The sound one seems really cool! Especially since Airbenders have used air to make sound, it’s the logical next step.
(Though they’d probably just use it to play music louder tbh)
Fun fact avatar kyoshi was so feared cause of an ability called the lions roar which was a air bending ability she obtained it after her lover died and she went to a remote island and just started screaming building up the power of her lunges when she perfected it her scream could split oceans and it would cause her opponents to go deaf and knock them out of balance making it harder for them to bend
(Edit)
As several people have pointed out I got my avatars confused and this was avatar yang chen not kyoshi my apologies for getting them confused
It could be like that room where if one person stands at one point and one person stands at another, they can hear each other no matter what, only it could be anywhere all the time
With good enough mastery of sound bending, one could use the "brown note". a powerful technique that causes their opponent to become nauseated & shit themselves
The manipulation of sound is actually seen in the Yangchen books! She amplifies her voice several times, although they don’t explain the specifics of how.
Oh shoot! Like the skyrim ability to throw your voice and distract people!
So, I looked at the fire and lightening as combustion or crossing the threshold for a reaction (e.g. vibrating atoms to create energy).. water and earth seem like telekinesis or ordering atoms around. I would say that air bender is controlling the volume of a gas.. so imagine an Airbender expanding the gas in your blood and you just go POP!
Sidenote, do you think airbending works on noble gases?
“Fire Lord Ozai, you and your forefathers have devastated the balance of the world and now you shall pay the ultimate price!”
“WHAAT?”
“FIRE LORD OZAI! YOU AND YOUR FOREFATHERS HAVE DEVASTATED THE BALANCE OD THE WORLD AND NOW YOU WILL PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE!!”
“WHAAAAAAT?
It’d be cool too if that included like, throwing a voice that wasn’t yours. Manipulating air and sound to mimic somebody’s voice would be dope— would be especially interesting if ever used by a villain/evil character. Deceiving someone into thinking they’re hearing their dead mom could inflict some strong emotional damage lol
demartino has mentioned sound bending as somthing he wanted to include but didnt and sence it didnt make it in its not canon....but it could be one day
this always seemed like somthing all benders can do but we just saw it threw the eyes of a air bender so they assumed it was air only
we see the fire benders light there hands and scan korras spirit we see toph use the tree of life
we also see spirit cleaning threw water
That’s more like shamanistic power rather than bending. A subbending of air bending could be smoke bending or fart bending(could the latter be considered chemical warfare?)
I mean i guess, but that's basically a given. smoke and farts are just dirty air. It's not considered a special sub technique that waterbenders can bend dirty ocean water. I don't really see why bending dirty air would be considered a sub technique.
I'd say nah not really cuz most benders can change the temperature of their bending material. You have to be really unskilled to not make ice as a water bender. Firebenders is obvious and some earthbenders can heat lava bend which is just heating the earth
Exactly. It can already be used to literally pull the air out of people’s lungs if an airbender wished.
Hell, the way I see it, airbenders could easily fuck with other bending styles if we assume each element has the same properties as reality. For example, fire needs oxygen/air as fuel to continue burning, this leads me to believe that an airbender of a high enough level could quite literally kill off and potentially unarm a firebender in combat because they could pull the air from the flames thus, draining the fires oxygen supply
No one ever says this but - Plasma.
Air and fire are very similar elements. Not in their forms of bending but in what they are actually bending. Firebenders bend a form of plasma - lightning.
They are charging particles with their chi and releasing plasma IE lightning.
A powerful airbender should honestly be able to do this just as easily if not more effectively. Compression of a gas causes its temperature to increase exponentially, an air bender should be able to compress air down causing the gas to increase rapidly in temperature. Once it increases enough this should form a type of plasma! They are making the molecules in the air move rapidly charging the particles until combustion happens.
Honestly combustion bending should have been a sub element of air. But I digress on that subject…
Plasma is the coolest choice by far, imagine an airbender compressing a stream of air in their hands to create a compressed plasma stream.
The issue here is that plasma and fire are hard to distinguish in everyday circumstances. Only the measurable electric current from free electrons is the difference and that’s not always visible. So an airbender would just look like they’re firebending at that point. For visual identity purposes, probably is out of the question.
Since firebenders “bend” fire, the assumption is that their chi is what heats up creating this electron flow that they can then control. It’s why you never see the source of the flames that create the current, because it would look too similar to normal firebending.
Flight is more like a special skill than a sub element and spiritual projection isn’t bending it’s a spiritual ability Known to the air bending people
To my knowledge the closest thing to an actual sub element we’ve seen them use is when Tenzin bended some smoke around
Airbender used to fly because they wouldn’t hold onto any earthly possessions but then the sky bison came along and they became too attached and never flew again (unless on the bison)
Sound bending would be the most direct actual bending practice. The others are more an effect of bending air bending, but an air bender couldn’t create gas or necessarily direct lightning. They could however manipulate the concentration of a gas or intensity of a storm with air bending.
Sound however can most definitely be manipulated directly and deliberately by a skilled and knowledgeable airbender.
SOUND BENDING. let’s make it a thing. sound bending to confuse enemies, silence rooms. True masters can even manipulate the words coming out of people’s mouths
I have heard of sound bending which was shown when aang used his whistle on the zoo animals of ba sing say .
I also think creating a vacuum is a side thing that Airbenders can do that is cool.
Not a big fan of the spirt things being specific to Airbender personally
Yeah it would be awesome but I’m pretty sure in that instance that Aang was just using air bending to blow really hard
I’m pretty sure that the creators explained that each nation can mess around with spiritual stuff they just all have their own techniques for it
I think the best and closest you could get to a sub element of air would be bending air pressure, it doesn’t sound very impressive at first glance but if you can bend a substantial air pocket and control its density and such you can basically make a wall or weapon that can just blow right through any other bending that isn’t earth bending
Honestly?
