Is Bending Genetic? - Avatar: The Last Airbender 

HIS LOINS HOLD THE FUTURE OF OUR PEOPLE. ~ Tim

“Honey, why is our baby a fire bender when we are air nomads.” Fire bender milkman: *Sweats profusely

"...resulting in incredibly gifted benders like Azula and Iroh and Ozai." *Zuko standing teary-eyed in the background* Am I a joke to you?

Remember that in the cannon Kyoshi's mother was a air nomad and a air bender But she separated herself from the nomads and spirituality as a whole, which made her air bending way weaker, to the point that she needed to use fans to help her bend air

"His loins hold the future of our people" "Where we're going we wont need any pants" is just such a perfect combination and makes me cackle endlessly

I think the only reason Tenzin was so uptight and had a non-typical-airbender personality was how he was raised. He grew up knowing he was literally the entire future of airbending, with the weight of destiny and the expectations of his father, the Avatar himself, on his shoulders. There's a reason the air nomads didn't tell Aang he was the Avatar until he was like 10, and wanted to wait even longer. That kind of knowledge messes with a kid.

I think Tenzen is only as uptight as he was ... because he was the only airbending master who had kid students, and tried to hold them to a high standard and being the only person who could instruct the avatar in airbending

3:13 I've always figured that all of the 'Air Nomads' were airbenders because they turned out children that couldn't bend. The temples themselves are kind of death traps waiting to happen for children that can't airbend to save themselves from falling to death especially when you consider all of the other kids running about that can throw mini-tornados when they get upset. Its not intentional eugenics but it makes sense from a health and safety point of view to leave non-bending children with the mother if fathered outside the Nomads or given up to a family with more flat living accommodations if the mother was a Nomad. Aang being twelve at the time of his freezing and having only lived in the male temples wouldn't have known about that and thus could be considered an unreliable narrator in that case and Ty Lee, the only other character in AtLA to have grey eyes, coming from the Fire Nation where one of the female temples was located makes sense.

At the end of the day the answer is "bending is a soft magic system" It was never intended to be quantified and defined in all aspects. It's a nebulous spiritual connection to the primordial aspects of the world.

They didn’t give Sokka bending cuz that would make him too powerful. He’s already a backbender and a sword master. But if he could actually bend the show would be called The amazing Sokka and his buddy Aang

Airbending is spiritual Earthbending is physical Waterbending is a spiritual action with your physical self Firebending is a physical action with your spiritual self

I like your answer, but hear me out: Epigenetics. Though this field of genetics is still very unfamiliar to us, long story short our body can activate or deactivate certain genes at times. For example the gene we use to make an enzyme that digests milk as babies gets turned off in some people, who become lactose intolerant, while in others it stays active, these people aren't lactose intolerant. The odds of this happening are influenced by your heritage, for example if one of you're parents is lactose intolerant you're more likely to also be. I think bending works much in the same way: Each element has a few genes connected to it and if one or multiple of your ancestors can bend it, it means you're more likely to be able to as well, just like with lactose intolerance. The only difference with lactose intolerance would be that in humans the bending genes would naturally be shut off not on, because babies can't bend all 4 elements. If you're ancestors have a "pre-activated" gene of sorts it might even allow you to bend as soon as you can mentally activate the power, so from when you're a child. However if you don't have anyone in your family, so you don't have one or a few pre-activated genes, you might still be able to learn to bend, because you're body "just" needs to activate one or multiple of the "bending genes". This might be done via the spiritual element you named, if you're "spiritual enough" more genes get activated and you become stronger. At the same time it also explains why Zuko, Iroh, Ozai and Azula are quite powerfull, they all have a lot of "pre-activated bending genes" thanks to their bloodline. This might be what happened en masse during harmonic convergence: Some type of enzyme got spread all over the continents of Avatar, and some people got a gene for airbending activated. This in combination with possible other activated genes would cause them to be able to bend air and this would make a few "random" people air benders. It even explains the avatar, hear me out: If these genes really did exist and they'd have to be activated for the bending to take place. Once they're activated they'd also make an inhibiting enzyme, a fancy word for something that stops other genes from working. This is why we never see a 2 or 3 element bender, only a 1 element bender and the avatar. In the case of the avatar it's possible that something big and "magical" like some sort of "will of the world" could activate a final gene that stops all these inhibiting enzymes, allowing the avatar to bend multiple elements at a time, this way causing there to be a single avatar who can bend all elements and "normal" benders who can only bend one. Now last but not least dragon turtles, how do they fit in here? The dragon turtles don't do genesplicing, that'd be quite dangerous and might even have a chance of killing people, what they might be doing however is activating the respective genes in the assigned benders until they return to hand back in their powers, at which point the dragon turtle turns them off again. This sounds quite hard to explain, but in reality it's kind of easy: They once again use enzymes. These enzymes would then activate the gene, but once the humans return the turtle gives of, or inserts, like a type of poison, another enzyme that then supresses the gene again. This way turning it on or off. The earlier mentioned "Avatar gene" might create similiar enzymes to this one that turns off bending powers that can resupress the genes and that'd explain why Aang can take away the bending powers of benders. So it is in part genetic, however in some cases you'll have to activate other genes and other circumstances could play a big role, even your spirituality. This could also explain how (twin) brothers can have different elements, or even one might have bending powers and another might not. They both have the same "pre-activated" genes, but they activated other "extra" genes causing different bending types So long story short I agree with your statement: "Is bending genetical? Well yes, but actually no." (BTW I have to stop here, because I'm making this up as I go and this thing is already way to long, if you're interested in this send me an e-mail iddo.boomgaard@gmail.com)

