Summary
Avatar: The Last Airbendertakes place in a world where most of its characters can bend the four elements: fire, earth, water and air. Although bending these elements sounds straightforward, it’s demonstrated in the shows that there’s a lot more versatility than simply shooting fire or manipulating air.
Certain characters encountered in the show, likeAzulaor Hama, show that there are various off-shoot bending techniques that you’re able to master. It takes a level of natural talent or skill to even use these techniques, with some new ones cropping up in Legend of Korra. From lightningbending to spiritbending, here are all the known sub-bending techniques in the series.
Known users
A subset of earthbending, we first get a glimpse of the use of seismic sense through Toph Beifong in Book Two. Although it’s been in use since the time of Avatar Kyoshi, Toph -who is blind- learned from the badgermoles how to see using her earthbending, and seismic sense is central to helping her navigate the world.
In short, seismic sense allows earthbenders to feel tremors in the earth and helps them get a picture of where every object or person is. The technique even helped Toph discover metalbending, another subset of earthbending.
Another subset of earthbending, lavabending is a rare technique that sees earthbenders manipulate molten rock. The first known use of lavabending is Avatar Szeto, but it isn’t known if he founded the technique. We seeAvatar Kyoshiusing it to create Kyoshi Island, and Avatar Roku uses lavabending later to destroy the Fire Temple.
By the time we get toAvatar Korra’s time, there were advances in the use of lavabending. Practitioners like Bolin and Ghazan were able to create shapes using lavabending to use as projectiles, with Ghazan even using his extensive lavabending to destroy Ba Sing Se’s Inner Wall and create a lava moat for offensive and defensive purposes.
The ability to take flight using airbending was a recent rediscovery, a technique featured prominently in Legend of Korra. However, the art was extremely difficult to master, and only one person had achieved it thousands of years ago. An Air Nomad named Guru Laghima founded the technique, and he lived in a time when the Four Nations did not exist yet.
The key to unlocking flight was, essentially, to embody the Air Nomads' principles of detaching oneself from the world and becoming one with the wind. Red Lotus member Zaheer managed to achieve flight using his airbending and became the second person in history to do so.
A unique subset of firebending, combustionbending is a rare phenomenon and its users are recognisable through the distinctive third eye tattoo on their foreheads. Combustionbenders have existed since Avatar Yangchen’s time, with the ability to shoot powerful beams from their third eye.
Although some are born with greater potential for combustionbending, it’s noted that combustionbenders are largely created through experimentation. Like with lavabending, we see greater uses of combustionbending through Red Lotus member, P’Li, able to bend the trajectory of her combustion beam.
Spiritual projection is a sub-bending technique only available for airbenders, and it’s no surprise, as Air Nomads are a spiritually inclined culture. However, like all sub-bending arts, not everyone has either the affinity or powerful spiritual connection to master it.
Although an Air Nomad named Mangal is known to have the skill to astral project, Avatar Aang’s granddaughter, Jinora, is shown to be quite skilled at it. The technique allows the user to leave their physical body and travel the world in spirit form, phasing through objects and even journeying underwater with no issue. They’re also able to communicate with and find people they have a strong spiritual link with.
A complex and difficult technique to master for firebenders, generating and bending lightning requires you to empty your mind of any conflicting emotions. Characters like Azula are masters of the art, able to shoot bolts of lightning at high speed and with great accuracy.
Aside from generating lightning, there’s also a way to redirect lightning shot at you. A technique created and perfected by Iroh after studying the waterbenders, he taught it to Zuko who was able to use it against his father despite struggling to generate lightning himself. Mako from Legend of Korra was able to redirect lightning as well, as the technique became popularised after the Hundred-Year War.
A technique created by Toph during the Hundred-Year War, she discovered the ability to bend metal out of necessity after being imprisoned in a metal cage by her captors.
By Avatar Korra’s time, the technique became more widespread, especially after Toph established both her Metalbending Academy and Republic City’s police force. However, not every type of metal can be bent, since metalbending relies on bending the bits of unrefined earth found in metal objects.
A sub-bending technique of waterbending, healing is as self-explanatory as it sounds, though it rarely occurs among waterbenders. The most prominent healer in the series is Katara, who learned to heal external injuries using her waterbending, and could even use it to monitor someone’s chi.
There are some injuries that a waterbending healer cannot heal, such as bone breaks and other internal injuries. However, if a healer uses special water drawn from the Spirit Oasis, they can heal severe injuries like the one Azula dealt Aang with her lightning bending.
A technique introduced in Legend of Korra, spiritbending is also a healing art for waterbenders, but it only applies to spirits. A waterbender will bend water around a corrupted spirit, and a golden light will then gradually cover the spirit until they are cleansed.
Spiritbending was introduced to Avatar Korra by her uncle Unalaq, though the latter demonstrated that you can corrupt a spirit with the same technique, but in reverse. Korra used spiritbending to defeat the Dark Avatar by cleansing Vaatu.
One of the deadliest (and sickest) of the sub-bending techniques, bloodbending was created amid the Hundred-Year War by Hama of the Southern Water Tribe. She learned how to bend the water in blood to escape her Fire Nation captors and taught the art to Katara, although the latter was extremely reluctant to use it.
It’s unknown how bloodbending spread in Avatar Korra’s time, since the leader of the Equalists, Amon, can bloodbend with ease. Although Hama claimed that bloodbending could only be done during a full moon, Amon was able to bloodbend without it and even take away someone’s bending using the art. However, it seems bloodbending could be overcome through sheer will (as demonstrated by Korra), or through the activation of the Avatar State as seen with Aang.