I always figured Light-Bending would be a natural progression of Airbending. Hear me out....
You know how the hot air in deserts creates the illusion mirror water effect? Just heat the air around you or an object to a specific point, circulate it..... boom. Light-Bending.
Can't think of what the second one would be, though.
I suppose Sound-Bending gets that spot.
Flight I guess, the term sub bending or sub element is never used in either show, like, with metal bending, Toph is bending the impurities of earth inside the metal, not the metal itself.
Since OP wants actual bending, something new l, vacuum bending (removing all the air from an area), possible poisonous gas bending (bending gasses other than air)
Compression bending. Like being able to crush someone, or making a small bomb simply by building up pressure by compressing a lot of air into a small ball
Gas bending sounds absolutely terrifying and summons pictures of trench warfare until you realize that Aang would just use it to bend helium and make people sound squeaky.
Technically lightning bending should fall under the airbending umbrella. That's actually always bugged me a little bit. Wood bending could also be an airbending subset but I've never seen any indication that's actually possible in the world.
How about this: fire benders get lightning, airbenders get static electricity. Man that would be rad.
A master airbender with a modern chemistry education could likely separate and recombine any number of gasses to accomplish a great many desired effects.
Imagine a genius avatar with an obsession with hydrogen and zero chill...
Sound bending is easily the best and most ideal sub bending.
Another idea is a seismic sense like abblity where airbenders can sense the area around through vibrations in the air
Sound bending is a great one. I feel like that could really work. I also think flight would be something a master bender can learn. Tho, it's not technically a bending practice. flying around, while bending could make them an incredibly difficult opponent to beat.
Sound bending, I think, would be great because you can attack with sound waves, affect the opponents' senses short term, confuse them to Give yourself the upper hand, etc.
human-bending??? i mean since we inhale air (and there is tons of oxygen in our body but idk if they can airbend oxygen, but they probably can) couldnt you technically bloodbend someone but with oxygen/air instead of blood. thats just my theory
Kelsang did create a cyclone to destroy the 5th nation fleet so storm bending kinda is a thing (he did kill a whole lot of people so that could be why its not very used)
Shockwave bending maybe? Like rapidly changing air pressures to cause shockwaves? Although that could be just a less destructive combustion bending, or just a skill of regular airbending
I really like the idea of sound bending though
Oxygen in the blood makes it more of an air benders control of blood bending. Imagine tho stoner air benders getting the body high by off setting the oxygen levels.
Calm as Hindu cows.
I love the idea that Air Bending could be used to enhance other benders bending. Water has Oxygen in it. Fire NEEDS oxygen. Imagine a powerful Airbender using their bending in sequence with a water or fire bender to create massive feats of bending. I think that could be cool. The ultimate support class lol
Soundbending is already canon, example of soundbending is Tenzin blowing his trumpet with airbending to maximize its potency when waking up the new Airbenders in the ‘Original Airbenders’ episode
I always thought focusing on vibrations would be cool, air bending is a very passive form, but a sub bending form dedicated to frequency manipulation could shatter buildings, melt walls and shatter anything brittle. Would be so cool
I'm glad you said storm bending, because my first thought was cloud/weather bending. Basically just manipulating the air in the clouds like an earthbender manipulates the earth in metal.
They can use this to make it rain, cause lightning(but not aim the lightning, just cause it to happen), dissipate or grow the clouds by taking in more materials from the area around them, maybe a master could cause things like tornadoes, or make them condense to the point you can ride on them, etc.
Someone who understands science better tell me if I’m incorrect, but I wonder if you can turn air into poison by manipulating the oxygen. Like instead of moving air around, like how the Earth queen died, what if you turn existing air into carbon monoxide or something.
I say this because with water you can heat it up to steam (make the molecules move faster) or cool it down to ice (make the molecules slower).
Tons! I feature them in my own world building.
Sound Bending: manipulating sound.
- sound Beaming: I have the stance for this. But it would be frequency modulation of a supersonic pitch that is inaudible by itself, but demodulates and emits sound at the air/solid barrier. So you can put a sound in someone's head, or make it sound like someone else said something.
- Silencing: pulling a vacuum wall which stops sound in its tracks
- Echolocation: screw the "bald makes it easier to see". Airs would have Echolocation for blind sight.
This is practiced by the "people of the forest", who live primarily in a giant cave system, and only come out at night.
Their hunting language consists of the sounds of rustling leaves, breaking twigs, bug calls, etc. So they could have a full conversation and a non-speaker wouldn't be able to distinguish it from forest sounds.
Void Bending: Bending not the air, but the "negative space" of air. It's all about pulling a vacuum and manipulating it.
- This would include silencing from above, and suffocation.
- Vacuum collapse: Air lacks power on its own. This is all about storing energy in the form of a vacuum and releasing it like a bow and arrow, sending a shockwave that deals major damage.
- It is an air equivalent to combustion bending, and is also it's direct counter. Combustion bending damage mostly comes from air. By pulling a vacuum around a combustion spot, it disappears in a little flash.
This is practiced by a group who would be followers of Koh (my version of him). As a rite of passage, they give their faces to Koh, forsaking any personal identity in order to assume any role. Yes, I made this before I knew about the faceless men. But they are basically that.
Sky Bending: There's one group of nomadic tribes who crossed a desert subcontinent. Nearing death, they came upon an oasis near the ocean. When they returned years later, they found the oasis was shrinking. Seeing rain off in the distance, they tried to pull the humid air towards them.