My favorite thing about having only one of the twins bend is that it could also mean that every being has a different spiritual component that's inherently unique even if everything humans can measure they are 99% identical

"My fellow Americans.." Wait a minute...

*Video Summary* (Is Bending Genetic?): - Yes, but actually No - A Wizard did it - Its Spiritual - Its Mysterious - A Turtle Wizard did it

"Incredibly gifted benders like Azula, Iroh and Ozai" *sad zuko noises*

My own headcanon/rationalization for random people being bestowed airbending after Harmonic Convergence was that those individuals were the new lifetime for souls lost in Ozai's genocide. Reincarnation is mentioned so much in both ATLA and ALOK, and the idea of souls or connections spanning across lifetimes is a recurring theme. The way I see it, the Air Nomads were indeed wiped out, but the souls of those people went on to new lifetimes, being reborn as new members of the Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, Water Tribe, etc. Eventually, those souls are affected by the Harmonic Convergence to express the bending ability the souls have always carried, just never able to express. This idea ties in with the relationship between spirituality and bending ability.

My crazy theory: The universe exerts a subtle pressure that tries to balance the number of benders of each element. The earth kingdom has the highest population, but the lowest percentage of benders, while the air nomads had the lowest population and the highest percentage of benders, and the fire nation and water tribes fall somewhere in between. Normally, this "pressure" still had to work within the confines of lineage (a direct line to that elements original benders), so there was no way for the universe to create more air benders without any air nomads. That's why Tenzin (married to a non-bender with no other elements to interfere) had all airbending children (I might be wrong about Rohan, I think it was kind of vague). The lineage rules lined up and the universe was able to exert it's pressure to try and balance out the benders by introducing more airbenders. Harmonic convergence changed the rules however, as the increase in spiritual energies in the world made it possible for the universe to enforce it's balance more directly. If any of the other bending population were super low at the time, I think it might have possible for seemingly random people to become those types of benders as well. It's just that airbending was the only type that needed that "boost" at the time.

I always saw it as genetics decides whether you CAN BEND or not, and spirituality/training decides whether you DO DEVELOP that inherent ability or not. That’s why the Avatar can inherently bend every element, but can’t do it until they consciously learn it.

