exception
That’s always been my thought too.
My thoughts exactly
Yea I’ve always thought that as well
@@itsme7336 Aang uses cloud bending and as far as we know he doesn't have water tribe ancestry
i personly dont think so because we saw roku doing it to sink the tempel of the fire sages
Even before we learned of lava and sand bending as a sub skill of earth bending.
I’ve also wondered as to why ice or steam bending wasn’t seen as a sub bending for water. Moving and manipulating ice could be more ridged like earth bending and difficult for water benders outside of the poles to learn
Maybe because it's seen as too common or just the change of state of matter.
But then lavabending would be in that category.
@@mr.boomguy exactly and so would Sand. It’s still just earth bending
S1 introduced coal bending note not rocks but coal
@@spinylightgaming that makes me think that oil bending and natural gas bending are a thing since chemically oil and gas are similar to coal same for plastic
@@IndustrialParrot2816 oil I could see but I would imagine natural gas would be an Airbender move?
Hands down the greatest show ever. Can never get tired of seeing it
💙
@@AvatarDiscussions did you forget icebending in this?
@@leafynar3256 ice bending is too far a strench to call a sub bending, a lot of "sub bending" mentioned in this video are more like abilities, or masteries of the element, like sand bending, its just being skilled enough to control a lot of little particles of sand, its not unique, and seismic bending is an ability, ice bending is something even the most basic of waterbenders learn, freezing water to create more powerful projectiles
Fr
Yeah
Air benders can also regulate their temperature as seen in the Kyoshi novels, and let's not forget super speed by being able to control the flow of air around their bodies as shown in the Blue Spirit episode and also "Spider-sense" as they are able to feel the minimal changes in air as seen in Korra.
no one remembers how aang never froze in the north and southern poles? or even sweated messing with lava?
monks learn how to maintain a certain temperature for/through meditation as well as going long periods of time without food and water
Temperature manipulation is OP. It could be used to freeze opponents and as a rudimentary firebending.
@@valtersplume3726 They regulate their own temperature, not the one in the ambient
Also, they can fart bend, like meelo or whatever that little brats name was
A friend pointed out to me that lightning bending became more common in Korra's time because many firebenders were of mixed fire/earth nation heritage. The firebenders of these pairings were more... grounded... and found it easier to lightning bend. I had to groan, but then admit she was 100% right. The same for Bolin, since he was of fire and earth nation heritage he found the fire in lava easier to manipulate.
In my headcannon once they started using electricity firebenders would have more awareness to lightning compare to previous Era with methods involving batteries and wires for practice. Also they seem to be able to generate more manageable level compare to the insta-kill that the Royal family use.
@@blackpowderkun Well, the thing with the Royal family is that, as far as I remember, whenever they used lightining, it was always to go for a kill and since they were all extremely talented, I don't think that they did not have control to use lightning in a "weaker" state, they probably just did not care enough about their opponents to tone it down.
@@tezminator Iroh seems to be the type to use that and in the comics Azula used a zapping version on Sokkah.
Now that I think about it you're right
I thought it became more common because in my headcanon at least, lightning was restricted to the royal family. After zuko took the throne, he released it, and the more creative minded of the fire nation crafted a much easier, much less powerful version of the original technique.
Of course you also could be correct too. 😅😂
Let’s not forget about Milo’s “fart bending”. His technique in butt bending is flawless in dispatching enemies.
Is that how they make the balls of air to zoom around on? 😂
@@balloe3466 NOOOOO- but now I can't get that vision out of my head
I think "Butt Bending" is just called Contorsionism or... Not kid friendly activities.
*roflcopter has entered the reply area*
Taste his fury!
you forgot Kyoshi's Glass bending which is an Earth sub bending.
And also Ice bending.
Wait when did Kyoshi get ice bending
@@commandercheese7408 I used a period on my sentence
Also forgot bone bending
ua-cam.com/video/XsOlkobvKTU/v-deo.html
@@commandercheese7408 well every waterbender uses ice, also yes, she had icebending. Kyoshi is known for her ability to FREEZE PEOPLE’S HEARTS
The Kyoshi books also mention dust and paint bending.
Imagine Blood Bending being used as a supplementary art to healing and surgery. Would probably make certain kinds of impossible healing possible.
Really important surgery coming up? Naah, we need to wait for the next full moon, so our bloodbender is all powered up :D
@@miem9775 Well, it's funny but most of bloodbenders can use it during day.
It'd be an interesting surgery. Healing is very nurturing and compassionate, while blood bending is dark and surgical at best. Finding the proper movements and spiritual state to combine them would be difficult. You'd practically need the spiritual education of a doctor.
Bonebending can also problably be used to heal bone injuries
@@RyzhaZhaba what do you mean? only 3 known bloodbenders could use it without a full moon?
My biggest frustration is never having seen a good rpg game based on this beautiful universe.
Yeah exactly. I want an awesome RPG Action game to be made based on this. Hope Nickelodeon allows it.
There’s a tabletop role playing game like D&D called Avatar legends
@@masonalberts2870 avatar legends is bad in my opinion
honestly, i need a pbta avatar game.
Waterbending: Ice stepping
Earthbending: Truth sensing, glass bending, Dust stepping
Firebending: Spiritual sensing/Chi Reading, heat siphoning/freezing, jet stepping
Airbending: Temprature regulation
EDIT:
Waterbending--MIST stepping, not ice stepping.
Some one has done their homework. 10/10
Earth could probably also bonebend
I just commented up top about the heat siphoning and freezing. Everyone forgets that scene with Sozin on the volcano
Fire benders like Uncle Iroh and Zuko also have heat regulation due to Breath of Fire utilizing and magnifying their internal heat through their breath also i do agree they missed the Fire bending form of healing technically it should be possible to utilize heat to heal since Hot springs are known for their healing properties ^w^ though i guess full on healing through fire would be a sub of a person with both fire and water heritage ;p
What Abt cloud bending?
In theory the Avatar should be able to master ALL of these skills. I just hope there is a timeline where we get to see a story based on that
probably the next avatar
Good lord they would be a god
Imagine a blood, metal,lava,lightning,energy,
bone,glass,steam,ice and combustion bending plus flight and healing.
S tier god status
Quite true, especially as Korra learned Metal Bending. And with their inherent connection to all the elements, they wouldn't need any genetic links if that is what some of them might need.
