Every Sub-Bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender

[Music] the idea of bending the four elements is nothing new to the avatar fandom but what about bending sub elements as we see throughout avatar the last airbender and the legend of korra there are more than just the four core bending styles this type of bending is called sub bending and it has to do with bending the elements that branch off of the four core elements water earth fire and air you're watching avatar discussions and this is everything we know about the sub-bending elements as we know the people of the avatar universe were first given the bending abilities by the lion turtles they lived on these lion turtles along with the spirits and some animals were the only true benders in the world but they would pass the ability along to the people temporarily when they were in need for example juan first gets fire bending when he is going on a hunting trip with his townsmen but never gives it back to the lion turtle as a gift when juan is banished the lion turtle allows him to keep his fire in order to survive the spirit wilds over time as people moved off of the lion turtles and onto the main ground the lion turtles gave these humans the ability to bend the elements permanently thus began the origin of each bending element today we're going to look at each bending element and everything these benders can sub-bend starting with the first sub-bending ability we see in avatar the last airbender healing waterbenders that can do this ability manipulate waterford's healing abilities and use it to heal physical wounds more skilled healers can heal not only wounds but some spiritual issues as well basically the bender uses the water to redirect the energy in and around the body the effectiveness depends on the skill level of the bender some benders like katara are so powerful that they can heal without any training at all as we know thanks to the northern water tribe's sexist traditions healing was originally a skill only female benders would learn over time male healers came about and it became the most common sub-bending element however healing has its limit like how it can't heal things like top's blindness or zuko's scars and it can't heal internal injuries like the one jet got in his battle with long fang it can also be used to detect and find blocked cheap paths however it cannot unblock chi unless you have spirit water with spirit water all of these issues are resolved and anything is possible overall i'd say healing would come in handy if you were traveling with the avatar spirit bending a variation of healing as we see in legend of korra spirit bending is used by surrounding a dark spirit with water to cleanse them of their darkness allowing them to turn to light this technique was created and developed by unilak hutana tekora this ability allows the bender to change a spirit's energy from negative to positive or vice versa according to unilak this method could very well kill a person's soul which we see later on when unlock uses this method on quora he's a pretty crappy uncle he's definitely no iro oh yeah good point this bending while effective on most spirits does not work on spirit vines it's literally impossible to get rid of those things plant bending there isn't much to plant bending it's an ability that doesn't need much training plant bending has to do with bending the water inside of a plant or bending it out of the plant this allows you to manipulate plants to your advantage whether that be a shield or a weapon or a huge monster plant thing like we see in the foggy swamp tribe to round out the water sub-bending abilities we have blood bending blood bending is a specialized sub-skill and a rare variant of water bending that allows an extremely advanced water bender to take hold of and manipulate the water in blood within someone this technique is referred to as the highest level of water bending as well as the darkest most powerful and most feared of all bending techniques and it is the only art known to endanger the user's mental state the technique was discovered by a waterbender named hama while she was detained in a prison designed by the fire nation specifically to hold waterbenders during her detainment she concluded that all life contains water and proceeded to develop the knowledge and skills of the art by practicing on elephant rats the forms and styles used by blood benders resemble how a puppeteer controls a marionette when water bending uses flowing motions with the arms blood bending seems to require a more rigid and abrupt form of movement due to its extreme nature only a handful of waterbenders have demonstrated the ability to bloodbend the technique is deemed to be a dark art and is rarely used in combat by most waterbenders the complexity and sophistication required to perform the art usually only allows for its use during a full moon when a waterbender's power is at its apex only yacon tarlock and amman have shown the ability of performing the art without the aid of the full moon being naturally talented and having trained vigorously yacon and amman were capable of blood bending without using their arms also known as psychic blood bending knowledge of the art eventually became known to the public and the practice of blood bending was outlawed due to the efforts of katara following the formation of republic city moving on to a more grounded element earth has several sub-elements of its own the first one we're introduced to in both avatar the last airbender and legend of korra seismic sense seismic sense is a subscale of earth bending that constitutes physical sense this skill enables earth benders