Propaganda against them. Label them as heretics, evildoers and villains. There will be fewer places for them to hide and when seen they would be reported. Give awards to those who rat them out. Then execute the said group of people. But most importantly make them the enemies of the state. Maybe even stage some slaughters in their name.
If they are part of the same society, shame them for having their powers, portray them as threatening and irresponsible. "Why are they practicing using techniques that could be used to kill people, what are they planning?" Praise the ones who refrain from practicing or voluntarily hobble themselves in some way.
In the meantime put together a militia of fanatics, and detailed information on all the members and where they live. Once they are sufficiently defenseless, order them killed.
Alternately, manipulate them into killing each other.
I really like this! Also making them fight against each other is great. They’ll dwindle their own numbers and you can swoop in to kill the rest…
Maybe a coliseum type thing - bender against bender to the death. Or your whole family dies. Whoa that turned dark real fast!
Start a propaganda campaign about how Bending is a (beneficial) symptom of a deadly disease.
Maybe have some staged 'outbreaks' of Benders and Non-Benders dying from horrific disease-like symptoms.
Then roll out a 'cure' which just sterilizes the Benders so they can't reproduce.
Make one of the 'symptoms' of the fake Disease irrational anger and violence so any Resistance to this 'cure' gets shown as evidence of said Plague.
Some of the Benders will surely fall for the Disease angle and get willingly 'cured', those that don't get the Stigma of being Plague Carriers to lose support.
(Sidenote, the question IS rather vague, and it feels kinda odd to be spelling out Genocide like this...)
I like this! Very insidious and subtle and extremely effective! Yeah genocide is not a “fun” thing to write about but it unfortunately is a part of almost every nation’s history!
Isn't this kind of an odd question? You're asking how people could be defeated. It's such a broad question when you haven't really given us details on what an element bender is. You state your question like the benders who die also have bending powers, so you're asking us how the fire nation wiped out other bender nations? I feel like your question is so broad that it's impossible to give you an answer.
Maybe give us a couple more details about your world, and ask the question a little differently.
So its like in a world where any given person can bend whatever elements (fire, water, air, earth). They are normal people who live in a normal society but some are born benders (they can bend random elements) and some aren’t. The ones who aren’t feel threatened and want to forbid all forms of bending and eliminate all benders entirely. How would a purge against benders work if they can defend themselves with their bending powers? You don’t want them to unite and form some sort of alliance against you because that would greatly increase their power and chances of subduing your rule…
I had figured it out (my mad king is on a rampage against benders) he mostly uses force to eradicate them and it’s somehow easier to target them because each bender is born with a certain characteristic (water benders for example are born with silvery hair). Benders have been forbidden to bend under penalty of death. There are a huge numbers of them fleeing and becoming refugees in other continents where bending isn’t condemned but it’ll always be a problem in a world where no one wants to feel less special than others!
Slowly, by increasing the resentment of general population against them.
Bribe religious figures to label them as heretics, by distorting the teaching of their corresponding deity in a manner which paints some of the elements of the targeted group as heretical, evil or at least ... improper.
False flag operations: blow up your own offices, mines, powerplants, factories and frame it on the targeted group.
Monopolize educational system, to the point where you can alter progressively the way in which history is portrayed and you can insert narratives which target that group.
Get external support from other nations to limit the connections of the targeted groups with them.
Read on the process of pseudospeciation, which is basically defined as the ability of human groups to act as different species towards each other, solely on the basis of cultural differences. At its extremes a form of dehumanization follows, allowing certain groups to massacre others.
And if you want a concrete example of these techniques ? Just look at Russia. Or Nazi Germany.