Probably... But who has got the time for that. I mean they'd probably be able to get the best teachers but mastering the elements is one thing people struggle to do in their lifetime. Let alone becoming good enough to master one subbending thing
not flying though
Toph metal bending on the airship always makes me chuckle a bit. Imagine being one of the fire benders and, not only is she bending the metal, but crawling on the ceiling like a damn eyeless spider. What nightmare fuel! 🤣
🙃 "Hi there!" 😈
😱
I think soup bending is a very special skill that only real masters of waterbending can learn.
Nah only the avatar can learn it because it's all the elements combined. Earth for food, fire for cooking, water for the broth, and air for carrying the flavor.
@@jimbeam7636 Earth for food? What kind of food are you eating?
@@idkwhattoputhere6321 where does food come from? Other than water?
Or what state is food tends to be?
@@lorekeeper685 should airbenders be able to bend swiss cheese?
Even if food somehow originated in earth, then earthbenders would also be able to bend bodies of other humans, animals etc.
@@idkwhattoputhere6321 hmmm that might be more of a earth bending thing well, I guess it would be water since milk contains water maybe both?
Air could be used to make tasty food but vegans and stuff
Earth benders should be able to bend other's bodies I think it's just that they are stubborn and take a direct approach to fighting so no fancy stuff like blood bending, dodging out of the way, combusting bending ect
I wonder if someone could master every sub category of their element? This would be particularly deadly for Water and Earth due to just how versatile these elements have been shown to be. Imagine one individual being able to bend Lava, Sand, Metal and Earth at the same time
yoo you'd be OP, I mean just knowing how to blood bend is already op and dangerous enough let alone be a master of sub bend
And if you toss in mud bending, you can have a bootleg avatar
I mean that's just Toph. She mastered all of them except Lava bending (she showed that she perfected Sand bending by making that Ba Sing Se replica out of sand) and I guess she only couldn't get to Lava bending because she didn't know it was possible or she was just too old by the time she learned it could be done (and maybe didn't care).
Theoretically the strongest earth bender could bend bone, glass, lava, metal, and sand
@@Jakokokoroko according to theory, you need to have one parent that is an earth bender and one that is a fire bender (or just at least have fire benders in your ancestry) to be able to lava bend, so toph would have never been able to do that as we know she is a pure earth bender with no known fire bender ancestor
It was just so confusing when they said that the bending ability came from the Lion Turtles when it was mentioned in Legend of Korra. While during the ATLA, it was mentioned on different occasions where the element bending came from. Dragons taught the Fire Bending, The Moon taught the Water Bending, Badger Moles taught the Earth Bending and the Sky Bisons taught the Air Bending.
I don't think they ever said explicitly in ATLA that the dragons or the badgers moles etc. gave the ability to the people, just that they were the original masters of the elements. So when the time came that people gained the ability to bend from the Lion Turtles they ended up going to the "masters" to get the skills.
The technique was taught by the natural world, but the actual ability came from lion turtles.
@@ixisten5455 I disagree, they mentioned it explicitly in ATLA. You might want to re-watch some of the episodes to understand what I am trying to say. For an example, it was said in Season 1 that water benders came from the first people who watched the moon push and pull the sea, becoming the first water benders. It was also in Season 1 when they told the story of Oma and Shu (The first earth benders according to ATLA), that they learned the ability of earth bending from badger moles, they were all not benders before but became one after learning from the OG benders.
Correction it’s not said that they taught it. It was said that they were the first users of said bending before humans
@@avauntehamilton6100 not exactly "taught" but certainly "shown", as with the dragons deliberately showing the method to firebending.
Fire Bending also seems to have a healing technique demonstrated by the shaman who treated Korra when she lost her memory.
Fire-benders in theory could also learn to disinfect medical equipment through heat. With enough skill, maybe even create UV light and eventually x-rays...which is also terrifying.
It's not healing. The firebender just uses her bending to sense whats wrong with korra. After that they lower her to water.
They didn't heal 1. Either the water had healing properties 2. The shaman knew exactly what happened to Korra 3. The water was spritual
I think it’s spiritual healing
@@hexmech1893 I can desinfect medical equipment with heat, its called pasteurization, you don't necessarily have to be a fire bender lol
In Wans story arc of Korra he comes to an air bender city and the air benders are shown to be flying while they pick fruit. This is the earliest example of flight, although they do depict it as riding a cloud. The thought is that this was before they discovered flying bison and became attached to them, gaining a worldly tether and losing the ability to fly
I remember seeing someone saying the Kyoshi had her friends had "flying" habilities through their bendings, where they "stepped" on their element for foothold; miststepping, jetstepping. I suppose it could be related to that.
@@sapphirII they summon pillars of their element beneath their feet and jump off them so they can 'walk' on air. u should read the books theyre super good! and theres a yangchen one now
Nah, it's not the same. They were simply using a nimbus cloud. Any air bender with some practice should be able to do it. Levitating in the air like Zaheer did means you have to literally let go of all emotion and worldly desires, which is impossible for most people. Basically you have to be depressed and dead inside in order to fly.
@@controlman7490except zaheer definitely had desires, he had the desire to change the world and to fulfill his mission, his desires were in fact so strong he was willing to kill and die for them. It is truly what tethers you to the ground in the way of being chained by connections to living beings or materialism, since zaheer sought a greater purpose in life and was willing to let everything on earth go to pursue that greater purpose it can be said that the ancient airbenders had one purpose: being as spiritual as possible and not forming emotional bonds with anything. Therefore they were able to fly. We literally see wan fly as well ONLY after being in the avatar state and all of his human friends being dead, and he fought to protect the world and let even his own body and normal life go to fuse with raava and become the avatar, he sacrificed his life and everything to make sure darkness and chaos wouldn’t spread, yet he was still able to fly. Aang for example was always in love with katara, and we saw how only after finally letting go in the crystal cave he was able to fly. I don’t think the creators necessarily planned it, but it came out perfectly for them in the end. Sorry for the long comment but i hope it makes sense. This whole topic could better be made into a 10 min video explaining everything.
@@Monyato Did you not read my comment? Those air benders and Wan were NOT flying. They were using a nimbus cloud beneath their feet. Flight is what Zaheer did. Complete levitation similar to Superman and for that the show explained that one must lack worldly desires in order to fly. You're right though that Zaheer clearly does still have desires because he wants the world to be in chaos, so that's a plot hole on the writers part, but still ancient air benders didn't fly. Neither did Wan.
We need a avatar show about an avatar who learned all the subtypes (including a few new ones probably) and an "avatar" who willed themself into being one ex:an earth bender bending water via almost liquid mud bending fire via lava and bending air via bubbles of mud or something and literally willing themselves into being an avatar
MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY
That's literally what I thought/hoped Korra would be.
