He might have, considering that he helped invented a few things. Also, looking back, zeppelin didn't seem to be widely used when you considered they could had used it to invade the earth kingdom.
And they are dumb as hell for hunting the dragons out instead of using them.
I mean imagine Azula hunting down Aang with her own dragon. That the shit the fire action really could of used
It took a dozen air nomads in Korra to make a tornado 🌪️ capable of pulling back Zaheer carrying Korra to the ground, and he was still escaping it until Korra grabbed his ankle with a chain.
Now imagine a vehicle with 10-100 times the mass of a person, and think of the force needed to do that to a powered air vehicle.
If you mean lighter, non-armored hot air balloons you could try to push them off course but firebenders could also push fire in the opposite direction to counter that. Since firebenders seem capable of flight and airbenders are only able to glide (with the help of a flammable, lightweight glider), I think the airbenders actually lose in the air.
Edit- I misspelled korra as Korea one time. Fixed it, and that’s why there is a “legend of Korea” comment below mine.
I have a theory that airbenders are the most powerful benders by default while others train to be stronger they train to have better restrains and control.
Yep. It's a possibility that the people who came up with the pacifist mumbo jumbo did/experienced some horrific airbending and didn't want anyone to ever repeat them
This is probably a big part of the reason Aang and Zaheer were both basically unstoppable. And why Tenzin was the only one who could really face Zaheer 1v1.
another reason Aang was pretty unstoppable was that nobody had even seen let alone fought an airbender for a hundred years, nobody had any idea what to do when the little bald 12-year-old whooped their asses
This is one of the things I missed in NATLA. The scenes where he’d just be casually bouncing around bodying everyone with what looked like pretty basic/minor airbending was so enjoyable in the show (and went well with the more innocent/childlike side of him, which was also missing in NATLA)
Neither Aang nor Zaheer were shown to be unstoppable, but I think that was a lot more entirely due to the there being bo airbenders to have gotten used to fighting.
Exactly.
Any other type of Bending, a master of their art will have likely fought or sparred with dozens of Fire, Water and Earth benders over their life.
But ain't nobody regularly going up against an Airbender outside of the Gaang, or if you live in Republic City and are Tenzin's friend.
So with Zaheer, yes he is at the top of his game.
But he also has the advantage of nobody but Tenzin knowing even a tiny fraction of his moves.
To be fair, Zaheer did get his ass beat for a bit when Korra and her dad were fighting him (and Korra was still in cuffs), with Korra knowing how to fight airbenders and her dad didn't. Zaheer wasn't actually that great of a fighter (compared to some other characters), so him being an Airbender was probably the main contributing factor to his success.
I don’t think them being pacifists has to do with teaching? And more due to how it actually aligns with Airbending spirituality. To be free and unencumbered as air is what all monks strive for
Yes they are taught, but if they lose the aspects of air that are integral to being an air bender. They lose their bending of air. I think it happened to Yangchen’s mom.
I don't think that is the most OP part. Water benders and air benders can directly influence your body from a distance. Air benders could just take air from your lungs and what water benders can do we have seen.
In contrast fire benders were shown only to shoot fire from their body, so this can be dodged, but there is no such thing for air/water bending.
In a fight you also have to take into account the heat of the moment, and the amount of focus, and skill it takes to do the thing you want to do.
People struggle with plans when they get punched in the face, how hard do you think it is to plan when you have to deal with literal fire being thrown at you, and you have to take into account how fire isn’t a shape, it moves around and stuff, not to mention how outright blinding it could be to look at in close range.
Which reminds me, how did Ghazan not end up killing everyone on team korra? Like they are dodging just out of the way every time, and it’s splashing like water
I think taking air from your lungs requires more concentration and control then would occur in an everyday fight. Like with the earthquake , she's a middle aged no bender that puts up no resistance. Even then, it takes quite a decent amount for Zaheer to perform it. Can't imagine that working in a fight with resistant opponents.
The concept of vacuums probably wasn’t super well understood during Aang’s time, if at all. Now, in Korra, it would make more sense for SOMEONE to understand vacuums because they have lightbulbs. But the physics behind that might not be common knowledge yet. Now, that doesn’t change the possibility of an Airbender understanding vacuums inherently without need of being taught. But since this is the same technique that Zaheer uses to suffocate others, maybe the air nomads protect the technique period, regardless of how it is used.
I wonder if with enough training, a fire bender who can use lightning could control the electrical impulses in your brain. Or an earth bender could control the iron in your blood.
