After the last episode of season two i had to go back and watch them all again (seriously who hasn't). Armed with more knowledge of the show and where it is going made me think of some unthought of ideas and theories (corney i know but i have an over active imagination). anyway there seems to be a hierarchy or a classification to the bending abilities of benders and what they could do. from what i've seen of every episode it seems to go like this.....

level 1
Regular: fire (red), Earth (dirt & coal), air (move stationary objects- the ball in the airneding soccer game), water (some ice & "ebbs and flows"- formless)

we have been intro duced to most of these in the first season with hints towards the next level

level 2
Master: fire (blue), Earth (gems & metal- harder substances), air (hurricanes, air balls/bubbles - what ever aang has done since he is a prodigy), water (octopus form, water razors, vine bending, ice- advanced)

we've seen these powers from teachers/people who have been bending for a long time. there also seems to be some level of inner peace/acceptance of ones nature to achieve this level (think jeong jeong the desserter or zuko- very skilled but hasn't acheived the inner peace enough to advance)

level 3
"peacefull spirit": fire (lightning), earth ("locate"- episode: the swamp), air ( we haven't seen this because aang hasn't acheived inner peace yet- episode: the guru), water (healing)

this will probably be the most controversial categorization. the characters in this level have acheived complete oneness with thier being. they are able to tap into the energies of the spiritual world to combine with thier perfect bending skills. very few characters have achieved this (or realize it); azula-doesn't know she is at this level because she doens't know about the spirit world & iroh, katara, the guru(strictly spirital oneness for him)- these characters are aware of the spirit world, it's importance, the need to protect it, and it's power.

Level 4
Avatar level: this level is exclusively aang's level. when he accesses the avatar state (willingly or not) he can combine the powers at will.

we've seen times when he uses two skills at once but there are instances of combo moves. examples: being trapped in the bubble (air+water+spirit), lava(fire and earth -avatar ryoku taking down his temple). i feel that this is the largest untapped area of the show and i can't wait to see more of this.

allusions & congecture- invisibility (in the air spirit level- look at the hit he lands on zuko with the air person he creates in the last episode. add something else and there you have it.) this theory relies heavely on teh fact theat more airbenders exist, my money is that they went underground and air bend the air drafts under the earth.

I think this pretty much covers everything and every bender in the show. even some of the non-benders. ty lee would be a fighter who is just at the spirit level since she understand how to block it while mai/jet would be at the mast level.


what do you think? am i missing something? someone?some power??? i will admit that aang's was teh hardest to quantify/qualify

I think your over simplifying things here. First off, most of the benders on the show don't seem to follow your pattern. Katara could heal before she was able to use advanced water bending abilities. Heck, she was able to heal before she was a master. Likewise masters like Jeong-Jeong and Iroh don't bend blue fire.

This isn't Naruto were each ability has its own difficulty level. While some moves may be more difficult then others, classifying them just doesn't work for bending.

Pretty much. Avatar isn't one of those shows. If you'll also notice, another thing it avoids is that typical RPG crap you see in others. For example a firebender can take on a waterbender.??As a whole, season 1 served to introduce the concept of bending while season 2 explored its applications, hence why at certain times they scame??of as kinda showoff-y. However there are these books (Lost Scrolls or somethin) based on the show that are gonna be coming out that explain bending techniques. Probably wouldn't buy it myself but eh, pretty good find.

That's a good point nut classification and a hierarcry are just natural,?? they mention it in the show.?? the thing with katara healing before she was a master is?? agreat point and i guess i'd answer that by saying you don't have to be a level two to jump to level three.?? this isn't like an RPG where if you get enough experience you jump up a level.?? it's more a gauge to see how spritually at peace with yourself you are.?? Katara is that how she was able to reflexivly heal herself,?? she didn't have much control over it till she was a master.?? iroh definetly is but i think all teh bending he has done is intentional.?? he could do blue fire or lightning but he knows it's too destructive so he chooses not too (reading way to much into it but there are plenty of hints for it).?? jeong jeong though is either?? 1) at such a level of spiritual upheaval that he can't acheive lightning, or 2) like iroh refuses to use such power because of it's destructive capabilities.?? either could be true.

I thought the blue fire was lightning?