Instead it was all teen angst
Instead of mud bubbles just use sand bending
I always thought Jinora could spirit project because of her strong spirituality, not exactly because of airbending. For example, maybe someone like Iroh could meditate and achieve spirit projecting without being an airbender, or maybe Guru Pathik due to being someone who already unblocked all of his chakras. 🤔
i completely agree, although as an air bender born into the air nation, she ofc had some degree of a help in spirituality and stuff
It is indeed canon that despite not being an airbender Iroh was so spiritual and enlightened that instead of simply dying he transcended his body into the spirit world permanently as seen in Korra. And honestly, I enjoy the idea that spirits enjoy his company alot.
I mean she called it a "high level air bender move.....with a little spiritual stuff thrown in". So we kinda have to assume it's airbenders only. S3E4
@@BhBc8f8that’s what I’m thinking too, it’s an airbending move because it involves meditating and that’s a primary airbending practice.
yeah, I firmly believe it's not an airbending skill, it's just that Jinora, who's very spiritually attuned and spiritually talented, can spirit/astral project in the material world, and just happens to be an air bender as well. I think anybody from any nation can project if they're spiritually skilled enough. Like we have Aiwei from korra who's an earth/ metal bender who can travel to the spirit world using astral projection, I don't see why someone like him couldn't have the potential for projecting in the material world.
6:41 There's actually a few instances in the original series. The Fire Avatar making 4 Volcanoes erupt when Roku teaches Aang about the Avatar State, Kyoshi when she separates her island from the mainland, and Roku when he overshadows Aang to destroy the Fire Sage's temple.
is that confirmed to be lava bending, tho? cause it might just be him heating up the volcanoes a lot, so they erupt, and in that case wouldn't that be like a water bender raising a glass of water? its water bending, not glass bending, even though it has a reaction on the glass
@@raulguimaraesreis6640 I agree you don’t need to lava bend to make a volcano erupt or to cause lava in a huge crack in the earth. These are both instances of plain earth bending where lava was already under the surface. Also all the lava bending in legend of kora is the lava bender heating up the earth on the surface and then earth bending the lava they just made. Kyoshi and Roku didn’t show the ability to make lava from plain earth.
@@Playingwithproxies I don't think lava bending is specifically being able to turn rocks into lava though. No bender but a lava bender is able to move lava in the first place. When Bolin lava bends the first time he doesn't make his own lava he is just moving the lava that was already there. Roku brings lava up to the temple in the Winter Solstice part 2, he doesn't turn anything into lava but he just moves it. I would say that is lava bending cause what other bending element would you use but lava bending to move lava. Kyoshi does the same thing where she brings the lava up from the layers of the Earth.
I feel like breath bending should also count cause respiratory air is not the same as atmospheric air due to the negative pressure in the Lungs but Zaheer was able adjust the pressure accordingly specifically for her breathing without disturbing the one in the atmosphere. Humans took decades to engineer space crafts and vacuum chambers to achieve such a feat he was able to do in seconds. It should be a master level technique.
Could you argue that Monk Gyatso figured this out first; since we saw that his body was killed in the Fire Nation attack during Sozin's Comet, but only after killing numerous Fire Nation soldiers; and, seeing as how we didn't actually see how Gyatso did it; I would like to believe he physically bended the air out of their systems, effectively suffocating them
Things that were forgotten or might be considered sub-skills:
1. Ice Bending (though very common)
2. Vine Bending
3. Crystal and Glass Bending
4. Truth Detecting
5. Fire Spirit Healing/Diagnosis (it's unkown if it heals but it helps diagnose spirit issues)
what about bloodbending?
There is also Energy Bending (taking/restoring bending) which isn't a sub element but seems to be given to the Avatar directly, though, I feel it should still be considered.
@@markhanna3306 I didn't include energy bending because it's not a sub bending category. It's a different form of bending all together.
It's not a sub of one of the four, it is its own thing.
Vine bending was talked about
@@MrSirFluffy Mark Hanna literally acknowledged that it wasn't a sub bend
You forgot Energy Bending as well. Remember when the lion turtle taught Aang and he was able bend the energy of Ozai to remove his firebending permanently?
I dont think Energy Bending would count as a sub-bending type, its more the parent bending style, infact id consider it the only true bending style, as every other form of elemental bending revolves around bending the chi of the element through your own chi.
@@madjack5593 well said, although TLK just shoehorned how Amon was able to do it with bloodbending.
@@xaviermartin390 Pretty much yea. Its my headcannon that lineage and mentality both impacts a persons ability to bend specific sub-elements, like, just the knowledge of blood bending might awake the capacity to perform the art in some people even if theyd never show it since the stigma around it is so bad. Lineage i think is a factor for example because of people like Bolin, we can infer from the fact Bolin is an earthbender and Mako is a firebender that thier parents were probably an earthbender and firebender respectively even if thats not confirmed, he has the lineage of a firebender and an earthbender giving him access to Lavabending. These are just my opinions and headcannon tho
@@xaviermartin390 Amon doesn't bend energy, he uses blood bending as a parlor trick to achieve more or less the same result. He's basically doing a blood version of the pressure point chi blocking that all the anti-benders learn.
@@aGoshDarnTravesty I understand that Amon doesn't energy bend. I'm saying they just shoehorned that explanation of how he was able to take one's bending without energy bending.
Potential sub bendings that deserve to be added:
•Acid bending
•Sound bending for Airbenders.
•Void bending
Poisonous gas bending
How would void work? And what is void? What are you on?
In avatar comics and extended lore, Earth liquification was an extremely rare skill, that allowed a bender to move a liquified, non molten rock like water. We’ve also seen toph mud bend in lok, which appears to behave similarly. And glassbending exists in the comics, since glass is just smelted sand it retains its earthen nature
You are my favorite person. You remembered mudbening.
Where does earth liquidation get talked about?
Why do comics always do much better stories than the actual shows/movies/games they're based on
Air has a similar sense to seismic. The airbender’s focus must be much more precise and relaxed due to the fact vibrations travel more quickly through air than earth. A lot of sub-bending is actually just the same ability translated to the different elements. There’s specific commonalities when it comes to opposite and adjacent elements in the cycle.
the speed of the vibrations would depend on what its going through. if it was going through rubber then it would be a lot slower. if its going through diamond etc then it would be a lot faster
Vibrations travel faster through earth, but have a more limited range. The vibration is due to movement of molecules, so the more densely packed earth will transmit those vibrations faster and clearer, but they lose energy faster. This is why sound travels better through metal then through air.
