Summary

• Avatar: The Last Airbender has four main bending types with unique abilities, including fire, earth, water, and air.
• The show became popular but had a despised live-action movie; a Netflix series is set for release in 2024.
• Each bending type has special subsets like bloodbending, metalbending, and energybending with various powers.

Avatar: The Last Airbender features four main types of bending: fire, earth, water, and air; however, each of them has its unique specialties as well. Airing on Cartoon Network from 2005 to 2008, Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the most beloved animated shows of all time. The show became so popular that it received a despised live-action movie called The Last Airbender. More recently, plans were announced for a Netflix live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series based on the beloved TV show, which will be released on February 22, 2024.

Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place in a world where some people are born with the ability to manipulate, or "bend," one of four elements – fire, earth, water, and air. The story centers on Aang, a uniquely gifted being called the Avatar who has the ability to control all four elements. Together with friends from the Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, and Fire Nation, Aang embarks on a quest to bring peace to the four nations. While there are four primary groups, each type of bending has its own unique subset, giving them extra abilities in and out of battle.

Airbending And All The Subtypes

The first category of bending is airbending, the power set belonging to the Air Nomads. It's revealed through flashbacks that prior to the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Air Nomads were all but wiped out of existence by the fire nation, who were looking to kill the Avatar - Aang. However, unbeknownst to them, Aang survived, and audiences got their first taste of what powers belonged to the Air Nomads.

The main ability of the Air Nomads is the ability to control and manipulate air. This is most often visualized in the form of wind. Airbenders can create strong gusts, propel themselves, and create balls of compressed air to use as projectiles. Other than classic airbending techniques, some airbenders can also manipulate clouds, because they're composed of mostly air. Advanced airbenders (like Aang) can also harness their abilities to spiritually project – send their consciousness outside their physical form - although this ability is strongly tied to their spirituality as opposed to their bending.

One of the rarest forms of bending featured on the show is Aang's energybending – a unique power that gives the user the ability to bend another person's life energy. Aang uses this ability to defeat Phoneix King Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender's finale. This ability technically predates all other forms of bending, and Aang is the first human to use it (thanks to being taught by the lion turtle). In that sense, it's separate from all the other elements of bending, rather than being a discipline of airbending.

Waterbending And All The Subtypes

The second type of bending featured in Avatar: The Last Airbender is waterbending, the ability belonging to the Water Tribe. Waterbending is most prominently displayed through Katara – one of the best Avatar: The Last Airbender characters and Aang's loyal friend. Just as it sounds, waterbending is the ability to control water. Users can manipulate existing bodies of water like lakes and rivers while also drawing water from things like plants or condensation in the air.

One branch form of waterbending is icebending. Since ice is just solidified water, benders can manipulate (and create) ice from any source of water. Branching off of this ability is steam and fog bending - since both are the third form of water, vapor. Another prominent form of waterbending is healing. Waterbenders can channel chi through their water abilities to heal injuries. Plantbending is another type of specialized waterbending. The Foggy Swamp Tribe, in particular, harnesses this ability, which allows users to manipulate any type of plant life with water in it.

The most controversial type of waterbending is bloodbending – the ability to control the liquid in a person's body to manipulate them physically. It's a skill frowned upon by many waterbenders, and Katara learns it from Hama, who was cast out of her tribe because of her bending. During the events of Avatar, the only way bloodbending can be successfully performed is with the aid of a full moon, which enhances the natural abilities of most waterbenders.

Firebending And All The Subtypes

The third type of bending – and often most frequently associated with evil – is firebending. Firebending is the ability to create and manipulate fire. It is the trademark of the Fire Nation, who serve as the primary antagonists of The Last Airbender. Firebending is the most aggressive and unpredictable form of bending, which is reflected in the temperament of its users. Azula and Zuko are two of the most prominent examples of firebenders, and both of them have short tempers.

Other than the manipulation of fire, firebending also includes lightning bending, most frequently demonstrated by Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Combustionbending – as demonstrated by the assassin Combustion Man – is the ability to create fires and explosions with one's mind as opposed to arm motions. This skill is a rare and often dangerous ability derived from a tattoo on the bender's forehead. Another rare firebending ability is energy reading - the ability to sense chi paths and spiritual energy - which is similar to waterbender's healing.

Earthbending And All The Subtypes

The fourth and final form of bending is earthbending, the primary ability of the Earth Kingdom. In The Last Airbender, the primary earthbender featured is Toph Beifong, one of Aang's traveling companions. There are a number of great Earthbending scenes in Avatar. Earthbending at the base level consists of the manipulation of earth and rock, and unlike other abilities, it does not involve the summoning of an element like fire or air. Instead, earthbending is performed purely through contact with an existing element.

Creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have admitted that Toph is the greatest earthbender in the world.

Earthbenders have the ability to bend sand as well as mudbend, when aided by a waterbender. One ability specific to earthbenders is lavabending, which operates similarly to how waterbenders bend ice. Earthbenders can solidify and resolidify lava. The most advanced type of earth bending is metal bending, an ability discovered by Toph herself, which is based on the principle that metals are formed from ore mined from the earth. Another ability specific to Toph is seismic sense – the ability to gauge her surroundings by feeling the vibrations in the earth through bending – which she developed as a substitute for sight.