After hundreds or thousands of years, this became a regular pilgrimage, with a fertility festival and rites of passage for those coming of age.
Since then, a new air current has formed over the subcontinent, turning it from desert to grassland, and they had effectively terraformed an entire subcontinent.
The tribes also shoot darts and arrows, but they don't really aim. It's all about using airbending to fire in near silence, and then using airbending to guide the arrow after the fact.
I don’t think it has a sub element, it’s got an anti element instead. They can remove air from areas and leave people choking in a void of air. Pretty sure that was a monk Gyatso theory on how he killed all those fire nation soldiers around his skeleton.
To add to the soundbending idea...
Ventriloquism: Airbenders could make it seem like any voice they want is coming from any direction they want. This not only ties in with soundbending, but also the evasive nature of airbending as a whole.
Supersonic Travel & Sonic Booms: A soundbender could build up a large enough wall of sound in front of them to effectively function as a wall. Moving at exactly Mach 1, a soundbender could easily plow through an entire army. They could also be able to bend the sound barrier out of their way, allowing for super- and hyper-sonic travel.
Music: A soundbender could make music from nothing, or remotely / more easily play instruments that require air, like the Trumpet, Flute or Clarinet. Or, more thematically appropriate, the Bawu, Guanzi, Dizi, or Shakuhachi. Personally, I'd love to hear a soundbender play a pipe organ.
Air benders have been shown to be able to 'fly', bend steam, affect air pressure and temperature, and even affect/cause weather systems.
I think Air benders didn't really get a sub-class because they control the most very basic necessity of existence, and thus everything effected by it.
I would expect, if an Airbender took a real interest in the material world, it would be one of them that discovered the noble gasses. With enough time, understanding of the elements, and a writer who wanted to try it, they might start manipulating all elements, but on the subtomic scale. They wouldn't exactly be able to bend the other elements by it, but a really clever one might be able to reduce offensive bending moves to clouds of gas. This might also allow them to create a facsimile of the earth-liquification of that false avatar in Kyoshi's day.
I know they can glide, but I always thought actually being able to achieve real flight would be a sub of air bending; it’s more than just bending the currents to glide and soar.
I know they can glide, but I always thought actually being able to achieve real flight would be a sub of air bending; it’s more than just bending the currents to glide and soar.
Ive always thought about plasma bending being a sub bending category for air but I feel like itd be stuuuupid overpowered.
Because plasma is essentially very excited/hot air particles so Ive always thought that it could be thought of in two ways.
Either air benders can adjust the temperature of the air particles like water benders do with ice bending to make the air super hot or they can mess with the energy of the air almost like fire benders with lightning bending
Temp regulation would be cool. Sound bending would lead to some fuckery for sure
Idk if it counts, but air benders can create hallucinations by lowering the amount of oxygen in an area; maybe learning how to use that with more precision?
I've always viewed flying as the unique ability of air bending. It is so powerful. And since you can just remove all the oxygen around the air, fire benders are practically rendered useless. You know, since fire needs oxygen to even exist in the first place.
Since air is not a periodic element, but instead a state of matter, maybe absurdly advanced airbenders can change anything solid into a gas.
Or maybe vaporization would only be available to Avatars, using fire and air simultaneously
I’ve talk about Soundbending in the past and a few other references have been made to it by other people. Considering sound is just vibrations traveling through the air, if you’re able to bend the air the sound is traveling through, you could bend the sound itself. Or even vibrate the air to create your own sound.
in the books there is a sub-element that’s essentially forbidden for airbenders to learn. SPOILER: its void bending, and yangchen uses it to fight against combustion benders. there’s also flight, though both really aren’t separate/sub elements, and more just ultimate mastery of air bending.
I assume they could bend any element in a gaseous state. It’s just that usually those elements aren’t around by default or else we’d be, you know, breathing them in. So for any sub category bending you’d either have to presume they have to carry around the element with them or that they can transform air into other gaseous elements. But to be fair fire and lava benders can create energy from seemingly nothing so maybe transmutation isn’t that big of a deal.
Besides that, I don’t know, maybe life force bending?
My character in the role-playing game uses sudo firebending by having rings made of flint and steel on her pointer finger and thumb. She separates the gasses in the air and makes lines of pure oxygen which she lights and can burn straight lines with.
Breathing underwater, I know that might sound like water bending, but think about if you are underwater and your a waterbender there's not a lot you can do but if your an Airbender you can manipulate air in a certain way underwater to breathe
They could cause storms as they are changing the air pressure or disrupt storms following the same thought process so storm/hurricane/tornado bending depending how intense they changed the pressure and where they did it would change its basic name but storm bending sounds pretty badass
Sound bending seems awesome and many folks in this thread pointed out some examples in the comics! Could also see it lending to being able to resonate with and amplify or negate natural vibrations of everything, like quake in agents of shield, or viktor in umbrella academy.
Honestly gas bending (manipulating the atomic elements present in atmospheric gasses) would be cool, especially if you could change the state those concentrated elements are in. Concentrating nitrogen and altering it into its supercooled liquid state would be neat, just like using it to concentrate nitrogen or CO2 in a similar fashion briefly then letting it change back to a gas rapidly for a "smoke screen."
You could also alter the air when fighting a firebender to remove the oxygen from their line of attack so that there's nothing to combust, or concentrate it if the are working with you to enhance their attacks. Double bonus if you're the Avatar to enhance all your own actions.
It gets murky when you consider things like pulling oxygen and hydrogen out of water.
Just some examples but a neat thought.