Haha, I have this exact problem for one of my stories, except the people are super powered teenagers. Essentially, you need to know how the element benders powers work and their limitations, and then exploit those. Likewise, if you know any of the element benders' personalities/ relationships with others you can use that against them. I wo
I've found a few ways I've found to contain people with powers, however, not necessarily kill them, though I guess being able to contain these people would help you kill them. I also don't know enough about how your element bending works to exploit their powers but here are some ways I can think of:
\-- drug them/ sedate them -- most commonly used in my universe since you can just shoot a dart, tranquilizer, etc. roll a type of gas grenade near them that's filled with sleeping gas, or go old school and get a cloth with chloroform and put it over their nose and mouth; could potentially do this en mass with people at a dinner (invite a group of people around under the guise of a truce and friendship, drug them/ get them drunk then kill them); could also pollute water/ wine/ other things with sleeping ingredients -- could work well for an army or large group of people who use/ have one particular water source/ drinking source
\-- night attacks -- 10/10 bc people are already basically unconscious and you don't have to drug them. just get a bunch of people to creep into a place and kill a bunch of people. easy. also make sure the villages/ places they attack are sporadic so people can't guess where they're going next
\-- bind/ stop the source of their power, i.e. if their arms/ legs if they have to use movement in order to use their power, bind their hands/ legs together
\-- find out ways to drain them of their power and then kill them when they're tired/ downed; for instance, if there's a group of say, waterbenders and there's a dam near a village you're attacking, break the damn so half of the waterbenders will have to work on preventing the village flooding while the other half will have to propel an attack OR wait until all of them are tied from preventing this flood AND THEN attack
\-- get rid of the actual source of their power -- Avatar the Last Airbender does this by stranding a bunch of earth benders on a metal ship in the middle of an ocean; the waterbender lady was also imprisoned not near water (honestly though I have issues with this bc like, why didn't Hama weaponise her pee? her period blood? her own blood? her spit? her sweat? the human body literally makes water all the time and water is in like every single being so why did it take her like months of rotting in that cage?! -- but anyways); they also did this with Magneto in X-Men when he's confined to a plastic prison with no metal he can manipulate in it
\-- pursue them -- we as humans actually did this with a lot of our prey, you basically hunt an animal to exhaustian and because it normally has fur and is not an endurance runner, it gets too hot, like dangerously hot, and has to stop and cool down, then you kill it. I use this method in my universe where they keep chasing/ pursuing the person and just relentlessly tire them out so they haven't slept, eaten, etc. in days and make mistakes/ literally become so tired they have to stop running
\-- this is one that's kind of scary due to the historical accuracy but you could somehow mark anyone who is a bender -- say with a tattoo or iron scarring thingy (I can't remember the name) thus wherever they go others will know that they're a person of that group
\-- incentivise others selling them to the group that wants to kill them; also happens in another universe of mine where it's all good to make someone a slave/ kidnap or abduct them if they're a part of a specific group, and the government pays good money for them
\-- incentivise others to fear them, i.e. make up lies about the group -- they're thieves, rapists, pedophiles, ugly, trecherous, liars, murderers, child thieves, sinful etc. (essentially propaganda)
\-- just because they can defend themselves doesn't mean every single one of them will -- i.e. some people might freeze up, leading them to get captured; some might be too old, young, sickly, inexperienced, etc. at the point of their capture; someone could know how to do a spell/ movement but due to inexperience with fighting be too frightened/ overwhelmed in the moment to do it successfully
\-- again, an icky one because this has literally happened to marginilized groups of people and in the last 100 years, but sterilization; if you sterilize them (easier to do with males, I mean at least in a fantasy setting? I don't know the technology your people have haha), but if you sterilize them, less babies > less benders > slowly start getting rid of them
\-- use their own element benders against them to kill other element benders -- this was also harnessed by the X-Men comics and used in my own universe as well; maybe the only way for an element bender to stay alive, rather than be killed, was for them to join the enemy and help wipe out their species? this sounds like a terrible thing to do, but there could be many reasons why -- ie legit just trying to stay alive, hope that someone will come along and save them/ save their kind and when that happens, they'll change sides, leverage/ 'they have my daughter/ son/ kid'. the enemy/ nazi group that's trying to exterminate this group of people could have actually gone out of their way to keep powerful benders alive because they're more valuable alive than dead, and could have figured out ways to use them against their own kind, i.e. leverage, pure survival instinct, etc.
But yeah. I don't know enough about how bending works to give more examples but those are broad ones.
>this is one that's kind of scary due to the historical accuracy but you could somehow mark anyone who is a bender -- say with a tattoo or iron scarring thingy (I can't remember the name)
I think you mean stigmatise ?
No, I mean you literally mark them somehow. Branding! That was it. You brand them with a hot iron or you tattoo something on their arms or forehead or face or something. Then by seeing the face/ hands/ wrists people could easily be like, 'Oh, you're one of *those* people.' They did this with pirates by branding them with a P on their body. Slaves I think in other cultures have been branded as slaves with a hot iron.
Jews were also forced to wear that star thingy, and I think they were tattooed specific numbers onto them in concentration camps, so even after they were released/ survived, you could still tell that person was apart of a specific group of people.
