why is bending lava/magma firebending??? lava or magma is actually melted rock... seeing that it is melted rock it should be catagorized in earthbending if anything.?? i know its hot, but it is still not fire... discuss

Like someone said, maybe Firebenders bend ENERGY, and not necessarily only fire. Heat has a lof of energy, and energy increases from form to form. (Solid, liquid, gas, plasma...)

well everything has some level of energy... so that would mean they could bend anythig...

Firebenders can bend lightning, lava, and magma, and, well, fire, because they are all forms of plasmas. We don't know whether or not Earthbenders can bend magma/lava, but I don't think they can because once the natural impurities are taken out of their element, they aren't able to bend it. But we do know that both Waterbenders and Earthbenders can bend mud (see "The Drill"). But next time, ask this in the Ask A Question, Get An Answer Thread at the top of the forum. Thank you.

Alright, let me add to that, maybe they can bend bend energy at a CERTAIN LEVEL. Fire has more energy than a random object, as does lightning and lava. But no firebender so far has ever been seen bending fire, and Avatar Roku doesn't count because he was an avatar, he could've been bending anything in the magma. I was gonna use the following picture to say that firebenders CAN indeed bend magma, but whoever this is was an avatar too, so he could've been bending a little earth or something. (Though they showed different Avatars bending their first element, so maybe the fact that a firebender-born avatar is bending magma may be made to imply that a master firebender may be able to bend magma, just like an Earthbender might.) These are the other Avatars they showed bending their first element. (This one's blurry, but it's Avatar Kyoshi I think, bending these huge earth statues.)

Is there any evidence that non-avatars can bend magma/lava? I was just wondering maybe it is something between earth and fire.

Nope. There is no evidence whatsoever that a regular non-avatar master firebender can bend magma. And those that have been shown(or mentioned) to have done so, WERE avatars, so there is no concrete proof. Still, it owuld seem pointless to have put a firenation-born avatar bending magma in a slide show showing other avatars bending their nation's element, if he's just bending the earth along with it. It diminishes the firenation-Avatar's showing of his first element's mastery. Did any of that make sense?

Okay, first of all, why just because we have only seen the Avatar bend lava, does that mean that JUST the avatar can bend lava.

Now, Magma actually turns into lava. The moment magma leaves the ground, it is lava. So, they actually just bend lava, except for pulling it out of a volcano.

Thirdly, I think that the Avatar would be less of a master at firebending than a plain master firebender. I mean, the Avatar only has one lifetime to learn and master all four bending disciplines, whereas the master firebender has one lifetime to master just firebending. If anyone could bend lava, it would be a master firebender. Then the Avatar.

unless earthbending is also needed to bent it that is...

I asked this topic's very question in the "ask a question, get an answer" forum a few days ago. Mostly everybody who responded said probably a combination just like mud bending.
All of this raises the question about if all four could bend a specific material. Say, Lava with enough air bubbles and water in it. (just thinking outloud)

I was thinking about this topic also, and i got to the conclusion that if water/earth benders, can bend mud then earth and fire benders can bend Magma.

Well Toph is 12 years old and she is pretty much one of the best earthbenders we've seen yet, aside from avatar Kyoshi maybe. And the avatar already has the knowledge in him, all the incarnations before him knew all the bending styles. Remember Aang bending water when he didn't actually know waterbending when he was in the avatar state in part 2 of "The avatar returns". Anyway I don't see why firebenders could bend lava/magma. If they could they would be called heatbenders, thus being able to bend any element as long as it's hot.
Maybe the producers just made a little mistake when they showed that avatar bending the lava. They were probably going more for effect rather than for scientific acuracy.