@@michaelmurphy2112 but wayyy slower through rubber apparently. wren from corridor digital made a vid bout the speed of sound through different mediums a while ago
In theory water benders would be able to feel vibrations in the water (probably the easiest to learn)
Fire benders might be able to sense sources of heat? could sense where someone is by their body temperature compared to their surroundings
@@Lorem_64 and snice living things have water in them, they could detect people etc. even through the air
I've heard somewhere that airbenders can purposefully regulate their own body's temperature, though tbh I don't remember where I got that from. But firebenders can definitely bend heat, like taking the heat away from an object or giving more to it, without necessarily using fire: Zuko used it in the Northern Water Tribe to melt the ice above him before drowning, and before Roku's death scene, while he was fighting the volcano, there's a moment in which it seemed like he was taking the heat away from the eruption.
I think a airbender could invent sound bending using instruments that involve using wind/air. We have already seen special doors at air temples that require airbending and make sounds as they open. Aang even used airbending when blowing into his bison whistle so it could be heard at a greater distance both to summon Appa quickly to rescue them and again when Aang was moving the zoo animals in Ba Sing Se. I believe this could be taken another step further by using sound to affect certain parts of the enemies ear or by placing small objects that produce sound like bells as traps and causing them to produce sound from a great distance using airbending to trick a enemy.
This same method could also be used offensively as an attack as well. Air has more effects on our bodies than we think.
Think of how an airplane takes off. The amount of air pressure buildup is too much to isolate outside the plane as it can travel through solid objects similar to soundwaves. The added pressure is what causes our ears to pop.
No doubt, the loud vibrations produced by a skilled airbender could burst someone's eardrums.
Nasty.
Sound bending could also be used differently cause sound waves travel through air right? So an airbender can bend the air to make different sounds, and when mastered can even imitate voices
That would be a cool thing to see in the new Earth avatar series coming two years from now
Please read the avatar yangchen books she does soundbending alot and even grew up in the western air temple, which has an all day echo chamber to practice
In the series, when encountering pirates and stealing water scrolls, Aang finds a hilt, which airbenders redirect air through to make a blade.
tbh my theory with lava benders is the reason it's so rare is because only those born of both firebender and earthbender ancestors can do it(Aside from obviously the avatar as we've seen three past avatars lavabend in atla during flashbacks). If you'd note that Bolin clearly has both firebender and earthbender ancestors since he's an earthbender and his brother is a firebender. Now we can't really confirm for sure with Ghazan(from LOK) but we can't rule out that it's possible. Now there is also another character seen lavabending which is in the graphic novel "Toph Beifong's Metalbending Academy" called Sun who was supposedly born and raised in Yu Dao aka a Fire Nation Colony where the Earth Nation and Fire Nation lived peacefully(until the end of the 100-year war ofc, when Aang and Zuko ran into a problem removing Fire Nation Colonies from the Earth Kingdom). Now technically this means that the three people(except those who think that Toph learned to lavabend for some reason) are confirmed lavabenders with only one technically having confirmed firebender and earthbender heritage, but imo the other two we know very little about their past so it's still very much a possibility.
It is in fact definitely a possibility that that's the scenario
lava is just molten earth. just because something pertains to heat, does not autimatically pertain to fire as well
@@SuperKoopBrosOfficial Remember when avatar roku and fire load Zozan where fighting a volcano
@@Rhino-Prime here's the thing: lava is STRICTLY earth, while smoke pertains to heat in general. both fire and air are the elements most pertaining to heat as smoke is air, and smoke is hot, but because it's open to both elements, firebenders are able to bend the smoke. i know what i said sounds contradictary to my previous statement, but there are some exceptions to that rule.
I find lava bending to be earth bending with water technique/style. Using both the state of matter change between liquid and solid, and flowing movement on earth instead of water.
Similar to how iron explains lightning style as flowing and is stylized on fire bender using water bender techniques.
There also an Earthbending technique I heard that the previous avatar Kyoshi used to halt her aging to be still like a mountain, resulting her to love far longer than the average avatar. Quite interesting to see it be done in any future series
i think that sub bending skills are combinations between the elements, or between chi and spirit. those would be:
fire+earth= lava
air+water= mist
fire+water= lightning (because it was developed by using waterbending moves to use firebending)
air+earth= sand
air+fire= smoke
earth+water=mud
fire+chi= combustion
water+chi= blood and heal
earth+chi= metal and sismic sense
air+chi= fly
water+spirit= spirit bending
air+spirit= spiritual projection
earth+spirit= not discovered yet
fire+spirit= not discovered yet
One thing the lightning isn't based on water bending, Unce Irohs lightning redirection technique was made using water bending techniques.
@@dextergray1670 Basically the same thing, but okay?
Also, anyone else reminded of Naruto’s chakra nature system when looking at this? Like, I get it’s not the same, but this list makes them look quite similar, wouldn’t you say?
@@banzeyegaming2234 yeah this is basically Kekkei Genkai
1.Ligthning bending isnt based of water bending only one singular technice of Ligthning bending is
2. There isnt such a thing like chi bending but there is energy bending wich is pretty much the same thing but with a diffrent name same with spirit they are the same thing
3.in this logic how those glass bending works? Is it a sub sub element? (Yes there is such a thing like glass bending it was in the kiochi book wich is canon so it oficialy exist)
4.i personally disagree as most of those feel like they are added on to existing sub elements not like they were made with this mixing thing in mind
(sorry for my bad grammar)
Plus mud is actually whether this is true or not a mix of water and earth bending as it can only be used in a stable way with combined power of a earth and water Bender for all we know
I feel like katara was able to do blood bending because she already knew how to heal..If you think about it it really makes sense. Both water subcategories. Healing has a lot to do with blood and the body. So yeah, it makes sense.
"it it"
I love how fiction the Avatar lore is but still implements basic science, making it seems real
I was always curious when air benders lost the ability to fly, in korra when looking at the first avatar the airbenders in that fly no problem to gather fruit and to get back onto the flying lion turtle, but I guess some time ago they lost it only for those two mentioned to regain it.