to detect vibrations in the ground to perceive objects people and other aspects of their environment essentially acting as sonar but through earth and metal we see toff use this every day she uses it in place of her eyesight developing a skill at a young age we also see later on that she taught the skill to both of her daughters lin and suyin in legend of korra sand bending is a very particular bending art at its core sand bending is a sub-element of earth bending that allows people to bend the sand around them sand itself is made up of small particles of rock which earthbenders can manipulate however the granular structure of sand makes it difficult for average earthbenders to get the hang of unlike regular earth sand is loose and flowing requiring a smoother more relaxed technique making the art more like water and air bending than regular earth bending on the topic of toff before her metal bending was thought of as impossible she developed the skill to escape a metal box metal bending is a specialized sub-skill of earth bending that allows an earthbender to ferrokinetically bend processed metal the technique was invented by tof bae fong to escape from a metal cage in which she was captured and transported by sinfu and master yu since metal is merely earth that has been purified and refined toff used your seismic sense to perceive the trace amounts of unpurified crude earth still present in the metal target it and use it to bend the purified metal itself metal benders can also bend liquid metals such as mercury they'll utilize more fluid movements to do so akin to water bending it is also possible to bend liquid metal inside someone's body finally the last earth-bending sub-element is lava bending lava bending is a specialized sub-skill of earth bending that allows the bender to manipulate molten earth this rare ability allows the bender to face change earth into lava lava into earth and otherwise manipulate existing lava with great dexterity lava bending is extremely rare we first see gazan in legend of korra until later on when bolin learns that he too can lava bend moving on to the next element once the skill thought to only belong to the royal family by avatar chorus time lightning bending was the most popular sub bending skill lightning generation is an advanced sub skill within fire bending that allows the user to produce lightning by separating the positive and negative energies internally before directing it up through the arm and out of the fingertips the technique is extremely precise and deadly and is referred to by some as the cold-blooded fire we see mako use this throughout legend of korra also related to lightning bending lightning redirection allows the bender to redirect lightning by allowing the energy to use their body as a host and guide it in another direction moving on to combustion bending combustion bending has to do with focusing all of your qi into one attack as we see combustion benders have to reel back and focus on their target before shooting and while there is no confirmed explanation as to how combustion works many fans speculate that combustors focus all of their energy through a focused mind which allows them to center their fire and make it combust but let's be honest the only real question about combustion bending is whose is better sparky sparky boom man or sparky sparky boom woman pili all of the other elements seem to have a plethora of sub-bending abilities but error seems to be singularly focused there is however two abilities that you could consider air-bending sub-techniques flying is one of the hardest sub-skills to master as ahear says in order to fly you have to let go of your earthly tether and achieve true freedom the skill was founded by guru lahimah only one person other than lahima himself has been able to achieve it and that's zaheer nobody is really sure how flying works just that there is no physical bending being done you just fly like superman lastly spiritual projection spiritual projection is a specialized air bending technique that consists of projecting one spirit out of the body to travel to another location through projection an airbender is able to explore places that would otherwise be physically inaccessible such as moving around freely underwater or to sealed locations by passing through solid matter while also being capable of talking normally with other people furthermore airbenders can use this technique to find individuals with whom they have a strong bond by focusing on their spiritual energy it is a very advanced technique that requires a strong spiritual connection the idea of sub-bending is huge and one of the more favored parts in avatar lore only the most powerful of benders can achieve these rare abilities which allows fans to differentiate the regular benders from the more powerful ones that's it everything we know about the sub-bending elements there's always more to learn about sub-bending so let us know if we missed anything in the comments below thanks for watching and stay flaming

Channel: Avatar Discussions

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Keywords: sub elements avatar, sub elements of fire, sub elements of fire avatar, sub elements of wind, sub elements of melody, sub elements of dance, sub elements of air bending, sub elements of plot, sub bending elements avatar, all sub elements avatar, sub bending elements, sub elements in avatar, sub bending avatar, sub bending of air, sub bending for water, sub bending of waterbending, sub bending of fire, airbending sub bending, all sub bending in avatar

Id: Vk79poW3sQQ

Length: 9min 18sec (558 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 24 2022