i think that the Moon Spirit or something gave them the ability to bend water while they where watching the moon moving the waves, while i also think the same thing for the other nations just with their own patron spirits

I think it is more based on a spiritual side then genetics. It is sort of a trade off really, you either rely on bending or you rely on being practical with technology. Who is to say that in future generations people will forget bending and go for technology, and have it become a lost art, due to people stop believing in the spiritual side of life and more of a technological side.

Anyway I am off to bed, I havent been to sleep in 2 days.

who said the twins in TFT were identical twins... they could be fraternal and thats how they are different. I have fraternal twin cousins and they look nothing alike now. They used to look identical... so that could be there problem. They look alike now, but will look different.

If bending is spiritual then it can also weaken if the persen becomes unfaithful or something like that.

If bending was genetic, its probably a dominant trait, and non benders
(like Sokka) are just homozygous recessive. There are probably more
people who can bend but dont, probably because theyve never been taught
how, which don't allow them to access and express their bending genes.



I'm guessing that if a person from one nation copulated with a person
froma another nation (say a firebender and an earthbender), that their
offspring would only be able to bend the dominant bending art -
dominate meaning gene-wise, and dominant bending art may be like eye
color, a dark eyed person and light color eyed person's offspring are
bound to have dark eyes, UNLESS, their offspring gets a recessive gene
from the dark eyed parent, in which they have light eyes or can bend
the recessive element. What's also crazy is, if bending is indeed
genetic -- okay first i'll use hair color as an example. Many people
don't know this but Bruce Lee was 1/4 german, and he had a recessive
trait for light hair color, his wife Linda was blue eyed and blond, but
their son Brandon was born with dark eyes and BLONDE HAIR, but as
Brandon got older, his hair turned DARK, meaning he stopped producing
the light hair color pigment. (i'm not completely sure why this
happens, genes crossing over maybe? meaning brandon has genes for light
and dark hair but when he stoppped producing light hair pigments the
dark pigments took over?) now, IF bending IS genetic, and a person had the genes like brandons but corresponding with bending now, would the person
have the ability to bend the recessive art, but then LOSE that ability later and be able to bend the dominant art now? WHAOWHAOAHAHAAOAHA my brain!!! Bio majors help me out here, I only have two years worth of knowledge in biology, and if bending is genetic do you guys think it would work that way?

No, it would be more complicated, revolving around activation of RNA-only genes and environmental influences... God dam it you got me doing it, curse you! It is not genetic it is just what ever the writers say it is (which is apparently is some weird hybrid between it all, or a excuse for writers will). why are there so many bio majors around here? Does this show attract college biological science undergrades?

You guys are seriously overthinking the genetic thing...just take the twins argument...do u really think the producers of the show made twins and made one able to bend and the other not able to bend and attributed that to the ...like... .000001% difference in twins? ...They are sending us a message! Why would they specifically show us that one twin cannot bend? Do u really think that they were thinking "oh twins are only 99% alike, so lets make it so this twin can bend and this cannot".?? I think genetics plays a huge role...but u gotta have the motivation or the spiritual aspect to be able to bend too.

But seriously, its funny how some of you are making that twin argument still.?? Its not likely that the producers would put that in there based on the fact that twins are not perfectly identical.?? It would be pretty pointless to put that scene in there.

Kept tellin youz gys, there was really no point to all that arguing and copied and pasted scientific evidence and crap. When it all comes down to it, its whatever they wanna pull outa there. And what a surprise that it??turned??out??to be all of the above???Eh.

Well, actually that's been known for a while now. It was first given in the bonus material of the Avatar cine-manga and the creaters later told it themselves. In fact I've??mentioned it a couple of times here and there. Eh.