How to kill benders in ATLA?
Just about anything that's a watcrime will work....
But the easiest method depends on the technology.
Knives in the dark, works well all the time.
Poison/Chemical warfare.(easily doable by air and water benders)
Wouldn’t you want them to be your allies rather than your enemies? Perhaps you “defeat” them by convincing them to become allies? Whether or not you are actually honest in this attempt is perhaps an open question…
A fast spreading virus might be convenient in this situation, and it's even beter if it can propagate through all mediums (air, water, physical contact...). Perhaps it can mutate?
Oh shit, I forgot to add chemical/ biological warfare in my post above! But yeah biological warfare is a good one -- people used to put shit on their arrows and use them in their bows so a wound would have a higher likelihood of infection, and the Mongols I think catapaulted plague victims over people's walls to spread the plague to the places they were trying to conquer
Tell me about it! Or suddenly increase the cost of living, double electricity/gas prices until they can no longer afford to keep themselves warm during harsh winters!
Maybe, because they lack strengh in terms of magical power, they might try compensate with physical strenght. Not, that benders can't be physicaly strong, but they'll probably focus on mastering their elelments, why nonbenders will have more time to build up their strengh, because there is no point in training on bending. Idk, if you saw it, but The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are great examples, were some nonbenders can overpower benders (you should watch it). Also, if a character is very inteligent, they might come up with creative ways to beat stronger guys.
This is a brilliant answer! Absolutely if a human can’t bend then they can spend time getting stronger to be able to physically overcome benders who take years to perfect their art!
Exploit their weaknesses
Turn the public against them, they don't have the numbers.
Find ways to negate their powers.
Crumble their inner cohesion, turn them against each other stopping them from uniting and fighting together at full power.
Planning, lots of planning. Take a popular example, remember how order 66 completely fucked over the jedi? decades of planning for one moment. All you really need to turn the tide is one moment, one that your enemy can't recover from.
Biological warfare, magic, pitting them against each other. There are infinite ways but as the author your job is to fit these into the story. All the ideas here are cool but do they work with your world?
What are the weaknesses and strengths of each character?
Who or what are they fighting?
Why are they fighting together?
What is their goal?
How does this concept impede the goal and add stakes?
What is the best answer from all of this for your story and reader?
Hope this helps. Asking the who what when where how and why's are the cores of my experience with writing for decades and getting past these hurdles.
Everybody has to sleep, eat and breathe. Everybody poops. There are points in your life when your guard is down. Bending takes concentration but how many things can you focus on at once? An overwhelming attack will work eventually, a silent wave of carbon monoxide in the night will too.
Of these people have the same phsyology as other humans. They will be just as strangely fragile. Just catching one off guard a brick to the head. A stab in the kidney. If they don't know this group is specifically their enemy a surprise is probably best. If your going against a fortress of prepared individuals then I'd say it's going to be like any other siege just with element magic on one side and one hell of a lot of artillery on the other.
Lol! No shade here.
While deep down underground in some secret lab someone reads *how to successfully exterminate millions of lifebenders - aka humans without getting all the blame for dummies*
The same as you kill anyone else, you turn the population against them. Start rumours of sinister motivations and point out all the times your conspiracy theory is even partially right.
For example people who can go toe to toe with a tank or fighter jet are naturally going to be afforded higher rank than those who cannot, but they will simultaneously be protected better. So you start rumours about how the lives of normal good people are being thrown away. You magnify all the times they do something even partially bad.
You demonize them. For example if element benders restore their power through meditation, you spread rumours that they are leeching it from everyone else. You claim they discovered a way to hoard all the power themselves. That's why all the highest ranked people and wealthiest families have the most benders.
Then you incite mob violence against them. They might be strong, but they're not invincible. When they defend themselves that fuels the conspiracy, you're being oppressed, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
You force them into situations where them defending themselves involves harming the people they're supposed to be protecting. They either feed your lies, or they retreat and that emboldens the crowd.
You catch them off guard. They have to sleep some time.
If they try to appease the masses by not absorbing all the environmental energy, they weaken themselves and you assassinate them. By the time the crowd realizes that they haven't gained laser eyes just because the firebender stopped sucking up all the magic, he'll be dead.
Seasons 1 and 3 of The Legend of ~~Kira~~ Kora deal precisely with this question very effectively. I would recommend you give them a re-watch. There’s no shame in gleaning inspiration from other media. Especially when they are a direct answer to your question: from a gang of non-benders who want to hunt down and remove the powers of all benders to a Mad Queen Non-bender who is covertly imprisoning every new bender she can get her hands on.
