The Secret History of Firebending 

Also y'know Patreon money make a living wooooh thank you ❤ ultimate chad move only cool people click this link www.patreon.com/hellofutureme

For the longest time, I thought the Footloose parody episode where young Fire Nation students weren't allowed to dance was just filler, but rewatching this episode where Aang & Zuko met the last 2 dragons & danced with them made me realized that by suppressing dance also meant the Fire Nation was unintentionally suppressing a key aspect of fire bending.

READY FOR CLASS! -B

I never miss a W. Fire lecture. Truly the top of this university's alumni.

We all know the secret history of firebending- Firebending was created by a man named Wang Fire, and his wife Sapphire Fire. They could have ruled the world from the start, but they decided not to because Wang is such a nice guy. Instead, Wang became a therapist and a Fire nation cop and raised an excellent dancer. A true chad.

I love how Blue is drawn with super-excited eyes at the start of the video. History nerds unite!

"academically named 'Detonation Bending' but you may know it more colloquially as 'Combustion Bending'" me: No, I'm pretty sure it's called "Sparkysparkyboom Bending", like 99% sure.😁 Also Blue's excited eyes as they are about to start a History lesson are perfection.

Is this confirmation that Sokka never died, he just went forward in time to become a professor?

Dude, Avatar studios should just hire you to expand their worldbuilding. The work you do is amazing.

I absolutly love this format. Explaining the history of combustionbending through a college level history class bypasses the awkwardness of talking to a camera about fantasy history perfectly. Aswell as being paired with the excellent writing it is genuinly enthralling. Could you make the written script available? I would love to use parts of this seminar in a Avatar Legends TTRPG game.

In retrospect it makes a lot of sense that P'Li was significantly weaker than Combustion Man (although she did seem capable of more precise blasts, being able to curve the beam once it fired). She wasn't broken as thoroughly, and she speaks with Zahir about how she was rescued from whatever organisation made her. Therefore she lacked the focus required to produce blasts on the power level of Combustion Man.

When you are more invested in a fictional college course than your actual college course

One of the most underrated aspects of Avatar’s world building is the _lack_ of history the Fire Nation has. There’s something so offputting, unsettling, about the thought that we don’t actually know where the firebenders came from, what they did before the genocide, or how their culture evolved and changed over time. Not because they haven’t bothered to write lore for the fire nation but precisely the opposite, the lack of history is _intentional_ - the reason their history is so ambiguous is because they *_burned every book written before the 100 year war_*

Had to wait for you to post this on RU-vid so I can say how much fun this format is for delivering this kind of information! It is so much fun and I loved how you snuck in other creator "avatars" into the classroom!

Well played with the framing here. It’s almost as of project unanimity was inspired by the story of unit 731. Very clever to play into that

1 interesting thing I like about The Avatar And The Fire Lord is the way it shows how wars can start over small things that get worse over time. Originally, Fire Lord Sozin just wanted to expand the Fire Nation beyond its borders, but Avatar Roku was against the idea. After Sozin let Roku die, Sozin decided to hunt down the Airbending Avatar to speed up the Avatar Cycle to bring forth the next Firebending Avatar so they could help the Fire Nation with their expansion. But since Sozin could never find Aang since he was frozen in the iceberg, the hunt became a century long war that spread throughout the entire Earth Kingdom. Meanwhile, multiple generations of Firebenders were raised to believe the war was justified since it was for the good of the Fire Nation, while multiple generations of Earthbenders grew up losing hope that the war would ever end.

I absolutely love this style of Avatar history videos! I think it's legit my personal head cannon that these lectures actually happened in universe! This one on the Fire Nation and Fire Bending are particularly facinanating! :)

I haven't read the Yang Chen books so I wasn't familiar with this, but whether Tim framed it with unit 731 parallels or it was written with those parallels in mind is very interesting. Being unfamiliar with the in-universe names that were relevant, I kept questioning whether the names were supposed to be metaphors for the names of the project directors

There is a fan theory that some Airbenders did in fact survive the Fire Nation's attack on the 4 Air Temples 100 years ago & chose to hide within the Earth Kingdom. 1 of the Avatar comics written while the show was airing validates this as it takes place around the time they visit the Northern Air Temple & it shows Aang finding a cave full of Airbending artifacts implying at least a few survived but sadly after 100 years Aang is the only Airbender still alive.

The fact that Red and Blue are gunners in this fictional class is so accurate it hurts

As a history teacher myself, I always warn my students to not look at it through rose colored glasses lest they take the wrong lessons from it. You're bit at the end really spoke to me.

There needs to be a prequel series that shows more of the lives of the 6 Avatars who came before Aang & Korra. These 6 Avatars are Roku (Fire), Kyoshi (Earth), Kuruk (Water), Yangchen (Air), Szeto (Fire), & Salai (Earth). I like how the novels & comics have given them more backstory but I want to see them all in an actual show.

