Fire -> Blue Fire -> Lightning
Earth -> Lava -> Metal
Water -> Ice -> Blood -> Healing
Air -> ???
Sure there's flight, but that's really eh...
There's a new series coming out that will take place in a modern world, I think that's a good time to introduce a new specialty to air bending, what do you think it should be Cinemaphile?
Sound.
Like said sound would be the best, it is just wiggly air after all.
Another possibility is illusions either something similar to a mirage where you just change the position of something by messing with the refraction of light or you do something more precise with the use and control of smoke.
we do see Aang use airbending to amplify the sound from his bison whistle in Tales from Ba Sing Sei
Fire bending can also steal heat from stuff like when Sozin turned lava back into rocks?
I wish we got more of this. We know they can super heat air to cause explosions (Combustion Man/P'li) and we know they can pull heat from things (Sozin), but we never got a full look into how those techniques are learned and refined.
Air > vacume > Weightlessness
That's not how gravity works
OK
We'll neglect air resistance
I need to see the bed breaking sexo they have every night.
these are the important story developments that the comics should be covering
It's canon that Asami doesn't allow Korra to wear underwear in public.
between this, and Tenzin not letting her wear any during training, how long has it been since Korra got to wear underwear?
>Air -> ???
Zaheer flying around and using vacuum effects to suck the air out of people's lungs is the pinnacle of air bending.
This is just regular, albeit more powerful airbending usage though. Even airbending kids "fly", they just max out at a bit above the ground, and it feels like the breath thing isn't some special technique, just something a regular air nomad would absolutely never do.
I do think the natural extrapolation here is something like combustion bending but with compression/expansion. If you want to go the fire -> lightning route of not really having a logical physics progression, the next obvious choice is to double down on Laghima's "void/empty" perspective of enlightenment, where the special bending is black holes/collapse/voidbending.
Neither really fits the core identity of airbending though, which is about freedom, rotation, and meeting force or obstacle with evasion.
>Neither really fits the core identity of airbending though, which is about freedom, rotation, and meeting force or obstacle with evasion.
That's why purely flying like Zaheer could do is the pinnacle of Airbending, when he even speaks about "entering the void." Not even Aang could fly around with purely airbending-he always needed his glider. In the end battle vs Ozai when Aang is in the avatar state he uses fire to fly around, unless I'm remembering wrong, and isn't purely flying the way Zaheer was able to once he entered the void.
>Not even Aang could fly around with purely airbending-he always needed his glider
>In the end battle vs Ozai when Aang is in the avatar state he uses fire to fly around, unless I'm remembering wrong
In the Ozai fight he just sort of magic flies around in his cacoon of element rings IIRC. But what I meant was that Zaheer's flying isn't on the same level as the Fire -> Lightning exchange. It's more like sandbending or vinebending, specialized technique of something that every airbender can do pretty well. We see Aang, even outside of the hoverball, sort of partially-glide to slow falls (like in the Toph fight, he basically moon physics floats off to the side and lands gently.
>specialized technique of something that every airbender can do pretty well
That's not true though. Kids could only float temporarily on airballs. Aang needed his glider to fly. Korra and none of Tenzin's airbender kids could fly without a glider or those flying squirrel suits. Zaheer truly flying completely like he does in Enter the Void is the epitome of airbending the same way lightning bending is the epitome of firebending. No other airbender, even Aang is ever shown as being capable of Zaheer's level of true flight and levitation.
call this flight "gravity bending" if you want it to sound cooler.
>Kids could only float temporarily on airballs.
?t=315
That's not true Zaheer flight. He temporarily levitated for a few seconds by filling his loosefitting clothes with air. If Aang could truly fly like Zaheer, he wouldn't need his glider at all, and if Tenzin's airbender kids could truly fly like Zaheer, they wouldn't need their winged glider suits.