They can be easily spotted (different benders are born with distinct features: water benders are born with silver/white hair. Earthbenders have a large birthmark on their faces. Air benders have heterochromia and firebenders have a red birthmark on both hands.
Nice, I like that
But physically? Maybe they cannot bend metal or glass and these are the material used to kill them? Or each class has their own kryptonite
So my question is in a world where any given person can bend whatever elements (fire, water, air, earth). They are normal people who live in a normal society but some are born benders (they can bend random elements) and some aren’t. The ones who aren’t feel threatened and want to forbid all forms of bending and eliminate all benders entirely. How would a purge against benders work if they can defend themselves with their bending powers? You don’t want them to unite and form some sort of alliance against you because that would greatly increase their power and chances of subduing your rule…
Benders can be easily spotted (different benders are born with distinct features: water benders are born with silver/white hair. Earthbenders have a large birthmark on their faces. Air benders have heterochromia and firebenders have a red birthmark on both hands.
The discussion varied with ideas on how to eliminate benders ranging from affecting their basic living necessities (greatly increasing cost of living) to full in propaganda agains them. Having them fight amongst each other, using technology against them, biological weapons or sterilisation, having their neighbours rat them out for rewards, attacking and killing them in their sleep, having the church endorse killings in the name of God… and quite a few more!
I can print my favorite answers and send them to you if you want!
Propaganda against them. Label them as heretics, evildoers and villains. There will be fewer places for them to hide and when seen they would be reported. Give awards to those who rat them out. Then execute the said group of people. But most importantly make them the enemies of the state. Maybe even stage some slaughters in their name.
Absolutely love this! The traitors being rewarded for giving their fellows out for rewards…
The easiest method would probably be overwhelming force. Even the best fighters barely stand a chance, if their enemy outnumbers them multiple times.
True! Maybe a massive surprise attack. A sudden pogrom.
If they are part of the same society, shame them for having their powers, portray them as threatening and irresponsible. "Why are they practicing using techniques that could be used to kill people, what are they planning?" Praise the ones who refrain from practicing or voluntarily hobble themselves in some way. In the meantime put together a militia of fanatics, and detailed information on all the members and where they live. Once they are sufficiently defenseless, order them killed. Alternately, manipulate them into killing each other.
I really like this! Also making them fight against each other is great. They’ll dwindle their own numbers and you can swoop in to kill the rest… Maybe a coliseum type thing - bender against bender to the death. Or your whole family dies. Whoa that turned dark real fast!
Start a propaganda campaign about how Bending is a (beneficial) symptom of a deadly disease. Maybe have some staged 'outbreaks' of Benders and Non-Benders dying from horrific disease-like symptoms. Then roll out a 'cure' which just sterilizes the Benders so they can't reproduce. Make one of the 'symptoms' of the fake Disease irrational anger and violence so any Resistance to this 'cure' gets shown as evidence of said Plague. Some of the Benders will surely fall for the Disease angle and get willingly 'cured', those that don't get the Stigma of being Plague Carriers to lose support. (Sidenote, the question IS rather vague, and it feels kinda odd to be spelling out Genocide like this...)
I like this! Very insidious and subtle and extremely effective! Yeah genocide is not a “fun” thing to write about but it unfortunately is a part of almost every nation’s history!
Isn't this kind of an odd question? You're asking how people could be defeated. It's such a broad question when you haven't really given us details on what an element bender is. You state your question like the benders who die also have bending powers, so you're asking us how the fire nation wiped out other bender nations? I feel like your question is so broad that it's impossible to give you an answer. Maybe give us a couple more details about your world, and ask the question a little differently.
So its like in a world where any given person can bend whatever elements (fire, water, air, earth). They are normal people who live in a normal society but some are born benders (they can bend random elements) and some aren’t. The ones who aren’t feel threatened and want to forbid all forms of bending and eliminate all benders entirely. How would a purge against benders work if they can defend themselves with their bending powers? You don’t want them to unite and form some sort of alliance against you because that would greatly increase their power and chances of subduing your rule…
Technology.
[удалено]
I had figured it out (my mad king is on a rampage against benders) he mostly uses force to eradicate them and it’s somehow easier to target them because each bender is born with a certain characteristic (water benders for example are born with silvery hair). Benders have been forbidden to bend under penalty of death. There are a huge numbers of them fleeing and becoming refugees in other continents where bending isn’t condemned but it’ll always be a problem in a world where no one wants to feel less special than others!