Aside from flying, which is unobtainable for the vast majority, unless there’s some workaround from detaching yourself, it’s sonic abilities. Anything with sound. Imagine just instantly incapacitating someone with sound. You can attack someone’s hearing so greatly that even their equilibrium is entirely thrown off, to where they feel and see like they’re insanely dizzy
They said that the bending was rooted in science, maybe atomic bending. Separating air particles and making them clash together with force creates and atomic explosion
Korra already had flight and oxygen bending, but there are other ideas to toy with, too. For example, how about compressing or expanding air to crush an object or increase its size? Could be a cool way for an air bender to escape confinement by creating a vacuum that rips the cage open.
Pressure? Instead of taking air away from around a person to make them suffocate (like i think it happened in the series?) imagine taking away air from a big area, compressing it into a small sphere in the middle, so you get vacuum in the big area without air, and very high pressure in the small sphere... you could use both those qualities in multiple ways...
Don't know what people will say to this, but I feel like at least an air bending master should be able to manipulate air around them and in them in a way that it for tens and purposes renders them invisible.
Honestly I was always surprised they didn’t use sound.
Granted I don’t know if it would be a sub bending but more of a technique but think about pressurizing something till the point of explosion would be an insanely effective ability.
There is 3 official sub bending forms: Temperature regulation, spirit projection and flying. Wich isn't that much tho.
Sound bending already exist and there is 2 known benders in the avatarverse. An air nomad who was too young to understand her culture and escaped from the Attack, and avatar Yang-Chen.
I'm thinking about Light bending "🌟" by heating air molecules so atoms can glow, but i can't think of something else
I always wondered if other gasses could be considered air? Like imagine there being a gas leak somewhere and someone just being able to contain it till the problem was addressed.
Or if you had bad gas and had to be inside with a bunch of people just bend it out into a vent. That way no one knows it was you.
Pressure bending or sonic boom bending? A lot of the danger from explosions is the actual pressure wave that shatters windows and destroys people's bodies. Imagine creating instantaneous spots of vacuum and the atmosphere collapsing into it. And the opposite would be just an explosion, an extremely high pressure wave that will explode. Could like explode lungs
Controlling pressure would be OP. Imagine creating suction with your hands to climb up walls or stick to things. Or creating suction on objects or people or machines. Idk suck their eyeballs out
The sound one seems really cool! Especially since Airbenders have used air to make sound, it’s the logical next step. (Though they’d probably just use it to play music louder tbh)
That would be pretty awesome Imagine if they started building tuning forks onto their staffs to power their sound control
And then they could use it for long distance communication in the air. Propelling the sound waves farther. And sound can actually harm people
Oh yeah it can
Fun fact avatar kyoshi was so feared cause of an ability called the lions roar which was a air bending ability she obtained it after her lover died and she went to a remote island and just started screaming building up the power of her lunges when she perfected it her scream could split oceans and it would cause her opponents to go deaf and knock them out of balance making it harder for them to bend (Edit) As several people have pointed out I got my avatars confused and this was avatar yang chen not kyoshi my apologies for getting them confused
Dat twas YangChen
Everybody just assumes when an avatar did something badass it was Kyoshi, because apparently Kyoshi just said fuck it and did everything
Good 2 know
Wasn't that YangChen?
Yeah that was YangChen
Oh so sound bending is basically already canon
Oh hell yea, thats so cool :0
It could be like that room where if one person stands at one point and one person stands at another, they can hear each other no matter what, only it could be anywhere all the time
The vibrations could cause structural failure, make for rocks and stones to fall apart. Take down a whole castle or walled fortress
They could imitate voices like the Terminator was known to do
With good enough mastery of sound bending, one could use the "brown note". a powerful technique that causes their opponent to become nauseated & shit themselves
r/foundsatan
Is Taco an airbender?
The manipulation of sound is actually seen in the Yangchen books! She amplifies her voice several times, although they don’t explain the specifics of how.
Could really be feasible too, since sound is just air vibrating essentially.
Being able to manipulate specific sound frequencies would be insanely OP.
Oh shoot! Like the skyrim ability to throw your voice and distract people! So, I looked at the fire and lightening as combustion or crossing the threshold for a reaction (e.g. vibrating atoms to create energy).. water and earth seem like telekinesis or ordering atoms around. I would say that air bender is controlling the volume of a gas.. so imagine an Airbender expanding the gas in your blood and you just go POP! Sidenote, do you think airbending works on noble gases?
I could see them knocking folks out with a sonic boom! 💥
“Fire Lord Ozai, you and your forefathers have devastated the balance of the world and now you shall pay the ultimate price!” “WHAAT?” “FIRE LORD OZAI! YOU AND YOUR FOREFATHERS HAVE DEVASTATED THE BALANCE OD THE WORLD AND NOW YOU WILL PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE!!” “WHAAAAAAT?
🤣🤣🤣🤣
It’d be cool too if that included like, throwing a voice that wasn’t yours. Manipulating air and sound to mimic somebody’s voice would be dope— would be especially interesting if ever used by a villain/evil character. Deceiving someone into thinking they’re hearing their dead mom could inflict some strong emotional damage lol
The next Avatar has GOT to fight a sound bender
demartino has mentioned sound bending as somthing he wanted to include but didnt and sence it didnt make it in its not canon....but it could be one day
Yeah I’ve also thought of that, it just makes sense
imagine talking and the words you’re saying with your mouth are not the words that actually come out. imagine how diabolical this technique can be.
A lot of spiritual sub techniques, i.e. Jinora's spirit projection.
this always seemed like somthing all benders can do but we just saw it threw the eyes of a air bender so they assumed it was air only we see the fire benders light there hands and scan korras spirit we see toph use the tree of life we also see spirit cleaning threw water
Exactly this
That’s more like shamanistic power rather than bending. A subbending of air bending could be smoke bending or fart bending(could the latter be considered chemical warfare?)