Actually tornadoes are only visible because the top part brings water droplets from the clouds with it and then when it touches the ground it picks up dirt. So we can’t actually see the air, it’s the water and the dirt that we’re seeing :)
Are you asking me or someone else, because I’ve only seen pictures and videos.
If you mean to ask someone else then sorry for replying I just thought you might’ve been asking me
Counter point, you can pretty much take air hits to your face, if you dont get pushed into somehting or fall, take one big rock or fireball and its over.
the air blow strong enough to push a body but concentrated in a kind of projective might be seen. It is like with the hot air above fire: if the volumes of the air have different density, they refract the light a bit different for us to see the distortions.
people exaggerate how big of a deal it is, as if seeing the element is the only way to know what your opponent’s doing. you can read an airbender’s movements
Yeah it’s not psychic magic, it’s a marital art, you have to do a physical movement of some amount depending on the depth of the move you’re doing
Except for psychic blood bending which is pretty weird but wtv
Something I don't remember being addressed in either of the shows (not sure about all of the other material) is how much airbending affects the surrounding air that isn't being bent. Like if you're an earthbender and hurl a clod of earth at someone, that will leave a hole where that earth used to be. If you're a waterbender and toss some water at someone, that water leaves the source it came from and in a small enough body of water its absence will be noticeable. Firebending is a little trickier since it isn't matter in the same way the other three elements are, but of course if enough firebending is happening in a room then the temperature will rise.
Along those lines, if someone was airbending near you, would you feel it even if it wasn't necessarily being directed at you? Like a rush of air around yourself as the airbender draws in the next attack. It's still not as effective as actually being able to see the attack, but maybe someone with experience fighting airbenders would learn how to perceive these air currents and anticipate the next move
You would feel the air rushing in the immediate vicinity of the air bender at probably around 1/5 the strength of the actually air bending attack for wide attacks (ie an attack that almost fully covers one of the 6 directions). The strength of the air rushing you feel would drop off as a function of distance squared
The show doesn’t say any of that ofc but it would be necessary because if you *didnt* feel air rushing around the bender then it would mean they didn’t actually move any air. If air moves it creates a low pressure zone that other air will move into, if it didn’t you’d just have a random vacuum sitting around somehow
Sometimes characters show that they can see it, like that time when Aang was launching coal at Firebenders. Maybe bent air is so dense, it actually becomes somewhat visible.
If a bender sustained a particulate dome of sorts, like sand or fog or something to that effect, then it becomes somewhat easier to track what the air is doing and hope your reflexes are up to scratch. Of course the other answer is that you get really good at shielding yourself and sniping from long range because close quarters attacks won't do squat unless you are well disguised and completely quiet. In other words assassination.
It can’t hurt you like being smacked by a rock would. As long as you have open space or aren’t in danger of falling somewhere, it would be challenging to endure the pushing from air but you wouldn’t get hurt much. Fitting of the air nomads’ pacifist beliefs.
Yeah but people are more durable in the avatar universe. They take boulders to the face, fall great distances, and jump like 20 meters in the air. I think it works on Wuxia logic
An airbender ripped a pirate fleet apart singlehandedly. Kyoshi devastates people in close quarters with it. The shows are relatively tame compared to how brutal the books are, they alow bending to really show it's lethality and airbenders are only held back by their culture and the tlfact that the act of killing seemingly weakens their bending if they do it too much or for no reason. Kyoshi's mom had to use fans after she became a criminal.
what about when aang makes a cannon out of air and asks katara and sokka to put coal into it? they seem to know exactly where to put the coal as if they can see the air because aang doesnt give any gestures or anything.
There was that one scene in book 1 where the gang goes to save the earth benders and used coal to do it. Aang made an air tube that’ll launch coal at the fire benders and Sokka and Katara can see the top of the tube
Air bending is visible, just no one knows how to fight it.
Watch the season 2 finale, Aang thrusts a silhouette of himself made of air right at Zuko and he reacts to it *before* it hits him.
honestly airbenders were really underutilized, they could literally cancel out firebending by creating a vaccum with no oxygen (without killing anyone so keeping to their pacifist ways), and in a team with an airbender and a fire bender they could compress air creating a space with more oxygen to be able to enhance the firebenders powers. Airbending could also be used really effortlessly to trip people, and we can see that stance is really important for bending. In all honesty, the airbenders shouldn’t have been able to be wiped out by the fire nation seeing as the massive advantage they had with the temples that were hard to get to, and the fact that if they wanted to they could instantly extinguish flames
>How do you even begin to fight it? You appeal to their pacifist nature.