The difference is that the air benders on the lion turtle were using air bending to create a cloud to stand on. The flying he’s talking about is flying effortlessly or without doing any bending whatsoever. They fly like super man kind of just willing themselves to move and effortlessly moving through space. Of course it might be the air is now bending to their will so it changes pressure on each side of their body however they will it to move in any direction.
just a note on spirit bending, i dont think it specifically doesnt work on vines, I believe spirit bending works fine on vines, but the reason the vines come back could be due to the press immediately creating a vibe that annoys the spirits
🤣🤣
@@piyathuyangoda7522 ??
I never thought of spirits being based on the mood in their environment but I like this theory
I would also like to chip in with a theory on how combustion bending is initiated and targeted: depth perception and focus. You would need to sharpen both in order to access it. When Combustion Man failed to use it, he was hit in the head and thus lost focus and had his depth perception hindered heavily. The trigger of the combustion shot has to be gut related, since Combustion Man's stomach sorta wretches or goes inward when he triggers it (minus the misfire)
To me combustion seems to be a process of compression.
They compress their (fire?) chi (in the area around the stomach) before they shoot it out.
Then finally it decompresses, and that together with the heat causes an explosion
@@moortucombustion benders are focusing all their chi in one place making a huge reaction of explosions and to learn this skill they will need to be tortured severely and placed under water for hours on end a theory that the community came up with after the dawn of yangchen(yangchen handles some in a city one time)
I understood how the flying worked. A lot of air benders were monks and spirituality is in their lifestyle. When you get into a meditative state it would feel like a weight has been lifted. Kind of like in religious ceremonies when someone with a high charisma talk about something inspirational you (sometimes) feel a different sensation like you feel lighter, powerful or full of energy.
The sensation of process and freedom, when Zaheer lost his girlfriend, he felt Greif but with his religion background allowed him to let go to earthly attachments, the feeling is like when we dream that dream of falling from somewhere high but allowing it to happen where you fall into a non pressurized space as you float.
Although it was only shown once in LOK, you forgot Firebenders ability to use Chi Divination, as well as heat bending, as used by Firelord Sozin in ATLA.
I definitely want to see more of Combustion bending lava sand and flight once Avatar Genji has been announced and airs it first episode.
the next avatar series wont be about genji since its a fan created comic. but an earthbender is next in the cycle
just curious, since korra's era was already modern as we saw in TLOK, will we see a more advanced society in the next avatar? perhaps a virtual society like what we have now?
@@kcraincano8961 i honestly doubt it. i reckon itll be closer to tlok but maybe with more electricity stuff
I would like to point out that lightning redirection and lightning generation is not the same thing because in theory anyone can use lightning redirection but only firebenders can generate lightning.
unlikely? is there proof of that ever happening?
@@nalapala_ lightning redirection is just redirecting chi which wouldn't be fire bender specific since its a part of every other bending style
For anyone wondering, lightning redirection and lightning generation have their own seperate pages on the official avatar wiki fandom page.
lightning redirection is exclusively a firebending ability. Otherwise, you'd think Zuko would have taught it to more people than just Aang
@@isaac_aren there's no fire bending specific elements to it and Iroh explains that All you need to do is attract it through one had through the stomach and out the other hand
My favorite part about sub-bending is the theoretical potential for cross-elemental styles; alternative bending styles that can be achieved through multiple elements, because they are are either inherently a combination of the two, or can be manipulated in similar ways by two.
Water benders bending air if their is enough water in the air.
@@Playingwithproxies Theoretically Earth benders bending blood via the minerals in one's body. Air benders using the oxygen and/or other gasses in blood to blood bend. Not sure if fire benders could do it even in theory. I will say he use of suffocation tactics via Air bending would likely outweigh the "need" for blood bending that way.
Yeah! Like, I think a fire bender could most likely lava bend and that both earth and water benders could probably bend mud and swamp
Earth Benders:
-bending water via Mud
-bending fire by combining lava and dustbending
-bending air by bending very fine sand and dust
Water Benders:
-bending air by bending steam
-bending fire by bending gasoline? ;)
-bending earth by bending wet clay
Fire Benders:
-bending air by redirecting heat and introducing artificial air flow
-bending earth or water? no idea
Air Bender cant really imitate any element only the subbending like sand but nakes up for it by spritiual potential
@@tillmartens5770 Wave combinations:
+Air: *Sonic.* E.g: Megaphone.
+Earth: *Seismic.* E.g: Earthquake
+Water: *Resonance.* E.g: Riptide.
+Fire: *Pulse.* E.g: EMP.
I think mastering all Earth Bendings sub tree will help a bender to become closer to an Avatar. He can use Lava bending as a fire, Sand Bending similar to water, He can fly using Earth finally his original Earth Bending.
Am I the only one who seems to remember Firelord Sozin's smoke bending?🤔
I was just about to mention that. Him funnelling the heat out of the volcano to calm it was one of the most extraordinary feats in all of bending. It put Roku, a fully realized avatar, to shame in my opinion.
oh yeah forgot about that
Ya air kinda got shafted on the sub skills. Heck flight can actually be done in like 3 easier ways and 2 of them a non avatar could do, so I personally don't really count it to often. I am more likely to count smoke and/or poisonous gas bending. it might be easy and no air nomad would actually use it to it's combative peak, mostly because that is forcing you opponents to choke on smoke/poison, but at least it is both visually more interesting and has a functional difference to the base skills.
A good theoretical air bending sub skill is sound bending. We actually see a couple times in both series of using air bending to amplify sound, now they just need some nullification and directing then we have the perfect bending for stealth.
Flight wouldn't be considered a Sub Bending form. Sound could though.
to bend smoke or poison gas, there has to be already smoke/poison gas to begin with.
@@risingdarkness A Poison canister could be carried around much like Waterbenders carry a container on Water.
I'd imagine Firebenders could create Smoke. They'd likely be a more common Smokebender.
@@joesunday199 i mean, we saw Iroh (The Winter solstice part 1, while aang was dealing with that panda spirit then entered the spirit world with roku and his dragon. Whilst Uncle Iroh was in a hot tub he just released hot air/steam through his nose)create smoke. And we also saw Sozin redirect it.
@@risingdarkness I think that would be Heatbending or Steambending. I think Azula Smokebends in the Smoke and Shadow comic (haven't read it).
I hope they add more psychic type beding, like Combustion bending but with lightning, or have a character use only icebending or bloodbending
7:36 Pretty sure that combustion bending is done by bending through your light Chakra (where their third eye tattoo is)
Bone bending I thought was interesting. Haven't heard as much about it, but basically, someone learned to bend the calcium within the bones. Almost like an earth version of blood bending.
Lao Ge?