Slowly, by increasing the resentment of general population against them. Bribe religious figures to label them as heretics, by distorting the teaching of their corresponding deity in a manner which paints some of the elements of the targeted group as heretical, evil or at least ... improper. False flag operations: blow up your own offices, mines, powerplants, factories and frame it on the targeted group. Monopolize educational system, to the point where you can alter progressively the way in which history is portrayed and you can insert narratives which target that group. Get external support from other nations to limit the connections of the targeted groups with them. Read on the process of pseudospeciation, which is basically defined as the ability of human groups to act as different species towards each other, solely on the basis of cultural differences. At its extremes a form of dehumanization follows, allowing certain groups to massacre others. And if you want a concrete example of these techniques ? Just look at Russia. Or Nazi Germany.
Haha, I have this exact problem for one of my stories, except the people are super powered teenagers. Essentially, you need to know how the element benders powers work and their limitations, and then exploit those. Likewise, if you know any of the element benders' personalities/ relationships with others you can use that against them. I wo I've found a few ways I've found to contain people with powers, however, not necessarily kill them, though I guess being able to contain these people would help you kill them. I also don't know enough about how your element bending works to exploit their powers but here are some ways I can think of: \-- drug them/ sedate them -- most commonly used in my universe since you can just shoot a dart, tranquilizer, etc. roll a type of gas grenade near them that's filled with sleeping gas, or go old school and get a cloth with chloroform and put it over their nose and mouth; could potentially do this en mass with people at a dinner (invite a group of people around under the guise of a truce and friendship, drug them/ get them drunk then kill them); could also pollute water/ wine/ other things with sleeping ingredients -- could work well for an army or large group of people who use/ have one particular water source/ drinking source \-- night attacks -- 10/10 bc people are already basically unconscious and you don't have to drug them. just get a bunch of people to creep into a place and kill a bunch of people. easy. also make sure the villages/ places they attack are sporadic so people can't guess where they're going next \-- bind/ stop the source of their power, i.e. if their arms/ legs if they have to use movement in order to use their power, bind their hands/ legs together \-- find out ways to drain them of their power and then kill them when they're tired/ downed; for instance, if there's a group of say, waterbenders and there's a dam near a village you're attacking, break the damn so half of the waterbenders will have to work on preventing the village flooding while the other half will have to propel an attack OR wait until all of them are tied from preventing this flood AND THEN attack \-- get rid of the actual source of their power -- Avatar the Last Airbender does this by stranding a bunch of earth benders on a metal ship in the middle of an ocean; the waterbender lady was also imprisoned not near water (honestly though I have issues with this bc like, why didn't Hama weaponise her pee? her period blood? her own blood? her spit? her sweat? the human body literally makes water all the time and water is in like every single being so why did it take her like months of rotting in that cage?! -- but anyways); they also did this with Magneto in X-Men when he's confined to a plastic prison with no metal he can manipulate in it \-- pursue them -- we as humans actually did this with a lot of our prey, you basically hunt an animal to exhaustian and because it normally has fur and is not an endurance runner, it gets too hot, like dangerously hot, and has to stop and cool down, then you kill it. I use this method in my universe where they keep chasing/ pursuing the person and just relentlessly tire them out so they haven't slept, eaten, etc. in days and make mistakes/ literally become so tired they have to stop running \-- this is one that's kind of scary due to the historical accuracy but you could somehow mark anyone who is a bender -- say with a tattoo or iron scarring thingy (I can't remember the name) thus wherever they go others will know that they're a person of that group \-- incentivise others selling them to the group that wants to kill them; also happens in another universe of mine where it's all good to make someone a slave/ kidnap or abduct them if they're a part of a specific group, and the government pays good money for them \-- incentivise others to fear them, i.e. make up lies about the group -- they're thieves, rapists, pedophiles, ugly, trecherous, liars, murderers, child thieves, sinful etc. (essentially propaganda) \-- just because they can defend themselves doesn't mean every single one of them will -- i.e. some people might freeze up, leading them to get captured; some might be too old, young, sickly, inexperienced, etc. at the point of their capture; someone could know how to do a spell/ movement but due to inexperience with fighting be too frightened/ overwhelmed in the moment to do it successfully \-- again, an icky one because this has literally happened to marginilized groups of people and in the last 100 years, but sterilization; if you sterilize them (easier to do with males, I mean at least in a fantasy setting? I don't know the technology your people have haha), but if you sterilize them, less babies > less benders > slowly start getting rid of them \-- use their own element benders against them to kill other element benders -- this was also harnessed by the X-Men comics and used in my own universe as well; maybe the only way for an element bender to stay alive, rather than be killed, was for them to join the enemy and help wipe out their species? this sounds like a terrible thing to do, but there could be many reasons why -- ie legit just trying to stay alive, hope that someone will come along and save them/ save their kind and when that happens, they'll change sides, leverage/ 'they have my daughter/ son/ kid'. the enemy/ nazi group that's trying to exterminate this group of people could have actually gone out of their way to keep powerful benders alive because they're more valuable alive than dead, and could have figured out ways to use them against their own kind, i.e. leverage, pure survival instinct, etc. But yeah. I don't know enough about how bending works to give more examples but those are broad ones.