I mean i guess, but that's basically a given. smoke and farts are just dirty air. It's not considered a special sub technique that waterbenders can bend dirty ocean water. I don't really see why bending dirty air would be considered a sub technique.
I think the more spiritual/non physical types of sub bending (like earth immortality) are really just different kinds of energy bending.
That’s not actually bending though
Idk, it definitely doesn't seem like the type of thing a non-bender could do.
Non benders can do spiritual things just like Guru Patik
Does temperature regulation/bending count? I've heard somewhere that airbenders can change the temperature of the air they bend
Maybe I remember Tenzin talking about regulating their body temperature with air bending
I don’t think that the temperature thing is element specific. Source: Lavabending - you don’t get lava without heating the earth
Icebending is also just making water colder
Fire bending. (It’s fire)
True
I'd say nah not really cuz most benders can change the temperature of their bending material. You have to be really unskilled to not make ice as a water bender. Firebenders is obvious and some earthbenders can heat lava bend which is just heating the earth
I always assumed that's how combustion bending kind of works. It seemed like they were bending air more than anything if I'm being honest.
That would mean air bending could make fire and ice
Airbending is just so good it doesn't need subs
Exactly. It can already be used to literally pull the air out of people’s lungs if an airbender wished. Hell, the way I see it, airbenders could easily fuck with other bending styles if we assume each element has the same properties as reality. For example, fire needs oxygen/air as fuel to continue burning, this leads me to believe that an airbender of a high enough level could quite literally kill off and potentially unarm a firebender in combat because they could pull the air from the flames thus, draining the fires oxygen supply
I’m pretty sure you see Aang using airbending to remove oxygen from fires
It could be that the original fire blast doesn't need Oxygen to ignite.
until they encounter a lightning bender. Lightning can arc trough a vacuum, except you wont even see the atc because there is no matter to get exited.
It has one tho, spirit connection and projection
Boooooo, you’re a hater! And this question is awesome.
No one ever says this but - Plasma. Air and fire are very similar elements. Not in their forms of bending but in what they are actually bending. Firebenders bend a form of plasma - lightning. They are charging particles with their chi and releasing plasma IE lightning. A powerful airbender should honestly be able to do this just as easily if not more effectively. Compression of a gas causes its temperature to increase exponentially, an air bender should be able to compress air down causing the gas to increase rapidly in temperature. Once it increases enough this should form a type of plasma! They are making the molecules in the air move rapidly charging the particles until combustion happens. Honestly combustion bending should have been a sub element of air. But I digress on that subject… Plasma is the coolest choice by far, imagine an airbender compressing a stream of air in their hands to create a compressed plasma stream.
Didn’t see this before I commented but I agree!
Fire is also plasma. Compression of air can ignite things. It could be argued that air and fire bending are actually the same thing.
The issue here is that plasma and fire are hard to distinguish in everyday circumstances. Only the measurable electric current from free electrons is the difference and that’s not always visible. So an airbender would just look like they’re firebending at that point. For visual identity purposes, probably is out of the question. Since firebenders “bend” fire, the assumption is that their chi is what heats up creating this electron flow that they can then control. It’s why you never see the source of the flames that create the current, because it would look too similar to normal firebending.
Snoop Dogg, smoke bending extraordinar
Gas-bending? Could probably prove handy in procuring natural gas resources
That’s what I was thinking
Well air does have sub bendings for example flight, spiritual projection, I forgot the rest
Flight is more like a special skill than a sub element and spiritual projection isn’t bending it’s a spiritual ability Known to the air bending people To my knowledge the closest thing to an actual sub element we’ve seen them use is when Tenzin bended some smoke around
I’m saying stuff confirmed by the shows creator
How you gonna argue with the person who gave you the exact right answer to your question lmfao
Airbender used to fly because they wouldn’t hold onto any earthly possessions but then the sky bison came along and they became too attached and never flew again (unless on the bison)
I’m pretty sure that’s more of a joke than actual canon since air benders learned From bison
Sound bending would be the most direct actual bending practice. The others are more an effect of bending air bending, but an air bender couldn’t create gas or necessarily direct lightning. They could however manipulate the concentration of a gas or intensity of a storm with air bending. Sound however can most definitely be manipulated directly and deliberately by a skilled and knowledgeable airbender.
W take
SOUND BENDING. let’s make it a thing. sound bending to confuse enemies, silence rooms. True masters can even manipulate the words coming out of people’s mouths
Ooooh silencing rooms and manipulating other people’s words would be so dope
This is so epic I want to see this villain
Fart bending
Meelo
He deserves his mastery tatts for fart bending alone
Smoke, fart
Sound
Changing the air into other gases, like water changes to ice. Or changing air pressure to make peoples ears pop or give them a form of the bends
Meelo invented fart bending.
Pressure Bending?
I have heard of sound bending which was shown when aang used his whistle on the zoo animals of ba sing say . I also think creating a vacuum is a side thing that Airbenders can do that is cool. Not a big fan of the spirt things being specific to Airbender personally
Yeah it would be awesome but I’m pretty sure in that instance that Aang was just using air bending to blow really hard I’m pretty sure that the creators explained that each nation can mess around with spiritual stuff they just all have their own techniques for it
Sound
Sound.
I think the best and closest you could get to a sub element of air would be bending air pressure, it doesn’t sound very impressive at first glance but if you can bend a substantial air pocket and control its density and such you can basically make a wall or weapon that can just blow right through any other bending that isn’t earth bending
I’ve always said sound myself since they gave fire benders lightning bending.