I always lowkey assumed that, like the monks that the air nomads draw inspiration from, that the air nomads were more of a commune than a tribe - that air nomads would go out into the world and have children with people of other tribes (or potentially other air nomads) and any children able to bend would be brought back to and raised in the temple as an air nomad, while any non bender children erm. Wouldnt be. The gifted are chosen and taken off to be trained, non benders live a normal non bender life as earth or water or fire nation non benders, children of two air benders would maybe be brought up in some separate location but were not properly considered air nomads because air nomads have to be able to bend by definition. This means that air bender children might have been born to non bender parents, since air genes would still be out in the population after the purge, but I assume they were killed if discovered by the fire nation (on the off chance they were the avatar, who *was* still missing), and regardless wouldnt have had any teacher in the ways of the air bender until aang got unfrozen.

I would like add that "hereditary" can also include things like environmental, economic, spiritual, and personality traits too. It could be that the reason bending is passed down through the generations is that you tend to pick up things from your parents, maybe you grew up with cats, you had a parent who smoked, or baked a lot. We pick up these things from our parents. But this isn't the only way to do things, as people are (such as toph) picked up earth bending from nature, and it also makes means that the Kora version isn't entirely incompatible with TLA's more than natural version. The dragon turtle initially granted the basics of bending through manipulating a person's spiritual energies, but post dragon turtles people had to learn the craft from observing creatures that had these natural abilities. Bending is a spiritual practice, a martial art, and a personal affinity for an element, so all the dragon turtles or harmonic convergence did was amp up those other parts so people could do it more intuitively.

"You can't choose what is canon" Laughs in Star Wars

There’s a case to be made that Bolin’s ability to lavabend is due to being an earth bender with a mother from the fire nation.

In the case of Toph, she learned directly from the badgermoles. She likely gained the ability that way. This could also explain how she was capable of inventing metalbending

I noticed that Mako and Bolin both inherited one of their parents bending abilities. Like how Mako got fire bending from their mom and Bolin got earth bending from their father. My theory about that is that if two benders that have different bending abilities have a child it raises the chance of that child to have a being ability. The reason I think this is because instead of having genetics, spirituality, etc from one kind of bending the child would have 2. Let's say one of the parents is a fire bender and the other is a water bender, the child would inherit the genetic and spirituality of both elements but is only able to do one because of either personality or one element happens to be more apparent in the childs genes than the other.

"You don't get a choice in what's canon" - well, there's canon and there's "canon".

The return of A Wizard Did It makes me very happy

I wonder if Harmonic Convergence giving Airbending to people was more of a "sometimes it's random, but if you ARE descended from air nomads you probably will get it" kind of deal?

"you can't just say legend of Korra isn't Canon" Watch me

“Some people equate bad world building to not knowing everything” *flashback to Tim pointing out that guy on twitter who was really upset with the fact that we had no idea why the war in Howl’s Moving Castle was happening and thought that the movie was bad as a result

"Where we're going you won't need any pants!" Ahahahaha omg im dying

I think one of the best ways to have an amazing world is always have an explanation, but some of it's never explained. This leaves a mystery while still allowing the writer to know their own rules and regulations on it.

I have a theory that explains how Aang grandchildren are a combination of all 4 elements we already know that Aang grandchildren have air and water in them from Aang and Katara’s son Tenzin, but their mom Pema is the daughter of ty lee. (which you can search up). Ty lee was from the fire nation, then all we need is earth, my theory is that ty lee married a person for the earth kingdom. One thing that proves this is at the end of avatar the last air bender we see her join the Kyoshi warriors so they most likely went back to the earth kingdom. This explains how all four of Aang grandchildren have all the different eye colors from each nation. Jinora has brown for fire, ikki has grey for air, meelo has blue for water, and Rohan has green for earth.

“You can’t say LoK isn’t cannon for you.” *laughs in Harry Potter*

3:44 "Avatar was always religious propaganda" Avatar IS my religion.

Hey, this video helped clarify things I wanted within my own magic system but couldn't find a way to express it concisely in my notes. Thanks for making this video. Plus I'm also obsessed with Avatar so its always great to see these videos :)

that quote at the end hit hard man, I got full body goosebumps & even teared up a bit, what a wonderful thing

"Tenzin inherited airbending." Understatement of the century. Tenzin was the most skilled badass in either show besides Aang or Toph. The guy nearly won a 4v1 against a semi psychic waterbender, a lavabender, a combustion bender and an airbending protege that combined his element into decades of martial training.