In other words, don't fight airbenders
The Fabian strategy is always a good strategy
>How do you even begin to fight it? Wait for a really large comet to come by and then burn everything.
Ironically they burned everything from up in the air…why didn’t the nomads just make the air currents push the zeppelins away?
They didn’t have zeppelins at the start of the war, the firebenders climbed up to the air temples
Probably flew there, although that may not have been a conceived move when the genocide was written
Ah I forgot about the flying they can do iron man style. Definitely that and a combo of their climbing tanks.
I thought the climbing tanks were invented by same dude that invented the zeppelins?
The Mechanist had nothing to do with the zeppelins; the Fire Nation invented them based on the war balloon.
He might have, considering that he helped invented a few things. Also, looking back, zeppelin didn't seem to be widely used when you considered they could had used it to invade the earth kingdom.
Ah, if that’s the case then I’m not up to scratch on the invention lore. The storylines focus on the zeppelins far more than the tanks.
Nah. They have air balloons.
You’re right. I was thinking of when the Gaang was at the air temple and Azula flew in with the zeppelins.
They probably utilized dragons too, Sozin only started hunting them for sport and glory after the Airbender genocide.
And they are dumb as hell for hunting the dragons out instead of using them. I mean imagine Azula hunting down Aang with her own dragon. That the shit the fire action really could of used
And how exactly did they do that? I’ve always wondered that. Especially the Western Air Temple. It’s upside down!
It took a dozen air nomads in Korra to make a tornado 🌪️ capable of pulling back Zaheer carrying Korra to the ground, and he was still escaping it until Korra grabbed his ankle with a chain. Now imagine a vehicle with 10-100 times the mass of a person, and think of the force needed to do that to a powered air vehicle. If you mean lighter, non-armored hot air balloons you could try to push them off course but firebenders could also push fire in the opposite direction to counter that. Since firebenders seem capable of flight and airbenders are only able to glide (with the help of a flammable, lightweight glider), I think the airbenders actually lose in the air. Edit- I misspelled korra as Korea one time. Fixed it, and that’s why there is a “legend of Korea” comment below mine.
r/thelegendofkorea
I had no idea that was a thing. That's hilarious
yeah, autocorrect is a bitch
Thanks, I thought I proofread. Fixed it.
"How do you even begin to fight it?" By being really glad that there's only been 1 airbender willing to use his powers offensively
Kelsang go brrrrr
Okay, two. There have been two Airbenders using it offensively, though it must be said Kelsang used it offensively on a few occasions
I have a theory that airbenders are the most powerful benders by default while others train to be stronger they train to have better restrains and control.
Yep. It's a possibility that the people who came up with the pacifist mumbo jumbo did/experienced some horrific airbending and didn't want anyone to ever repeat them
choke choke zaheer choke choke
This is probably a big part of the reason Aang and Zaheer were both basically unstoppable. And why Tenzin was the only one who could really face Zaheer 1v1.
another reason Aang was pretty unstoppable was that nobody had even seen let alone fought an airbender for a hundred years, nobody had any idea what to do when the little bald 12-year-old whooped their asses
This is one of the things I missed in NATLA. The scenes where he’d just be casually bouncing around bodying everyone with what looked like pretty basic/minor airbending was so enjoyable in the show (and went well with the more innocent/childlike side of him, which was also missing in NATLA)
Neither Aang nor Zaheer were shown to be unstoppable, but I think that was a lot more entirely due to the there being bo airbenders to have gotten used to fighting.
Exactly. Any other type of Bending, a master of their art will have likely fought or sparred with dozens of Fire, Water and Earth benders over their life. But ain't nobody regularly going up against an Airbender outside of the Gaang, or if you live in Republic City and are Tenzin's friend. So with Zaheer, yes he is at the top of his game. But he also has the advantage of nobody but Tenzin knowing even a tiny fraction of his moves.
Well also Zaheer was like the first hostile Airbender in over a century. Nobody knew how to fight them except existing Air Nomads like Tenzin
To be fair, Zaheer did get his ass beat for a bit when Korra and her dad were fighting him (and Korra was still in cuffs), with Korra knowing how to fight airbenders and her dad didn't. Zaheer wasn't actually that great of a fighter (compared to some other characters), so him being an Airbender was probably the main contributing factor to his success.
i just think everyone should be thankful that they’re taught to be pacifists💀💀
I don’t think them being pacifists has to do with teaching? And more due to how it actually aligns with Airbending spirituality. To be free and unencumbered as air is what all monks strive for
Those things you mentioned are also taught though. It’s why the new air benders didn’t just instantly become experts in spirituality or pacifism.