The minerals in one's blood could also help bone bending
@@Nenerii if you stretch it enough with physics in mind you could say air benders could just simply bend the oxygen in someones blood, or bend the oxygen directly in the brain. Or maybe a firebender could manipulate the electricity needed to run your mind. Or an earthbender like you said could bend the iron, or calcium, or any other metal on the periodic table that is found inside someone's body.
@@skull1161 so wouldn’t a team of benders be able to create an artificial life?
Stretching it
All sub bending styles
Water
- ice/snow bending
- healing
- spirit bending
- blood bending
- plantbending
Earth
- seismic sense
- metal bending
- lava bending
- sand bending
Fire
- lightning bending
- combustion bending
- heat regulation
Air
- flying
- spirit projection
I always imagined that because Amon used bloodbending to (relatively) permanently block chi and disable bending, a bloodbending healer could reverse it themselves during a full moon. Plenty of unexplored territory there
Also should note, Fire Benders can control and redirect hot air. Sozin does this with volcanic fumes.
And Iroh did a similar thing on a smaller scale, heating up his bath water and tea. Arguably Zuko did it too melting ice in the North Pole. Heat transfer/manipulation definitely ties into the “fire is energy” ideas presented by the sun warrior episode.
I always wished the dark avatar learned all of these skills as well as the basic elements. Plus the entire potential of energybending and even wielding all non-bender skills. Making him one horrifying threat.
Everyone always forgets about bone bending as an earthbending subset. It is the rarest subset of all types but still extremely powerful and worth noting
We don't know if bone bending is a thing. We've never seen an earthbender bend bones in a canon installment.
We haven’t seen it in the show but I would love to see sound bending. Like how Toph’s seismic sense works through earth, I think air benders could detect vibrations in the air, although because vibrations travel slower in air then in earth, it would have a reduced range, but at the added ability that the airbender could create large vibrations akin to thunderclaps. Also it is my personal head cannon that a devoted air bender could sand bend, but not by moving the gains of sand, but by kicking up the sand using air currents.
Also worth mentioning that lava bending can only be learned by an earth bender with one fire bender parent and one earth bender parent.
or the avatar 👀
As good as a point that is we don't know if the bad guy had a fire and earth parent or not since we only seen bolens parents
and where exactly did you get this info
ive seen two Avatars doing lava bending. And all of them were fire avatars. And fire lord sozin also kinda did lava bending even though it looked allot like heat bending.
@@fancy3774 Roku bent lava in book 1
I like that thumbnail interpretation of the element symbols. Haven’t seen some of them, and I much prefer it over other artworks
I like to think of icebending as a sub-bending type of waterbending, but one that’s unique in how apparently easy and widespread it is.
imagine we got an mmo of the Avatar world and had these sub bending skills at a max level bender character :(
Where's my cookie dough bending?
Judging by the comics, I think the next Avatar series will further develop Glassbending, Soundbending and Crystalbending.
It would be awesome if a new villain could do something like Shadow Bending. Just hear me out:
Imagine in the Spirit World there is a demonic spirit of Shadows. A wandering human discovers this spirit and becomes its vessel similar to Raava but the spirit is in control. This power would allow them to control and manipulate shadows like a mix between Shikamaru and Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog
I cant say for sure because I don't think it was ever brought up in the episode but there was a instance where Katara blood bent without the use or at least the mention of a full moon. This was in the episode where she was seeking revenge for her mother.
There was a full moon
There can be other possibilities. One can be soundbending, used by the Air Nation for bending sound waves in the air and using it to throw/mimic voices and sounds, send secret messages through the wind, or bend sound waves at opponents. Heatbending for firebenders can be used to bend the heat waves surrounding objects, thus raising temperatures up to boiling points or enhancing their own firebending abilities, adding extra heat to their attacks. Soulbending, being a darker version of spiritbending, giving the water bender the ability to corrupt or extract one’s essence from their bodies and place it in other bodies or even objects. Seismic pulse allows an earth bender to vibrate the earth around them to the point of earthquakes.
Sozin heat transfer bended. He was literally cooling down the Cresent Island volcano 🌋.
I would’ve love to see other nations from beyond the known Avatar world that revolves around the sub bendings like an Egyptian nation of Sandbenders or a Greek nation of Lavabenders
I think what the airbenders can achieve with flying and spirit has more to do with the monk aspect than their bending ability. Like in reality, monks have been known to achieve incredible things by having complete control over their mind and body. The entire goal is to give up their earthly connections. I think Avatar had a cool interpretation on what monks could achieve with such focus, not just airbenders specifically. I say this because uncle Iroh has also been a very spiritual man and has accomplished entering into the spirit world.
They also forget about gem bending or crystal bending whichever you wanna call it but either way nobody ever mentions that
Great video. But I’d like to add that Gahzan wasn’t the first time we’ve seen lava bending, Avatar Roku did it twice in atla. First during the volcano scene and then during the destruction of the fire sage temple. I wouldn’t have realized this if it weren’t for me just rewatching the show the other day lol.
You forgot to talk about Ice bending as it’s a sub form of bending for water benders and it’s the most common for them as well as explain what “Temperature Regulation” is in Air being and I’ve never heard of that sub form of bending.
If I remember correctly, spiritual projection wasn't presented as a type of air bending, I think it's just a rare ability that some people have/can develop.
i do remember Jinora saying something along the lines of "its a high level airbending technique, with some spiritual stuff sprinkled in" which would imply that it does require one being an airbender
It makes sense because of the air nomads culture that they'd be predisposed
@@abdelabdu3721 alas what does that mean in Iroh's case. The man literally transcended spiritually into the Spirit Realm
My theory : Aang can metal bend, he just didn't learn how.
I believe every avatar can bend anything that is 'bendable' as long as someone teaches them.
So it doesn't make Korra automatically stronger because she can metal bend, since Aang could have if he took enough lessons with Toph
(he just didn't have time).
I always thought spiritual projection was something anyone could do in theory, it's just that the airbenders' culture makes them particularly prone to learning the ability.
Agreed, as Iroh did do something quite similar when he left for the spirit world. Remember its explicitly stated he didnt die, but ascended. Which considering he is as enlightened as a non airbender gets, says it may be possible for other bending types. But it would be ALOT harder for them.
It is
You missed the weird air redirection that Sozen does
I think its some wierd heet bending
Okay, but the water bending sub types are hilarious. You have two super nice ones, healing, spirit bending. And then….