Earthbending probably has an interesting spiritual side; toph could project her earthbending sight through interconnected plant networks by her -old- ripened age; imagine the spiritual prodigy the next earth avatar might be. A spirit portal right next door, and theoretically a calm, patient demeanor, if you accept the theory that each avatar has traits that counteract the last one's regrets. Aang's regret of running away from his people translating to korra's headstrong refusal to back down. What is Korra's greatest regret? Letting the avatar cycle/ connection with the past end. It haunts her as she recovers from the metal poison. I think the next Avatar will be a seemingly paradoxically calm, and patient earthbender. Calmness seems unrepresentative of earthbenders, but remember; "Earthbending is about waiting, and listening" (Earth King Bumi) If a relaxed, calm, patient earth avatar comes about, raised almost adjacent to a spirit portal, who knows what spiritual earthbending he/she/they might invent.

I view bending as a bit more of a genetic thing, like how it’s passed down through the years. And then the power is amplified by energy from the spiritual aspects. So zaheer could have that recessive gene from a great great great great great great grandparent who was an air nomad, and had the spirituality down, but never had the energy to let him do it. That’s why i think he was so good at airbending right out of the gate. Same thing but opposite with bumi, he had the energy and genes but not the spirituality, where tenzin and kya had all three.

I’m back after months and your enthusiasm for speaking about avatar and fantasy match mind so well and just makes me smile man, keep up the great work!!

“you don’t get a choice in what’s canon or not” Clearly, you have never met enough Star Wars fans who try to outright fight the truth.

"Where we're going we don't need any pants!" hits differently now

thanks for this video, really enjoyed it. I also loved the background music that was playing too

I just want to praise you again for your writing skill, Tim! That last line gave me chills. "When we wonder about these questions, there's something left in that gap - wonder."

I have a head cannon where every time a air nomad makes a non bender they yeet the baby off the cliff

Coincidence that he released this video the day the Avatar writers announced they had left the production of the live action ATLA? Thanks for making this day easier on us

"The Air nomads were known for their entire population being benders. Not due to any vigorous eugenics.. *that we know of* .. WE WILL CREATE A PURE AIR NOMAD RACE" Caught me off guard 😂😂😂

Conspiracy theory I thought of last night: What if there are no non-benders, and that “non-benders” can just bend elements that haven’t been discovered/known to be bendable. Like, maybe Sokka is a plastic bender.

Tim: "A WIZ--" Me: *is already bobbing my head intensely*

Toph is also a very spiritual earth bender by The Legend of Korra. She taps into the vines which represent the spiritual aspect of the earth.

It's such a small thing but I love the arrows tim included when reading the big block of text at 9:07 because I have dyslexia and weak eyes so i was actually able to follow what he was reading

I remember waaay back while the third season of ATLA was airing someone asked how bending was inherited and the answer was "a mix of genetics, spirituality and geographic location" and that it WAS possible for very spiritual people living in the right place to spontaneously gain bending

That last quote was just. Perfect. I miss wonder in our media and art. I miss it in our lives. It's such a beautiful thing.

Honestly Air benders coming from the harmonic convergence being descendant of airbender from before the genocide is entirely possible as Bumi, Aang's son was one person who got that power, and Avatar Kyoshi is the daughter of an airbender so it's possible others air nomads left the order too

I think that the epigenetics explanation makes sense, as some people have said. Individuals who grew in different areas would develop bending associated with their surrounding.

The ending to this video is both well thought out and yet Slightly eery, I love your take on how we perceive the unknown

Now we need to breed lions with turtles so we can gain the ability to bend

To sum things up ATLA: It's genetic/hereditary LOK: The wizard did it Overal Score: Wibbly Wobbly Bendy Wendy

It's always good to surprise me with my favourite franchise in a video about my other favourite franchise.

reminds me on the rules in harry potter were muggles gave birth to magics, another interesting question is, can non benders became fire lord?

Using a dog for likes? That is sneaky.