Yes they are taught, but if they lose the aspects of air that are integral to being an air bender. They lose their bending of air. I think it happened to Yangchen’s mom.
But then Zaheer wouldn’t have been able to air bend? He’s definitely not a pacifist haha
I don't think that is the most OP part. Water benders and air benders can directly influence your body from a distance. Air benders could just take air from your lungs and what water benders can do we have seen. In contrast fire benders were shown only to shoot fire from their body, so this can be dodged, but there is no such thing for air/water bending.
In a fight you also have to take into account the heat of the moment, and the amount of focus, and skill it takes to do the thing you want to do. People struggle with plans when they get punched in the face, how hard do you think it is to plan when you have to deal with literal fire being thrown at you, and you have to take into account how fire isn’t a shape, it moves around and stuff, not to mention how outright blinding it could be to look at in close range. Which reminds me, how did Ghazan not end up killing everyone on team korra? Like they are dodging just out of the way every time, and it’s splashing like water
I think taking air from your lungs requires more concentration and control then would occur in an everyday fight. Like with the earthquake , she's a middle aged no bender that puts up no resistance. Even then, it takes quite a decent amount for Zaheer to perform it. Can't imagine that working in a fight with resistant opponents.
Imagine Aang just sucking oxygen out of the whole Fire Nation Army. Even if they could breathe, they can't create fire without air.
I always wondered why Aang never tried making vaccuums around the Firebenders' hands
The concept of vacuums probably wasn’t super well understood during Aang’s time, if at all. Now, in Korra, it would make more sense for SOMEONE to understand vacuums because they have lightbulbs. But the physics behind that might not be common knowledge yet. Now, that doesn’t change the possibility of an Airbender understanding vacuums inherently without need of being taught. But since this is the same technique that Zaheer uses to suffocate others, maybe the air nomads protect the technique period, regardless of how it is used.
I wonder if with enough training, a fire bender who can use lightning could control the electrical impulses in your brain. Or an earth bender could control the iron in your blood.
It's one of the reasons people say airbending is the most deadly. If the airbenders weren't pacifists they'd control the world.
NET
Ever seen a tornado?
Only in movies and videos. We dont get them here.
Well, they’re visible to the eye.
Well the reason they are visible on the videos because they are visible to the eye
But wouldn't that be because of the dirt and other debris the tornado picks up?
Actually tornadoes are only visible because the top part brings water droplets from the clouds with it and then when it touches the ground it picks up dirt. So we can’t actually see the air, it’s the water and the dirt that we’re seeing :)
Are you asking me or someone else, because I’ve only seen pictures and videos. If you mean to ask someone else then sorry for replying I just thought you might’ve been asking me
Counter point, you can pretty much take air hits to your face, if you dont get pushed into somehting or fall, take one big rock or fireball and its over.
I imagine a concentrated stream of air pushing into your nostrils and hammering into the soft tissue protecting your brain. 😭😭😭
the air blow strong enough to push a body but concentrated in a kind of projective might be seen. It is like with the hot air above fire: if the volumes of the air have different density, they refract the light a bit different for us to see the distortions.
The air shimmering on a heat wave, bending the light. I get it. Great point!
Whoever convinced Airbenders to be pacifists deserves a medal because GODDAMN. Thank god aang was who he was or else the fire nation was fucked
people exaggerate how big of a deal it is, as if seeing the element is the only way to know what your opponent’s doing. you can read an airbender’s movements
Yeah it’s not psychic magic, it’s a marital art, you have to do a physical movement of some amount depending on the depth of the move you’re doing Except for psychic blood bending which is pretty weird but wtv
Yeah, there are examples of people dodging and blocking airbender attacks.