*B l o o d*
Lava bending can only be used by someone with one fire bending parent and one earth bending parent that’s why it’s so rare
No because many avatars also could, for example Avatar Kyioshi when creating Kyioshi Island and her parents were earth and airbenders. Also Avatar Roku and he didn't have and earth parent. Actually the only lavender I know of is Bolin.
@@esaucorrales actually avatar kyoshi used earth bending to split open the tech tonic plate separating a plot of land from its natural structure causing the lava from the center of the earth to rise it was a natural reaction and avatar roku wasn’t alone at that moment he was with fire lord sozen and the merely used fire bending to Chanel the fumes out of the volcano to cause the molten rock to dry up again a natural occurrence lava bending wasn’t officially introduced until legend of Korra also I was going based off the description given in a UA-cam video by a purely avatar the last air bender content filled account where he said that exact description saying it was from something called the avatar handbook
@@Thunderstrike2002 if kyoshi actually in anyway shape or form effected the flow and movement of a tectonic plate then that is by far with no competition the most impressive physical feat that any character in avatar has ever done
@@esaucorrales stop using avatars as a basis for rare feats when they can bend all elements. It's a mute fken point if we talking about a bending brought up by genetics of fire and earth when they can use earth and fire bending.
@@esaucorrales They don't need fire and earthbending parents because THEY ARE THE AVATAR! THEY CAN LITERALLY BEND BOTH EARTH AND FIRE!!
The biggest thing that was forgotten is that Avatar Kioshi demonstrated Lava Bending when she was using the Avatar State to create Kioshi Island.
Smoke-bending, one method by air-benders, and another by fire-benders. As well as mud-bedding, a sub-bending form shared between earth-benders and water-benders. Lastly, there is energy-bending done on-screen by only fire-benders, but people differ whether it is specialised, or whether what we saw was a type of healing done by fire-benders.
Flying requires detachment
Spiritual protection requires strong bonds to be used efficiently
Both are shown to be exceptional rare within the franchise.
It appears that airbending may be the single most difficult element to truly master.
And ironically a bending that is so peaceful, is able to be very deadly in wrong hands.
Isn’t that the one element that Korra struggled with the most?
@@nicktheavatar_ yup
if airbending is the hardest element, why had aang mastered it at 12 years old?
@@mathematicalgamer7692 because he’s the avatar and was born an air bender? Korra had mastered water bending by a young age and was great at fire bending if I recall correctly
You forgot vacuum bending. Suffocating the person. Ya know, the way the Earth Queen was killed.
thats just airbending my guy.
That’s just removing air instead of adding it
I love that all these sub-bending originated in ATLA and then in the next line gets immediately disminished in TLoK. Most of these subclasses were specialized skills that requires certain conditions, but in TLoK they became trivialize.
I have some problems with how the "flanderized" bending in LoK.
In LA, lightning bending was only mastered by a handful of people IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. In LOK, it's like flipping a switch, no difficulty what so ever. I KNOW that the writers really wanted the "Steampunk-esque" setting, but they could have easily thought of some other contraption that required fire, or earth bending, something.
(Or just not go with a setting that didn't really make sense for the time gap, but that's a different discussion)
They really left me salty about Lava-bending. 1st off, it's a ret-con. In the Avatar extras S1 E8 (pretty sure). It is said that ONLY THE AVATAR could lava-bend because it is such a hard mix of earth and fire bending. And I mean yes, it IS a REALLY COOL form of bending, don't get me wrong. However, if you HAD to have it in the show, instead of pulling another Amon and say, "Oh, only he can do it because he won the genetics lottery." Why not make it tied to the character instead? Make it a Lightning-bending-esque form where, anyone CAN do it, but it takes a certain type of person, years of practice and a certain mindset. (You must be so filled with rage and hatred that you'll melt any mountains in your way.) Something like that? Imagine how that could move some character progression?
Spiritbending... Should really just get rid of all of season 2 (Minus Varrick he can stay :3)
Glassbending I can't really tell if that should be an earth or fire bending thing. Both? I'm on the fence about that.
Airbending... Fartbending, need I say more?
What Zaheer did the Earth queen was just super cool, I liked it.
Air Flying on the other hand, just feels like it's taking my suspension of disbelief for a ride. I can understand the Jet propulsion like at the end of LA where fire benders were given enough of a boost to just fly, it makes enough sense. I completely understand the character progression, spirituality and Zaheer's goal for it, however he doesn't really even "bend" much so it kind of looks like he turned on creative mode, which just looks down right silly.
Spiritual projection, neat addition. Don't know why it needs to be exclusively an airbending thing though.
Spiritual sense (When Korra had amnesia the fire sages were blazing it up over her comatose body to see her spirit). If this WAS what they were doing, I don't see why it was necessary. They could have just physically felt her up and we would have been just as convinced.
TLDR; Korra is a Pandora's box of bending ideas. Most of them either unnecessary, or downright bad. However there are a couple of neat additions.
There’s a theory on bone bending. Like blood bending, bone bending allows earth benders to move the calcium in bones
Calcium and mercery being a metal I believe that metal benders actually learn to bend iron over time not just impurities in metal. And maybe metal benders could learn to bend platinum it would just take specific practice.
I'm a smidge surprised that you didn't mention ice and snow, but I guess those were part of the "this is too obvious to be mentioned in the list over more interesting apsects" club
My theory is that earth bending is really just silicate bending, which explains a lot of its sub-elements
I have the opposite theory earth bending is bending any element commonly found in the ground. And metal benders actually learn to bend iron as they become better at metal bending.
Lavabending also appears to be something that Firebenders are capable of, as Roku and Sozin were shown using it just before Roku's death.
I am not sure about Sozin, but Roku was managing lava as a earth bander (as i know from avatar's lore)
@@Romanyoni Fair, but Sozin was very clearly lavabending too...
There is a comic where an air bending avatar rips a channel through the ocean, parting it like Moses, with a scream of rage. I think sound bending make sense as a more emotional potentially dark subset of air bending.
I think it would be near impossible if not completely impossible for the avatar to gain the ability to fly. This is due to the fact that skill and strength can only take you so far in achieving this ability. The most important part of flying is letting go of all earthly tethers hence why Zaheer was only able to accomplish this feat after the woman he loved, P'Li, died. She was an earthly tether for him and her death severed that tether which allowed him to take flight. Its hard for me to imagine an avatar that served and had compassion for the people and brought balance to the world while simultaneously being disconnected from them enough to possess the ability to fly. It would be interesting to see an avatar navigate that thin line though.