I have to say I like your ideas and theories. It's something I've been doing in my head for quite some time. I as well have a very overactive imagination. Here are my thoughts in regards to your initial post:

Instead of looking at it as a matter of skill or level, I try and look at it this way. Each person has what Kung Fu calls your "dantien" or what Iroh refers to as your sea of chi. This is, indeed, a vessel. Each person has a different sized dantien or sea. This, I believe, is where the seperation of bending ability begins. Some people are just able to gather more chi than others.

Earth - Initial earthbending consists of lifting rocks and dirt through honing one's chi. As one is able, like you said, to achieve more one-ness with themselves one would be able to bend more complex materials like coal, cement, gems and crystal. When one is able to gather enough chi and focus it to a certain point, one might be able to start bending things like metal. I would think that if Toph were to practice more and continue on the path she is currently on, not a single metal weapon would be able to harm her as long as she was aware. This I think would be as close to "Avatar State" as one could get without actually BEING the Avatar.

Water - Initial waterbending consists of controlling the push and pull of water and flinging it as a weapon. When one is able to understand waterbending more and is able to gather enough chi, one would be able to alter the density and temperature of the water and bend water into ice, as well as ice in general. The healing properties waterbenders have are only available to women so I think that's just a pleasant bonus. None the less I think this would be considered a fairly advanced technique just because it requires knowledge of the human body. My favorite would be vine, or plant, bending. I think this as well is just a matter of expanding your chi levels to the point where you can bend the small traces of water within the vines to make it move. Again, something that just requires gathering enough energy.

Fire - Firebending is very similar to waterbending in the aspect that it's more advanced techniques are just one altering the density and temperature of the element again as well as pinpointing the small traces of, in this case, kinetic energy. Blue flames, like those of your stove, are blue due to them being much hotter than the average red-orange flames. This is the result of one gathering enough chi to make the flames that come out of your fist hot enough to change to blue. Iroh explains the process of lightning bending very well when he tries to teach Zuko. To be more precise though, all lightning is, is a raw form of kinetic energy. Kinetic energy very similar to that of fire. Thus, if one was able to quiet themselves enough and gather enough chi, one would be able to generate enough raw kinetic energy to create lightning.

Air - Air is the most unique of all the elements in the fact that there is no evident additional skills available to the air nomads. Granted air itself is quite a formidable weapon seeing as how it is able to control fire completely. If one recolects, fire needs air to burn. Air is not completely defenseless against water either considering air is pretty much able to blow away anything if given enough strength. However, this does not help that air still hasn't a version of vine, metal or lightning bending of it's own other than maybe smoke and clouds, lol. The only thing I can think of is this:

[Ba Gua, the form of Kung Fu that is used to airbend, is considered the cosmic or celestial martial art. I think, since Ba Gua derives and draws it's energies from the stars and planets (including our own), making almost a spiraling hourglass shap of energy coming from beneath and above you, why wouldn't it be possible to bend time and space? It is not quite a perfectly sound or finished idea but I really can't think of anything else.]

None the less my point was that I believe it relies solely on how much chi one can sum up. If one had a rather large dantien then one might be able to bend many different things within their element. However, if you manage to gather a great deal of mediocre benders, like the Fire Nation, for your army then you might not have very many soldiers bending blue fire or lightning .

As for Azula, I cannot say she is as oblivious as one might think she is. One cannot forget that the Avatars are not the only people able to enter the spirit world. Iroh himself took a trip there. If that is true then he cannot be the only one to ever do so. With Azula being the daughter of a Fire Lord, niece to General Iroh the Dragon of the West and quite an accomplished firebender (we can only guess as to who the two old lady twins are that were teaching Azula lightning bending), it would almost be foolish to think that she is uninformed about the spirit world and true mastery of firebending. She did not get as far as she did on pure luck. Azula is probably one of the most powerful firebenders, third only to Ozai and Iroh.

i wonder how into the spirit world she has tread. if she did it definetly had different effects on her than iroh's trip on him did. i wonder if it had anything to do with zuko and her mother's death (see "crossroads of destiny"). and i wonder who the hell those old ladies were! just teachers? relatives? both? spirits? ack i want answers so bad!!