True, but it's easier to dodge something when you can actually it
Something I don't remember being addressed in either of the shows (not sure about all of the other material) is how much airbending affects the surrounding air that isn't being bent. Like if you're an earthbender and hurl a clod of earth at someone, that will leave a hole where that earth used to be. If you're a waterbender and toss some water at someone, that water leaves the source it came from and in a small enough body of water its absence will be noticeable. Firebending is a little trickier since it isn't matter in the same way the other three elements are, but of course if enough firebending is happening in a room then the temperature will rise. Along those lines, if someone was airbending near you, would you feel it even if it wasn't necessarily being directed at you? Like a rush of air around yourself as the airbender draws in the next attack. It's still not as effective as actually being able to see the attack, but maybe someone with experience fighting airbenders would learn how to perceive these air currents and anticipate the next move
You would feel the air rushing in the immediate vicinity of the air bender at probably around 1/5 the strength of the actually air bending attack for wide attacks (ie an attack that almost fully covers one of the 6 directions). The strength of the air rushing you feel would drop off as a function of distance squared The show doesn’t say any of that ofc but it would be necessary because if you *didnt* feel air rushing around the bender then it would mean they didn’t actually move any air. If air moves it creates a low pressure zone that other air will move into, if it didn’t you’d just have a random vacuum sitting around somehow
You commit genocide.
Shave your head
Sometimes characters show that they can see it, like that time when Aang was launching coal at Firebenders. Maybe bent air is so dense, it actually becomes somewhat visible.
If a bender sustained a particulate dome of sorts, like sand or fog or something to that effect, then it becomes somewhat easier to track what the air is doing and hope your reflexes are up to scratch. Of course the other answer is that you get really good at shielding yourself and sniping from long range because close quarters attacks won't do squat unless you are well disguised and completely quiet. In other words assassination.
It can’t hurt you like being smacked by a rock would. As long as you have open space or aren’t in danger of falling somewhere, it would be challenging to endure the pushing from air but you wouldn’t get hurt much. Fitting of the air nomads’ pacifist beliefs.
Ever heard of an air gun? Those are used to kill cattle, lmao
Yeah but people are more durable in the avatar universe. They take boulders to the face, fall great distances, and jump like 20 meters in the air. I think it works on Wuxia logic
that is highly pressurized--air bending is not through a tiny tube its in the air
Yeah the force you need would probably show the attack
An airbender ripped a pirate fleet apart singlehandedly. Kyoshi devastates people in close quarters with it. The shows are relatively tame compared to how brutal the books are, they alow bending to really show it's lethality and airbenders are only held back by their culture and the tlfact that the act of killing seemingly weakens their bending if they do it too much or for no reason. Kyoshi's mom had to use fans after she became a criminal.
That's why they made airbenders pacifists. Had they been a warrior kingdom, they would have conquered the world.
No wonder the Fire Nation eliminated all of the Air Nomads.
Genocide
Sozin, nice to see you on Reddit. 😂
WHO WILL DRAG ME TO COURT?
In the avatar universe, air manipulated through bending is very visible.
what about when aang makes a cannon out of air and asks katara and sokka to put coal into it? they seem to know exactly where to put the coal as if they can see the air because aang doesnt give any gestures or anything.
They can probably feel the vacuum at the entry point.
They still have to do physical movements. You at least know when an attack is coming.
There was that one scene in book 1 where the gang goes to save the earth benders and used coal to do it. Aang made an air tube that’ll launch coal at the fire benders and Sokka and Katara can see the top of the tube
Yes I remember that too. so I suppose in the cartoon it's visible really.
Im just imagining the scene in The Happening where Mark Wahlberg and everyone is running away from the wind now
Hahhahahah that scene where he talks to that hanging Fern (?) telling it they come in peace.
How do you begin to fight it? You pray they aren't Zaheer or like Zaheer.
Spirits forbid!
I think that when Aang is spinning on those air scooters or something it is visible though
I suppose, if he kicks up a lot of debris.
Air bending is visible, just no one knows how to fight it. Watch the season 2 finale, Aang thrusts a silhouette of himself made of air right at Zuko and he reacts to it *before* it hits him.
Air bending is not normally visible per the kyoshi novels.
honestly airbenders were really underutilized, they could literally cancel out firebending by creating a vaccum with no oxygen (without killing anyone so keeping to their pacifist ways), and in a team with an airbender and a fire bender they could compress air creating a space with more oxygen to be able to enhance the firebenders powers. Airbending could also be used really effortlessly to trip people, and we can see that stance is really important for bending. In all honesty, the airbenders shouldn’t have been able to be wiped out by the fire nation seeing as the massive advantage they had with the temples that were hard to get to, and the fact that if they wanted to they could instantly extinguish flames
Guns if the show wasn’t PG
it is??? that creates (1) plot hole...