When Aang talks to his predecessor airbender, she said that the avatar can never achieve true spiritual high, because he is bound to the world. Also, 1/4 earthbender.
But the avatar already has to let go of all the stuff to master the avatar state
@@moortuno he actually doesnt…if that was the case he would not have ended up with katara in the end and korra wouldnt have ended up with mako or that one girl forgot her name
Interestingly, there was a past Avatar mentioned in the Yangchen novels named Gun who slowly developed a disdain for humanity over the course of their life, which only worsened upon the death of their companion Mesose. I think if any Avatar were to have the ability to gain flight, it would be Gun, who had no attachment to humanity and who had already lost the one person they cared about.
Wind needs some better sub-elements. Could’ve given them something like Sound bending.
yeah air benders only really get flight... and only 2 airbenders in existance can do that...(unless you count the avatar) air benders shoulda been the ones to do spirit bending IMO... water already has enough sub-bending..
I consider cloud bending as one of those subs that aren't specifically called out. in one of the episode the airbenders and Wan would make clouds they can ride instead of rotating air currents. It's clearer to see as a cloud during his fight with vatuu as he creates it then rides it. it's probably a forgotten technique.
Hey sound bending makes a whole lot of sense I never thought of that its just a vibration of the air no matter the source so yea manipulation cancellation soundproof bubbles etc should all be possible with a crazy level of control. We would need the Toph of Airbenders with her level of sensitivity to their element
@@dextergray1670 you know how in the first episode aang said he manipulated the air around him to stay warm I'd like to imagine that sound could work in a similar way but for a nomadic group of airbenders that are ninjas, they manipulate the vibrations around their body to make no sound and so sneak around causing pranks.
Soundbending is actually a thing, and Aang does it while he's in Ba Sing Se looking for Appa. Admittedly, he's not sociopathic, so he doesn't even attempt to use the more obviously lethal applications that Soundbending would present to him; matching the resonant frequency of bone would literally turn someone's skeleton into splinters in mere moments, for instance. Sound can also carry enough energy to cause physical concussive damage, which is what a sonic boom is. A Soundbender would theoretically be able to _pulverize_ stone and concrete, and _mush_ an enemy into paste... plus their attacks would be impossible to dodge.
Also noted that all 4 elements has some sort of temperature changes they can do to their bending.
Waterbenders can freeze water to make ice
Earthbenders can make the earth hot to make lava
Firebenders can make hotter flames (mainly just azula's blue flames tbh)
And airbenders can regulate their body temperature, also aang kinda used cold air when he fought vs ozai
Aang could learn all of these but he doesn’t as some are just deadly for the people around him, and thus, he doesn’t do them. Ie: blood bending
Pretty sure he tried to learn metal bending in the comics, but Toph said he wasnt able to
But isn't seismic sence more of a skill or bending forn from the main earth bending branch rather than a full on subbending class of it's own?
I would agree, and would say that flight and lightning redirection are in the same area. Not full bending subclasses, but perks or skills of it.
@@Epic_Droid yes exactly
Also combustion bending seems to need really concentrated breath. And I've always been curious about HEAT bending as we see Sozin do in the "Avatar and the Firelord" episode. He literally bends the heat out from rock into the air. Moments like that really make me see the connection of all the elements.
You forgot mud bending
It is hinted that some subbending require 2 bending genes combined. Take bolin, a lavabender. His parents were earth and fire benders.
One random day, I was thinking: what if the zodiac signs were given sub bending abilities. So…
Water:
Cancer-healing
Pisces-Spirit
Scorpio-blood
Earth: (all know seismic sense)
Taurus-Sand
Capricorn-Metal
Virgo-Lava
(Cap and Vir could switch)
Fire:
Sagittarius-Lightning
Aries-Redirection
Leo-Combustion
Air:
Aquarius-Flying
Gemini-Spirit Projection
Libra- possibly temperature related?
(Aqu and Libra could switch)
You forgot Icebending (Water), Mudbending (Water and Earth), Steambending (Air, Water, and Fire), Crystalbending (Earth), Cloudbending (Air and Water), Paintbending (Earth), Glassbending (Earth), Smokebending (Air and Fire) And maybe even Sweatbending (Water) (Sweatbending I could let slide though.)
Steambending and Cloudbending are the same, and I'd let Crystalbending slide.
@@jonathanschmitt5762 They aren't quite the same. Close, very close but not quite. Steambending can be used by Air, Water, and Fire. Cloudbending can only be used by Air and Water. Also, Airbenders can ride Clouds but not Steam.
@@joesunday199
1. Clouds are litterary steam, there's no difference what so ever.
2. Firebenders are never shown to bend steam, but they can redirect heat wich is shown in the scene you're probably refering to.
3. Airbenders can't ride clouds. In Wan's story, the drawing was a little sketchy and you could think they were riding clouds, but it was just air. Also, Aang was shown getting wet from jumping onto a cloud, wich I doubt you'll get from riding ON one.
@@jonathanschmitt5762 1. I just described what is different.
2. Iroh used steam to heat up the Water he was bathing in. Steam has Heat which Firebenders can bend. So, yes, they can Steambend.
3. They can ride clouds. We see it during Wan's Era. It is very clear those were clouds. The monks were literally standing on them. It wasn't a flow of Air holding them up.
in my head cannon, a skilled enough fire bender could use there body fat to create grease fires. Each blast would use about a cup of fat and look more like shooting burning liquid then just bursts of fire. Also; in the same vain as seismic sense, a blind fire bender would be able to sense the heat of living things around them, as well as constantly generating low level electric burst to sense there surroundings; think a combination of rattlesnake and electric eel.
Constantly generating electricity? Y’know how much chi that would take?? (Not really because it’s not real) Also not sure if that really is possible..
@@kingg3122 ua-cam.com/video/z0M7_HPSi14/v-deo.html&ab_channel=TED-Ed
I got the idea from this video.
Water is by far the most versatile and deadly when used to its fullest power
Is the spirit projection spasific to air bending? I can see it being easier for them since they are the most spiritual people of the four nations but if feel like it could be used in any bending style. Seems more like a meditation and spiritual technique then a bending technique.
I always saw spirit projection/spirit bending as seperate to the four elements with it coming from a different Lion Turtle. I've always seen it as a quasi-parent bending style or almost like the root to the 4 elements or it is either a completely different thing altogether since bending the elements involve bending the external environment whereas spirt bending is inherrently internal and non-tangible
@@zoeywyllie1411 I’ve been saying this too the only reason that air benders learned it is because of their cultural connection to spiritual things.