New Zealander: “My fellow Americans”

This is a great piece of content dude! Found it randomly. I will do what I can to increase algorithm support. I love the edits. My favorite is the cut of Aang saying"you won't need pants" 🤣🤣🤣

I really love your channel ❤️ and all the knowledge that I learn from you

Tenzin had like 4 small children so no he is not relaxed. And the second becomes the second founder of his Nation and Society.

Great video! But that very last part with the dog reminded me of that one scene in the fortune teller episode when a character was like "Can science explain why it rains?!"

I always thought of bending as heriditary spirits. Like the Lionturtles were imparting part of their own spirit on the humans, and that little chunk of a soul now travels down the family line looking for people who fit whatever criteria it has for them to be a bender. It can sometimes split apart to make multiple,, slightly weaker benders, but there is a limit. That's why mixing bloodlines can cause powerful benders like Toph. She has several little soul fragments that were laying dormant in her family until they all met up and said "Yes, this girl would make a great bender" and combined into a more powerful bender ability. This would also explain all the new airbenders during the convergence. The small pieces of airbender spirit that had been too weak to make benders suddenly got a dose of power. This let them suddenly be able to cause the small changes needed to let them bend. Like trying to light a fire with an empty lighter, then suddenly remembering to refill it. Of corse, this would also mean that there would be a finite number of possible benders, at least until someone meets a lionturtle again, which could totally happen after Kora left the worlds connected.

My Theory: What matters is Chi. Your chi is flavored by actions, environment and mindset. Also from whoever was a parent of you. If you have a big enough chi, or chi flavored a certain way, you can learn to use it for bending. And the more development you go through, the bigger Chi you get. Just so happens you do that through personal growth, mental work and experience with the spiritual, as well as understanding of the spiritual.

"Now I hope that you can see that all elements have their own strengths and weaknesses... but FIRE is the best." - Uncle Iroh

I like to think that the lion turtles didn't grant bending, but rather opened people's spirits to nature

9:47 A TURTLE WIZARD DID IT

Because, just remember: when we wonder about these questions, there’s something left in that gap - A giant turtle wizard.

Personally, I like the idea that LOK airbenders were descendants of past airbenders, purely because it sounds better than A COSMIC WIZARD DID IT. (Fantastic 4 style)

"you can't just say legend of Korra isn't canon to me" I absolutely can and neither you not authorial intent can stop me if Disney can decide years of extended universe stuff isn't canon, if dragon ball can decide that dragon ball GT isn't canon then I take all canons as equally arbitrary and that's on death of the author

Any decendant with a bender in their ancestry has the ability to develop bending skills since the lion turtles gave the ability to do bending to humans. The only issue is if they learn it or not. It's possible but hard to do without extreme dedication. It came easier for the earliest benders because they had creatures connected with the spirit world teach them. The earthbenders had the badgermoles, the firebenders had dragons, the airbenders had flying bison, and the water tribe had the ocean and moon spirits. Each of these creatures can bend. Zaheer was able to teach himself airbending with dedication just by studying. I feel like what type of bender you are isn't entirely up to your nation or blood. The only reason the benders have different abilities is because of the creatures that taught them only knowing that ability. I honestly believe that you could teach yourself multiple bending types if you're spiritually tuned enough and become essentially an Avatar just without the Avatar state and the ability to travel between the spirit world. This would also be a cool inclusion in a future story where someone does this and pretends to be the Avatar.

I actually read the title as "Is Bending Generic?" and wanted to watch the video about that, but oh well

Why would Azulon marry his at the time non-heir son to the avatar’s granddaughter for strong children?

I think the "wizard did it" is the best answer. It's soft worldbending, it's more a magical power thing. There's no science-understanding it, just feeling it off pure vibes.

The title got me hooked and now I have high expectations. We will see. Awwww there is a dog. You convinced me. I‘m gonna watch all your avatar videos.