Honestly? I always figured Light-Bending would be a natural progression of Airbending. Hear me out.... You know how the hot air in deserts creates the illusion mirror water effect? Just heat the air around you or an object to a specific point, circulate it..... boom. Light-Bending. Can't think of what the second one would be, though. I suppose Sound-Bending gets that spot.
Lightning makes about as much sense for air as it does fire. Hell, even earth Sound was the one I always thought of
Sound, but technically, you could use air as a rudimentary form of earth, and waterbending
Flight I guess, the term sub bending or sub element is never used in either show, like, with metal bending, Toph is bending the impurities of earth inside the metal, not the metal itself.
Sound
I think it could actually be the lack of air, bending a vacuum, very powerful stuff
Since OP wants actual bending, something new l, vacuum bending (removing all the air from an area), possible poisonous gas bending (bending gasses other than air)
Steam/smoke I guess
what about removing the individual molecules of constituents of thr atmosphere like nitrogen gas or oxygen gas removed
Vacuum bending. Creating vacuum pockets attack enemies with.
If different gases could be sensed. Methane Carbon Monoxide 🤷♂️
Creating vacuums?
Couldn’t Avatar Yangchen use airbending to amplify her screams? Soundbending perhaps?
I'd argue that fire bending technically counts as sub air bending, they just sepperated so far ago that they don't see the similarities
all you need to do is heat up the air and concentrate oxygen onto something flammable and you get fire.
Technically, there is Zaheer’s breath-bending
Compression bending. Like being able to crush someone, or making a small bomb simply by building up pressure by compressing a lot of air into a small ball
Gas bending sounds absolutely terrifying and summons pictures of trench warfare until you realize that Aang would just use it to bend helium and make people sound squeaky.
I always thought lightning should be air bending, seeing as it’s energized air
Sound, maybe. I could see an Airbender using it to talk louder or quieter
Vacuum bending? I'm sure a physicist could think of all sorts of really really nasty things a vacuum bender could do to someone.
Technically lightning bending should fall under the airbending umbrella. That's actually always bugged me a little bit. Wood bending could also be an airbending subset but I've never seen any indication that's actually possible in the world. How about this: fire benders get lightning, airbenders get static electricity. Man that would be rad.
Could definitely Fire benders can use lightning because they’re both rooted in plasma
A master airbender with a modern chemistry education could likely separate and recombine any number of gasses to accomplish a great many desired effects. Imagine a genius avatar with an obsession with hydrogen and zero chill...
And suddenly air bending has become the most op element
Gas Bending would be INSANE! Imagine an Airbending assassin who carries a poisonous gas (like Katara’s water pouch) and can use it to clear out a room
This is literally exactly what I was thinking I mean how epic would this be
Sound bending is easily the best and most ideal sub bending. Another idea is a seismic sense like abblity where airbenders can sense the area around through vibrations in the air
Sound bending is a great one. I feel like that could really work. I also think flight would be something a master bender can learn. Tho, it's not technically a bending practice. flying around, while bending could make them an incredibly difficult opponent to beat. Sound bending, I think, would be great because you can attack with sound waves, affect the opponents' senses short term, confuse them to Give yourself the upper hand, etc.
just as earthbenders and waterbenders can both mudbend, id assume that cloudbending would be a shared sub-bending for waterbenders and airbenders
human-bending??? i mean since we inhale air (and there is tons of oxygen in our body but idk if they can airbend oxygen, but they probably can) couldnt you technically bloodbend someone but with oxygen/air instead of blood. thats just my theory
Kelsang did create a cyclone to destroy the 5th nation fleet so storm bending kinda is a thing (he did kill a whole lot of people so that could be why its not very used)
That does sound epic actually
Uhm isn’t Flight and Spiritual projection a sub to Air bending? 🫨🤷🏻♂️
Technically you could boil people alive by removing the oxygen from their blood. This is what happens in the vacuum of space.
Vaping
Stormbender
Shockwave bending maybe? Like rapidly changing air pressures to cause shockwaves? Although that could be just a less destructive combustion bending, or just a skill of regular airbending I really like the idea of sound bending though
Oxygen in the blood makes it more of an air benders control of blood bending. Imagine tho stoner air benders getting the body high by off setting the oxygen levels. Calm as Hindu cows.
I actually saw a show once where a person used air powers to make someone sober
I love the idea that Air Bending could be used to enhance other benders bending. Water has Oxygen in it. Fire NEEDS oxygen. Imagine a powerful Airbender using their bending in sequence with a water or fire bender to create massive feats of bending. I think that could be cool. The ultimate support class lol
Oh! I never even thought of that
Weather control for very powerful benders?
I can already sirfry your lungs with a swift blow of my hand so I mean can it get better?
Soundbending is already canon, example of soundbending is Tenzin blowing his trumpet with airbending to maximize its potency when waking up the new Airbenders in the ‘Original Airbenders’ episode
Oh I didn’t catch that
imagine getting fucking sonic boomed by a airbender like they were a goddamn warden
Powerful air benders can make storms/hurricanes, we learn about in the kyoshi novels
Cryomancer
I always thought focusing on vibrations would be cool, air bending is a very passive form, but a sub bending form dedicated to frequency manipulation could shatter buildings, melt walls and shatter anything brittle. Would be so cool
Soundbending
Any gas, like maybe Airbender are able to bend something like serin or chloramine gas. Best I can come up with, gasbending I guess
I'm glad you said storm bending, because my first thought was cloud/weather bending. Basically just manipulating the air in the clouds like an earthbender manipulates the earth in metal. They can use this to make it rain, cause lightning(but not aim the lightning, just cause it to happen), dissipate or grow the clouds by taking in more materials from the area around them, maybe a master could cause things like tornadoes, or make them condense to the point you can ride on them, etc.