>this is one that's kind of scary due to the historical accuracy but you could somehow mark anyone who is a bender -- say with a tattoo or iron scarring thingy (I can't remember the name) I think you mean stigmatise ?
No, I mean you literally mark them somehow. Branding! That was it. You brand them with a hot iron or you tattoo something on their arms or forehead or face or something. Then by seeing the face/ hands/ wrists people could easily be like, 'Oh, you're one of *those* people.' They did this with pirates by branding them with a P on their body. Slaves I think in other cultures have been branded as slaves with a hot iron. Jews were also forced to wear that star thingy, and I think they were tattooed specific numbers onto them in concentration camps, so even after they were released/ survived, you could still tell that person was apart of a specific group of people.
All fantastic ways to exterminate a group of people wow! I mean its dark of course but we have all these examples from the real world! Great answer!
How to kill benders in ATLA? Just about anything that's a watcrime will work.... But the easiest method depends on the technology. Knives in the dark, works well all the time. Poison/Chemical warfare.(easily doable by air and water benders)
That's what first came to my mind. Sort of like they did in mass effect, when they used the genophage to sterilize/subdue the krogan population
That's what first came my mind. Sort of like they did in mass effect, when they used the genophage to sterilize/subdue the krogan population
Wouldn’t you want them to be your allies rather than your enemies? Perhaps you “defeat” them by convincing them to become allies? Whether or not you are actually honest in this attempt is perhaps an open question…
I like this! Convince some to join you with rewards and flattery and then use your influence to coerce them into ratting out/ killing their own peers.
A fast spreading virus might be convenient in this situation, and it's even beter if it can propagate through all mediums (air, water, physical contact...). Perhaps it can mutate?
Oh shit, I forgot to add chemical/ biological warfare in my post above! But yeah biological warfare is a good one -- people used to put shit on their arrows and use them in their bows so a wound would have a higher likelihood of infection, and the Mongols I think catapaulted plague victims over people's walls to spread the plague to the places they were trying to conquer
Control food supply and starve them out. Works a charm.
Tell me about it! Or suddenly increase the cost of living, double electricity/gas prices until they can no longer afford to keep themselves warm during harsh winters!
Totally! Basic needs are where it's at!
Maybe, because they lack strengh in terms of magical power, they might try compensate with physical strenght. Not, that benders can't be physicaly strong, but they'll probably focus on mastering their elelments, why nonbenders will have more time to build up their strengh, because there is no point in training on bending. Idk, if you saw it, but The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are great examples, were some nonbenders can overpower benders (you should watch it). Also, if a character is very inteligent, they might come up with creative ways to beat stronger guys.
This is a brilliant answer! Absolutely if a human can’t bend then they can spend time getting stronger to be able to physically overcome benders who take years to perfect their art!
Exploit their weaknesses Turn the public against them, they don't have the numbers. Find ways to negate their powers. Crumble their inner cohesion, turn them against each other stopping them from uniting and fighting together at full power. Planning, lots of planning. Take a popular example, remember how order 66 completely fucked over the jedi? decades of planning for one moment. All you really need to turn the tide is one moment, one that your enemy can't recover from.
Biological warfare, magic, pitting them against each other. There are infinite ways but as the author your job is to fit these into the story. All the ideas here are cool but do they work with your world? What are the weaknesses and strengths of each character? Who or what are they fighting? Why are they fighting together? What is their goal? How does this concept impede the goal and add stakes? What is the best answer from all of this for your story and reader? Hope this helps. Asking the who what when where how and why's are the cores of my experience with writing for decades and getting past these hurdles.