So glad to see this format again, hopefully more lectures by Wang Fire in the future :)

0:58 - "turn to page 394" ehhh, I got that reference! 3rd Harry Potter movie, when Snape swooped in to Defense Against The Dark Arts to cover for Moony, sorry, Professor Wolf, sorry, Professor LUPIN.... who was out that day cuz of the full moon :P

This format is fantastic! Love all the "students" coming together for this video. 👏🏽👏🏽

Oooh tracing a magic system through history to highlight cultural and economic impacts on the modern day? Sign me up.

I love these types of episodes. I mean I love everything you to put out but these have a special place in my heart. Your on writing episodes do too. I’ve probably watched everything you’ve released at least twice, but I’ve watched on writing in its entirety at least six times.

The cameos!!!! 😭 Tale Foundry, Merphy, The Green Goblin and Overly Sarcastic 💚💚💚💚💚

Is there any psychological reason behind why avatars need to learn elements in a specific sequence. Is there any relation with the mindset of the bender for its native element?

Between the cameos, the excellent analysis of the topic and the gathered and invented “history” of the retelling of the topic, this is truly masterful work. It also features a sort of dark mirror quasi-success-story of the recent Japanese war crimes video essay that shows what those individuals were wanting to find, but never did. Man, top tier RU-vid. Excellent job.

damn!!!! that was really great and really in the spirit of the series. using the allegory to talk about our own world. this is great material

I absolutely love this format! As much as I'm sure you don't necessarily need more, won yourself a sub. I hope you make more of these. ❤

I really enjoyed the collaboration between everyone. It was awesome hearing you, Red, Blue, Murphy, and others act in this video. I read the Yangchan novel a year ago, and I love rehearing what happened in different perceptions.

Damn. This was impressive. Engaging. Where were these kind of history lessons when I was in college? 😅 Well done.😊

I love seeing all these huge passion projects you're working on Tim. Amazing work, I can see the heart and effort you've put into these long videos. Thank you!!

I LOVE THIS FORMAT SO MUCH THANK YOU TIM

Bringing up the water drop torture theory on the Combustion Benders, it makes sense why when they are struck on their 6th eye tattoo it distrupts their bending. It may be resurfacing the memory of that torture causing self destructive action to happen

Excuse me, professor? I'm struggling to focus on my note taking because I can't help but notice each little tiny reference in your lecture and it's making me do a 🌟nostalgia🌟

I love this history of avatar from the perspective of students learning history in college. I didn't know what I was expecting when I clicked on the video but this was a nice suprise!

I love this style of video so much. Tim, please continue making them. They fill that need to sit in a class and listen that I always have.

This is such a brilliant way of presenting these kinds of lore videos. I’d love to see more, even for other settings, in this kind of in-world lecture style.

Saw it on Nebula, but since there is no comment function there, I had to come here to gratulate you! This is a fascinating and creative way of talking about Avatar as a work of art and about human history and society, and it is art in itself, too. I love it, please make more like this!

I love this style of video. I hope you can do more like it, but I know they can be a lot to manage so if you can’t that’s cool. Love all your essays on this world, makes me appreciate all the effort put into it all the more

The way Blue's eyes lit up the MINUTE history was mentioned had me rolling! 🤣

Hey Tim I just wanted to reach out and say thank you. Been watching your channel for years and can genuinely say it’s made me a better writer. Recently got accepted to NYU’s Dramatic Writing MFA program but I recall and remain grateful for the foundation you helped lay. Especially with world building.

Please do more of this. Coming from a long time fan this is incredibly refreshing

I really love your channel. I’ve been subscribed on both my accounts for a while now and I don’t comment on a lot of videos but your writing ability is top tier 🙌🏾

I love that Blue and Red are students

WOW. That kind of in-depth connections to show how combustion-bending was first discovered - the politics, the motives, the coverup - are incredibly well done. It’s deeply inspiring to view, and gives me that much more drive on my own worldbuilding. Thank you for your amazing work as always!

I loved all of this and absolutely enjoyed how you had yourself up there educatin a class of other youtubers that make similar content The classroom structure also seemed to hack my AuDHD brain a bit and make this far easier for me to focus on, esp bcuz it was combined with bein a special interest; Avatar lore (honestly prty much any grt animated show (mostly only watch animated shows, so those are all the grtest shows ive watched prty much) ive seen i SI over lore/analysis of)

Absolutely amazing video. As a fan of a lot of these writing channels, I absolutely loved all the care put into the other RU-vidr cameos.

I can see the links between this combustion bender facility you describe and the Japanese one in Manchuria in your previous video. Nice work Tim.