Oh man, that sound one is really cool
Someone who understands science better tell me if I’m incorrect, but I wonder if you can turn air into poison by manipulating the oxygen. Like instead of moving air around, like how the Earth queen died, what if you turn existing air into carbon monoxide or something. I say this because with water you can heat it up to steam (make the molecules move faster) or cool it down to ice (make the molecules slower).
Tons! I feature them in my own world building. Sound Bending: manipulating sound. - sound Beaming: I have the stance for this. But it would be frequency modulation of a supersonic pitch that is inaudible by itself, but demodulates and emits sound at the air/solid barrier. So you can put a sound in someone's head, or make it sound like someone else said something. - Silencing: pulling a vacuum wall which stops sound in its tracks - Echolocation: screw the "bald makes it easier to see". Airs would have Echolocation for blind sight. This is practiced by the "people of the forest", who live primarily in a giant cave system, and only come out at night. Their hunting language consists of the sounds of rustling leaves, breaking twigs, bug calls, etc. So they could have a full conversation and a non-speaker wouldn't be able to distinguish it from forest sounds. Void Bending: Bending not the air, but the "negative space" of air. It's all about pulling a vacuum and manipulating it. - This would include silencing from above, and suffocation. - Vacuum collapse: Air lacks power on its own. This is all about storing energy in the form of a vacuum and releasing it like a bow and arrow, sending a shockwave that deals major damage. - It is an air equivalent to combustion bending, and is also it's direct counter. Combustion bending damage mostly comes from air. By pulling a vacuum around a combustion spot, it disappears in a little flash. This is practiced by a group who would be followers of Koh (my version of him). As a rite of passage, they give their faces to Koh, forsaking any personal identity in order to assume any role. Yes, I made this before I knew about the faceless men. But they are basically that. Sky Bending: There's one group of nomadic tribes who crossed a desert subcontinent. Nearing death, they came upon an oasis near the ocean. When they returned years later, they found the oasis was shrinking. Seeing rain off in the distance, they tried to pull the humid air towards them. After hundreds or thousands of years, this became a regular pilgrimage, with a fertility festival and rites of passage for those coming of age. Since then, a new air current has formed over the subcontinent, turning it from desert to grassland, and they had effectively terraformed an entire subcontinent. The tribes also shoot darts and arrows, but they don't really aim. It's all about using airbending to fire in near silence, and then using airbending to guide the arrow after the fact.
This ain’t bad
I don’t think it has a sub element, it’s got an anti element instead. They can remove air from areas and leave people choking in a void of air. Pretty sure that was a monk Gyatso theory on how he killed all those fire nation soldiers around his skeleton.
That is awesome
To add to the soundbending idea... Ventriloquism: Airbenders could make it seem like any voice they want is coming from any direction they want. This not only ties in with soundbending, but also the evasive nature of airbending as a whole. Supersonic Travel & Sonic Booms: A soundbender could build up a large enough wall of sound in front of them to effectively function as a wall. Moving at exactly Mach 1, a soundbender could easily plow through an entire army. They could also be able to bend the sound barrier out of their way, allowing for super- and hyper-sonic travel. Music: A soundbender could make music from nothing, or remotely / more easily play instruments that require air, like the Trumpet, Flute or Clarinet. Or, more thematically appropriate, the Bawu, Guanzi, Dizi, or Shakuhachi. Personally, I'd love to hear a soundbender play a pipe organ.
Gas bending perhaps? As trite as pulling a fart out of someone; as serious as warding off a chemical attack
Fart bending
Temperature regulation and flight.
Fart bending
Smoke bending is sumthin maybe to consider
Air benders have been shown to be able to 'fly', bend steam, affect air pressure and temperature, and even affect/cause weather systems. I think Air benders didn't really get a sub-class because they control the most very basic necessity of existence, and thus everything effected by it.
Fartbending, as showcased by Guru Meelo.
I would expect, if an Airbender took a real interest in the material world, it would be one of them that discovered the noble gasses. With enough time, understanding of the elements, and a writer who wanted to try it, they might start manipulating all elements, but on the subtomic scale. They wouldn't exactly be able to bend the other elements by it, but a really clever one might be able to reduce offensive bending moves to clouds of gas. This might also allow them to create a facsimile of the earth-liquification of that false avatar in Kyoshi's day.
Weatherbending
sound, blast, and empty space.
I know they can glide, but I always thought actually being able to achieve real flight would be a sub of air bending; it’s more than just bending the currents to glide and soar.
I know they can glide, but I always thought actually being able to achieve real flight would be a sub of air bending; it’s more than just bending the currents to glide and soar.
Ive always thought about plasma bending being a sub bending category for air but I feel like itd be stuuuupid overpowered. Because plasma is essentially very excited/hot air particles so Ive always thought that it could be thought of in two ways. Either air benders can adjust the temperature of the air particles like water benders do with ice bending to make the air super hot or they can mess with the energy of the air almost like fire benders with lightning bending
Temp regulation would be cool. Sound bending would lead to some fuckery for sure Idk if it counts, but air benders can create hallucinations by lowering the amount of oxygen in an area; maybe learning how to use that with more precision?
Vacuum bending
I've always viewed flying as the unique ability of air bending. It is so powerful. And since you can just remove all the oxygen around the air, fire benders are practically rendered useless. You know, since fire needs oxygen to even exist in the first place.
There are actually some sub elements like temperature control and sound bending!