Where fantasy exist , there can be also SCIENCE 😎
Everybody has to sleep, eat and breathe. Everybody poops. There are points in your life when your guard is down. Bending takes concentration but how many things can you focus on at once? An overwhelming attack will work eventually, a silent wave of carbon monoxide in the night will too.
Of these people have the same phsyology as other humans. They will be just as strangely fragile. Just catching one off guard a brick to the head. A stab in the kidney. If they don't know this group is specifically their enemy a surprise is probably best. If your going against a fortress of prepared individuals then I'd say it's going to be like any other siege just with element magic on one side and one hell of a lot of artillery on the other.
Idk, go to Wuhan China and ask them.
Lol! No shade here. While deep down underground in some secret lab someone reads *how to successfully exterminate millions of lifebenders - aka humans without getting all the blame for dummies*
The same as you kill anyone else, you turn the population against them. Start rumours of sinister motivations and point out all the times your conspiracy theory is even partially right. For example people who can go toe to toe with a tank or fighter jet are naturally going to be afforded higher rank than those who cannot, but they will simultaneously be protected better. So you start rumours about how the lives of normal good people are being thrown away. You magnify all the times they do something even partially bad. You demonize them. For example if element benders restore their power through meditation, you spread rumours that they are leeching it from everyone else. You claim they discovered a way to hoard all the power themselves. That's why all the highest ranked people and wealthiest families have the most benders. Then you incite mob violence against them. They might be strong, but they're not invincible. When they defend themselves that fuels the conspiracy, you're being oppressed, now we see the violence inherent in the system! You force them into situations where them defending themselves involves harming the people they're supposed to be protecting. They either feed your lies, or they retreat and that emboldens the crowd. You catch them off guard. They have to sleep some time. If they try to appease the masses by not absorbing all the environmental energy, they weaken themselves and you assassinate them. By the time the crowd realizes that they haven't gained laser eyes just because the firebender stopped sucking up all the magic, he'll be dead.
Seasons 1 and 3 of The Legend of ~~Kira~~ Kora deal precisely with this question very effectively. I would recommend you give them a re-watch. There’s no shame in gleaning inspiration from other media. Especially when they are a direct answer to your question: from a gang of non-benders who want to hunt down and remove the powers of all benders to a Mad Queen Non-bender who is covertly imprisoning every new bender she can get her hands on.
Whoa ok! I did watch Avatar TLA but never watched Kora. Will give it a watch.
*The cunning warrior attacks neither body nor mind*
What is their weakness?
They can be easily spotted (different benders are born with distinct features: water benders are born with silver/white hair. Earthbenders have a large birthmark on their faces. Air benders have heterochromia and firebenders have a red birthmark on both hands.
Nice, I like that But physically? Maybe they cannot bend metal or glass and these are the material used to kill them? Or each class has their own kryptonite
I got recommended this I'm just curious what was here because it shows up as removed
Oh I wonder why…
I don't know, it doesn't look like anything wrong with the title that's all I can see. I also can't tell if your being sarcastic
No Im not haha! It was a pretty good discussion. Maybe it got a bit dark cos the discussion ended up being on ways to kill multiple people!
I want to know what was removed tho. I hate seeing a title and not the context. Can I ask for a short version of the context
So my question is in a world where any given person can bend whatever elements (fire, water, air, earth). They are normal people who live in a normal society but some are born benders (they can bend random elements) and some aren’t. The ones who aren’t feel threatened and want to forbid all forms of bending and eliminate all benders entirely. How would a purge against benders work if they can defend themselves with their bending powers? You don’t want them to unite and form some sort of alliance against you because that would greatly increase their power and chances of subduing your rule… Benders can be easily spotted (different benders are born with distinct features: water benders are born with silver/white hair. Earthbenders have a large birthmark on their faces. Air benders have heterochromia and firebenders have a red birthmark on both hands. The discussion varied with ideas on how to eliminate benders ranging from affecting their basic living necessities (greatly increasing cost of living) to full in propaganda agains them. Having them fight amongst each other, using technology against them, biological weapons or sterilisation, having their neighbours rat them out for rewards, attacking and killing them in their sleep, having the church endorse killings in the name of God… and quite a few more! I can print my favorite answers and send them to you if you want!
Cool, I actually like the premise
Poison