There’s so much chaotic energy in this video, I like it

"a wizard did it" (ta, taatarara taa) is the solid stuff why i always comback, keep pointing at great things that a wizard did please

You forgot the original benders like the sky bisons, dragons and badgermoles. you could learn bending from them to

You are very intelligent and an excellent researcher. Keep up the great work

Technically u could interpret the lion turtles just bending the energy within the humans and therefore unlocking their chakras so they could use their genetic element and then locking it again when they came back the humans simply thought they gave it to them while it was actually already within them

The lion turtles didn't grant people "bending", they gave them "an element", their is a difference.. Bending is a form of martial art that the people learned later on from the first benders. Notice how they were just throwing small flames at each other without any rhyme or reason before they learned bending. It is only later on that people started using the word "bending" for both the basic ability to manipulate an element and the martial art. The beginnings episodes show us where did the ability to manipulate an element came from in the first place. In my opinion, the harmonic convergence simply balanced out the elements, it busted the air bending energy since there were only about 5 of them before hand. And I like how random it was, the people who received air bending I mean, some of them are related to air benders like Bumi, others are just very spiritual like Zaheer and obviously all the others. It's random but also consistent with the mysterious nature of bending as mentioned in the video.

I always thought that it would make sense if the children of an avatar had the possibility of inheriting any of the four elements

I fight with everyone on this, but I hate the idea of bending being more or less powerfull in people. I think ATLA did a great job of showing its a matter of skill and experience, not who your parents were. The royals were powerfull because they went to some fancy schools and had great teachers ( like Mae and Tylee )

Toph said she learned earthbending from the badgermoles, so maybe living with so many air bison contributed to the high percentage of benders among the Air Nomads?

3 years late, but listened to the entire outro. Great track!

Time: "Love the Dog! Give a like!" Me: *Gives a like right away for the Dog* 😍

The creator: people need to “wonder” about the magic system and world bending. Same person: GIAnT tUrTlE gIvE pOwER

trust me you don't want a solid, definite answer as to where bending comes from, ask star wars fans

Yeah... I doubt personality really effects bending potential since Boomy (Aang's eldest) is loose and adventurous personality-wise, especially compared to Tenzin. If that's true, it should have gone naturally to Boomy first.

It takes a special video to not really answer the question at hand, but still leave the listener satisfied with the "answer." Kudos.

I actually loved the story of the first avatar. It makes perfect sense, someone ho lives in the moment, was a free spirit, sly/cunning like a fox, understood the state of the human world and had empathy. He was a very noble yet grounded character and sometimes simple is charming and vice versa.

Question: If bending is something a non-bender can simply learn by observing and learning from animals/spirits, why didn't Fire Lord Sozin have all the non-bender fire nation citizens learn fron dragons in order to strengthen his army? Instead he started the tradition of hunting them for sport. People bash LOK lore because they think it "ruined" "ATLA" lore of benders leaning bending from animals/spirits when thats not true. In the LOk we see that although the lion turtles gave humans the power of the elements, they still learnes the Art of bending from the animals/spirits. This can be seen when Wan, the first Avatar, is seen doing the dancing dragon with a dragon in the spirit wilds. There are definitely flaws in LOK and overall I do prefer ATLA but I just feel some people are way too hard on it. I once saw a comment saying LOK was worse than the The Last Airbender live action movie. LOK is flawed for sure but the amount of hate it gets is just hyperbolic at this point.

The potential in shows like Avatar always has me unusually interested in the thought that in canon, there really must have been some level of eugenics going on.

"You don't get to choose canon!" You kinda do. Like, if somebody wanted to discuss the elements of Avatar The Last Airbender purely WITHIN the context of the original show, and of the timeframe of its creation and airing, that would be an entirely valid method of discussion. Because overtime, creators change their mind. What a writer believes in 2015 or whatever may not be what they originally conceived in 2005. And trying to determine what the 2005-era version of the writer intended is, again, totally valid.

Genes make it more likely, culture makes it more likely, learning a mindset makes it more likely and having a compatible personality (mentally and Spiritually) makes it more likely. It is never certain but it just could be more likely or more powerful if it happens. And in that case things like the convergence may have been a booster shot that gave those that were just not getting it one more shot at it. But anyone could have it.