AWKWARD ZOMBIE

There's actually nothing keeping Korra back from learning almost every kind of sub-bending known now. I mean, bloodbending is illegal so that's out, but now that metal and lightning bending are so commonplace, she may as well learn them.

In fact there might be some argument to the notion that she has to, to be a modern Avatar, and master every kind of bending.

Air, water, and earth are essentially just the three main states of matter (gas, liquid, solid). I think it would make sense for Fire (aka Heat?) to be able to transition one element into another.

I kinda like this theory. Perhaps all forms of bending originated from energybending, but the practice died out for one reason or another (perhaps they even decided to give it up themselves, considering that energybending can take away the ability to bend), and the vestigial remains of whatever allowed energybending to work allowed the other forms to develop.

Then that brings up the question of how the Avatar originated. Did ancient energybenders funnel all their power into one body whose soul could be reincarnated? Did the Avatar Spirit actually originate in the Spirit World, but came to Earth, much like the Moon and Ocean Spirits?

I'd like to see some ancient spirits shed some light on how the current world came to be.

Hey, if the avatar can control people's chi points and stuff, does that mean they could go around unlocking other people's unused chip points and make more avatars?

No, from what I understand, the Avatar is specifically chosen by the universe or whatever to be the Avatar, anyone else would just happen to know how to bend more than one element, but wouldnt have access to the Avatar state.

Yeah, the Avatar is the physical and spiritual manifestation of nature. Basically Captain Planet.

But it would be interesting if the Avatar could grant bending, especially if they already have an element.

Before Aang, I'm sure no Avatar would do this, because "balance of 4 separate nations", but I wonder if this might come up.

That'd be pretty cool. We've already seen Korra restore people's bending, I doubt that's too far from unblocking whatever chakra paths allow it in the first place.

Man I was wondering what "Spirits" might end up covering but if it ends up being even half the stuff we're talking about here I just got a whole lot more excited for Book 2.

I doubt that bending is linked entirely to chi points. There are non-benders, people who physically cannot bend, and it seems to be genetic. It might be that benders are born with specific chi points. A firebender can only channel their chi into one point because they have no others. The avatar would be the special case, with every chi point.

And an artificial avatar would mean an artificial spirit. We can't go forgetting that the avatar is bodaciously the soul of the world itself, in a human body.

That's why I'm saying altering it to have command over things like machines and electricity, stuff that's not spiritual in any way. The artificial "Avatar" would have control through technology, not chi points.

Except the actual mechanics of bending seem to be spiritual, focusing the bender's own spirit to manipulate the energies of their element, things without that natural energy of the element can't be bent. Lin couldn't metalbend the equalists' mechs because they were pure metal, free from imperfections, and thus removed from the spiritual energy of earth. Any sort of "artificial" bending couldn't happen without the natural energy to manipulate, and if it has the energy, a regular bender can do it.

edit: also electricity is totally part of firebending, so that's spiritual, so that's already narrowing down potential artificial bending, that once again, can't happen due to the nature of bending.

Yeah, that sounds like utter bullshit on the shows part. Metal is metal, wether it has dirt on it or not

Except metalbenders don't bend the metal itself, they use the imperfections to bend the metal.
All imperfect metals have, in a severely low-science way of speaking, tiny bits of just regular rock in them. That is what is being bent. Metal itself is impossible to bend. This is explained pretty quickly the second Toph figures it out.

so it's not really bullshit, no

So rock is earth, but the other stuff in the dirt isnt earth?

It's more like refining the earth kind of takes away the natural bits. It's manmade, not part of the earth anymore.

Fire is plasma, the fourth state of matter.