I've wondered how the Noble Families, as well as the Royal Family, handled all these aspects of their element. And it's interesting how some people in this world had the idea to push the limits of Benders (or more importantly, their Chi) to see what they could create. The "science", or "biology" of Bending and Benders themselves was put to the limit to create a new kind of bending, a sub-element. And of course, it was the Fire Nation that was behind such ingenuity. Their drive to push the biological, mental, or technological boundaries likely derives from their element of fire, an element that helps not only to destroy but to create. Lightning Bending, Combustion Bending, Dragonriders... all this makes Fire Nation history far more interesting to me. Did we have any Fire Benders that claimed to be the "Blood of the Dragon", I wonder 😅 or perhaps "Blood of the Phoenix", or something. Maybe bonding with a Dragon is something that requires "Dancing", as in, make peace with a Dragon and then in order to bond with it, you've gotta dance with them, and if you mess up, the Dragon gets upset and may or may not try to kill you 👀

I absolutely love the concept of these videos I wonder how hard it is to call yourself professor wangfire without giggling and also I see blue and red in the back of the class shout out to overly sarcastic productions

I really enjoyed the format of this video as an academic look at the history and impacts these events had.

If I'd had a teacher this interesting in high school, I would have fought harder to keep from dropping out.

It's quite the experience watching this after your video on war crimes and tasting history's video on dutch food in Japan. Thanks for sharing, as always, and I loved seeing Benji in class!

This format of video is amazing. I hope you do more of this

Wonderful format here Tim. Always enjoy a guest lecture. Keep up the brilliant work. Till the next one☕

This is a fantastic format, very listenable and engaging. Loved it.

great concept and excellent execution! love your videos, keep it up!

PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU MAKE MORE OF THESE I NEED MORE.

I just finished The Legacy of Yangchen, and this was a delightful recap of many of the historical events that surround the duology. Also, loved the cameo appearances (audiations?) from Merphy and Daniel - thanks for putting this together, Tim!

I absolutely LOVED this video, oh God. It was amazing! Please do more like this!

This video was amazing, The whole aspect approach as a class of individuals who have monitored things in a fictional world, and explained to one another as reality for your world, was an amazing concept, and I loved it. Please make more like this for other media

Loved this lecture style! My essay will be ready soon sir!

Woo, really like these lecture-style videos.... it's fun to imagine them happening in-universe. Any chance we can get a playlist made for all of them? (asking in case I missed one)

Love this lecture format!

I love these In Universe Lectures, just love them and adore them.

Waterbending specialists: "I can bend the water inside others' blood." Earthbending specialists: "I can bend the earth in both metal and lava." Firebending specialists: "I am a human-shaped M119 105mm howitzer."

Honestly, bending and social mobility sounds like a fun topic. I could definitely go in for a critical reading of military-spirtual complexes in the Four Nations during the war.

This style of essay writing was 🔥. I could listen to thirty more lectures like this. More please : )

This was the most interesting way to present lore. By presenting it in the form of a lecture. Really well done.

I love this format! Didn’t realize that Combustion Bending was so traumatizing. Also nice to see Red and Blue

These classroom recordings are great, please do more of them! Professor Fire is such a good teacher!

HFM I think this is one of my favorite videos from you like 10/10 would 100% pay for more

This was awesome I have always been intrigued by combustion bending and the cameos were an absolute tripped

This video format was amazing. I now want to know more about the current time of this class.❤

I very much liked this!! This content is super fun and I hope we can see more of it :D

I love these videos sm. It's so cool to see really interesting takes on Avatar and history merged into this sort of wonderful worldbuilding soup. Let's go Wang Fire.

Oh wow, I just want to say that this format of videos is really interesting and I like it a ton, it's super cool :D

Love the format!

I love this format. I demand more professor Tim

This is so fascinating and i love how this is formatted like a classroom

Absolutely love this video format

You keep posting banger after banger 😯. I thoroughly enjoy the avatar, literary analysis, and war history content

Hey, hi. My man! My man? This shit, is my shit. Please do more of this kind of content. I'd love learning about all kinds of nerdy lore from from you, Professor.

Excelente video. I love the format.

Super creative video, Tim. Great job.

You should do more videos like this. I like the classroom setting

I love this format, continue

Love this format!

Great segment, loved hearing Red & Blue as guest, plus a few new voices, well, new to me.

Simply fantastic edifying and production value :>

That ancient writing he showed in the video is ethiopian writing. I don't think it's completely amharic so I can't read most of it.but it's so cool seeing my country's ancient text in a history lesson of combustion. FEEL SO IMPORTANT

Anyone else wanting to see a video about bending as social mobility? Because I do!

I love this format. Nice

Yangchen defeated the combustion benders with the suffocation technique Zaheer used to kill the Earth Queen. Yangchen only made them faint and made sure no was around to see her use that air bending move.

I love this stile of video, amasing work!

Love this format ❤