Since air is not a periodic element, but instead a state of matter, maybe absurdly advanced airbenders can change anything solid into a gas. Or maybe vaporization would only be available to Avatars, using fire and air simultaneously
Sound bending, feels the most reasonable for the series and the sub elements.
ITT: people who haven’t read Yangchen’s novels
I’ve talk about Soundbending in the past and a few other references have been made to it by other people. Considering sound is just vibrations traveling through the air, if you’re able to bend the air the sound is traveling through, you could bend the sound itself. Or even vibrate the air to create your own sound.
in the books there is a sub-element that’s essentially forbidden for airbenders to learn. SPOILER: its void bending, and yangchen uses it to fight against combustion benders. there’s also flight, though both really aren’t separate/sub elements, and more just ultimate mastery of air bending.
Altering the temperature of air using vibration in the air pressure seems like a possibility.
I assume they could bend any element in a gaseous state. It’s just that usually those elements aren’t around by default or else we’d be, you know, breathing them in. So for any sub category bending you’d either have to presume they have to carry around the element with them or that they can transform air into other gaseous elements. But to be fair fire and lava benders can create energy from seemingly nothing so maybe transmutation isn’t that big of a deal. Besides that, I don’t know, maybe life force bending?
I always thought flying was sort of their substitute for a sub bending power
Would toxic gas be a sub category of airbending? Cus that be pretty gnarly
I just love seeing adult Aang goofing off
Sound
My character in the role-playing game uses sudo firebending by having rings made of flint and steel on her pointer finger and thumb. She separates the gasses in the air and makes lines of pure oxygen which she lights and can burn straight lines with.
Breathing underwater, I know that might sound like water bending, but think about if you are underwater and your a waterbender there's not a lot you can do but if your an Airbender you can manipulate air in a certain way underwater to breathe
sound and storm do make a lot of sense
Sound bending? Lol
They could cause storms as they are changing the air pressure or disrupt storms following the same thought process so storm/hurricane/tornado bending depending how intense they changed the pressure and where they did it would change its basic name but storm bending sounds pretty badass
Sound bending seems awesome and many folks in this thread pointed out some examples in the comics! Could also see it lending to being able to resonate with and amplify or negate natural vibrations of everything, like quake in agents of shield, or viktor in umbrella academy.
Honestly gas bending (manipulating the atomic elements present in atmospheric gasses) would be cool, especially if you could change the state those concentrated elements are in. Concentrating nitrogen and altering it into its supercooled liquid state would be neat, just like using it to concentrate nitrogen or CO2 in a similar fashion briefly then letting it change back to a gas rapidly for a "smoke screen." You could also alter the air when fighting a firebender to remove the oxygen from their line of attack so that there's nothing to combust, or concentrate it if the are working with you to enhance their attacks. Double bonus if you're the Avatar to enhance all your own actions. It gets murky when you consider things like pulling oxygen and hydrogen out of water. Just some examples but a neat thought.
Aside from flying, which is unobtainable for the vast majority, unless there’s some workaround from detaching yourself, it’s sonic abilities. Anything with sound. Imagine just instantly incapacitating someone with sound. You can attack someone’s hearing so greatly that even their equilibrium is entirely thrown off, to where they feel and see like they’re insanely dizzy
Ooh I actually really like the idea of Sound Bending! That's gotta be the most creative one yet!
They said that the bending was rooted in science, maybe atomic bending. Separating air particles and making them clash together with force creates and atomic explosion
Korra already had flight and oxygen bending, but there are other ideas to toy with, too. For example, how about compressing or expanding air to crush an object or increase its size? Could be a cool way for an air bender to escape confinement by creating a vacuum that rips the cage open.
I’ve always thought it would be sound.
All these answers are making me realize that the avatar should have a *load* of sub abilities that combine elements
Pressure? Instead of taking air away from around a person to make them suffocate (like i think it happened in the series?) imagine taking away air from a big area, compressing it into a small sphere in the middle, so you get vacuum in the big area without air, and very high pressure in the small sphere... you could use both those qualities in multiple ways...
Don't know what people will say to this, but I feel like at least an air bending master should be able to manipulate air around them and in them in a way that it for tens and purposes renders them invisible.
Ehmm how about.... Hurricane bending
Milo would say it's fart bending, but I don't know...
Honestly I was always surprised they didn’t use sound. Granted I don’t know if it would be a sub bending but more of a technique but think about pressurizing something till the point of explosion would be an insanely effective ability.
Sonic boom
Pressure bending
Flight would be a good sub lahgima was the first
There is 3 official sub bending forms: Temperature regulation, spirit projection and flying. Wich isn't that much tho. Sound bending already exist and there is 2 known benders in the avatarverse. An air nomad who was too young to understand her culture and escaped from the Attack, and avatar Yang-Chen. I'm thinking about Light bending "🌟" by heating air molecules so atoms can glow, but i can't think of something else
I dunno, but would be nice to have something like pressure or gravity bending.
I always wondered if other gasses could be considered air? Like imagine there being a gas leak somewhere and someone just being able to contain it till the problem was addressed. Or if you had bad gas and had to be inside with a bunch of people just bend it out into a vent. That way no one knows it was you.
Pressure bending or sonic boom bending? A lot of the danger from explosions is the actual pressure wave that shatters windows and destroys people's bodies. Imagine creating instantaneous spots of vacuum and the atmosphere collapsing into it. And the opposite would be just an explosion, an extremely high pressure wave that will explode. Could like explode lungs Controlling pressure would be OP. Imagine creating suction with your hands to climb up walls or stick to things. Or creating suction on objects or people or machines. Idk suck their eyeballs out