?t=35
This is the pinnacle of airbending, that's why no one could believe it when Zaheer did it. Aang himself could not fly like this, he could only float and needed his glider if he wanted to go long distances.
>Laghima was an Air Nomad guru and renowned poet who lived at the Northern Air Temple around 3,829 BG. He discovered the secret to weightlessness, which allowed him to unlock the airbending ability of flight.[3] This essentially allowed Laghima to become untethered from the earth and live the last forty years of his life without ever touching the ground.[4] His writings and philosophy were very influential and continued to be studied for thousands of years, including by Zaheer, the leader of the anarchical group known as the Red Lotus.[5]
>He was regarded as one of the most influential philosophers in world history. Avatar Yangchen called Laghima the Air Nomads' "most legendary guru",[6] and according to Zaheer, he was the wisest airbender who ever lived.[5]
https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Laghima
The Airbenders couldn't all do this. Laghima was called the greatest airbender guru because he figured it out and achieved weightlessness and didn't touch the ground for 40 years. Call it gravity bending or void bending if you want it to sound cooler than flying.
>Following P'Li's death, Zaheer was able to let go of his final earthly tether, unlocking the ability of flight on top of Laghima's Peak. As a result, the guru's abilities were no longer dismissed as legends.[3]
Zaheer was the first known airbender to fly since Guru Laghima. If Aang or any other airbender was able to do it, it would have been recorded.
Laghima ballz lmao
Did you not read my post at all? The point is that even airbending children can independently, without airballs achieve near weightlessness. So the fact that Zaheer, an adult adherent of Laghima, who could fight white lotus members 4v1, was able to tip the slightly farther requirement to actually being weightless, is not as huge a shift as it's being made out to be. Once you inch that slight bit farther, that's all that is required. Everything else is just normal airbending like they use with the gliders, but with you being the glider.
He's using niche teachings. Like the sand/metal/bloodbenders. I'm sure if you actually taught airbending children that it was possible to fully untether, it would not be hard for any subsequent airbending master to do so, given they are already SO close to it even when young.
Bloodbending seemingly did not exist until Hama recognized that "water" is in everything alive, something that vinebenders understood to a lesser degree. But literally any waterbender can be taught the principle and trained to do so, though it requires the moon's amplification to manipulate in such a diluted form. Metalbending did not exist until Toph recognized that "metal" is just diluted earth, after which the technique became widespread . Suyin claims that it isn't actually that only some people can use the technique, it's that people mentally limit themselves.
Zaheer is the one who breaks through the mental barrier because he believes whole heartedly in Laghima's teachings, it's a mental block.
But unlike say Lightning, or Healing/Spirit, what Zaheer is doing isn't ACTUALLY different from what Aang does against Toph. It's still weightlessness, he just tips over that last hurdle into making it perpetual. He just goes light enough that he can keep afloat. It's not a different technique, he's just a bit better at doing the thing all airbenders can theoretically do.
>Did you not read my post at all? The point is that even airbending children can independently, without airballs achieve near weightlessness
No they can't. They need gliders or flying squirrel suits to do what Zaheer did.
>Following P'Li's death, Zaheer was able to let go of his final earthly tether, unlocking the ability of flight on top of Laghima's Peak. As a result, the guru's abilities were no longer dismissed as legends.[3]
People thought Laghima's ability to fly was a mythological legend and Zaheer was the first one recorded as able to do it since Laghima invented it-not little airbender kids, not Aang, only Zaheer.
>But unlike say Lightning, or Healing/Spirit, what Zaheer is doing isn't ACTUALLY different from what Aang does against Toph. It's still weightlessness, he just tips over that last hurdle into making it perpetual. He just goes light enough that he can keep afloat. It's not a different technique, he's just a bit better at doing the thing all airbenders can theoretically do.
Perpetual airbending and true flight and weightlessness is the pinnacle of airbending like lightning bending is the pinnacle of firebending.
I doubt that a culture like the air benders will be able to keep evolving on the industralized world