What if airbenders could turn invisible,
create powerful thunderstorms
or even make large vacuums rendering aircraft, vehicles
and even firebending completely useless?
I mean, think about it. The other bending arts
certainly have their share of alternate styles.
Firebenders bend lightning, waterbenders can bend blood,
earthbenders have metalbending and lavabending and sandbending
and lie detecting and the Spiderman likability.
Yeah, there are a lot of alternate forms
of earthbending. But throughout the series,
there are so few airbenders
that we never get to see what they can really do.
So here are a couple of theoretical applications
of airbending. Number one: Lightbending.
Now, I know light and air are not the same thing.
But what if I told you air itself has the ability
to bend light in real life?
Just take a look at this desert scene.
Come on, guys. We've got to stick together.
Notice this strange distortion near the sand?
You may have even seen this kind of thing in real life.
What you're seeing is light being bent by the air itself.
Let me explain. Thanks to the extreme conditions
in the desert, the sand grows incredibly hot,
heating up the air closer to the sand
and making it less dense.
What you end up with is different layers of density
in the air. And when light passes
through those different densities,
it refracts and changes its angle.
Sometimes it could even cause light to reflect,
causing this effect.
So, what does that mean for airbenders?
Well, we know waterbenders and earthbenders can control
the density of their elements.
That's how waterbenders create ice
or earthbenders lavabend. So if we assume airbenders
could adjust the density in the air,
could they theoretically bend light?
In true airbender fashion,
a technique like this could help airbenders
win fights peacefully without bringing harm.
I've always tried to solve my problems
by being quick or clever.
and I've only had to use violence for necessary defense.
And I've certainly never used it to take a life.
Maybe they could use the refraction
to disorient opponents, making it difficult
to clearly see targets.
And theoretically, if the airbender
had a good enough understanding
of light refraction, could they be precise enough
to bend light around an object completely?
If human sight only works when light bounces off an object
and into your eye, bending light around yourself
would render you completely invisible.
Airbenders with an understanding
of modern physics would be the perfect spies.
Number two: Vacuumbending
That's right. Airbenders would be really good
at cleaning carpets. Just kidding.
When I say a vacuum, I don't mean a vacuum cleaner.
No, I mean space entirely devoid of matter or air.
And thanks to our good buddy, Zaheer, we know that airbenders
can separate air molecules,
creating vacuums using airbending.
[gasping]
You think freedom is something
that you could give or take on a whim.
But to your people, freedom is just as essential
as... air.
[gasping]
And without it...
[gasping]
...there is no life.
What a guy, right?
Well we're going to try and keep the principles
of the Air Nomads and find peaceful ways
they might be able to use this technique
to resolve conflicts.
Typical airbender tactic, avoid and evade.
So what good would vacuums be in a fight?
Well, they would have actually been useful
in some of the larger scale battles.
Take this battle against the Equalists.
If the United Forces just had
a couple of airbenders among them,
maybe they could have disabled the planes altogether.
Just create a vacuum around the planes.
Without air, their wings wouldn't be able
to generate lift and they would never get
off the ground.
Without air, they simply can't fly.
I-I guess that's why they're called "airplanes".
What about these balloons?
Well, let's assume an airbender wouldn't be able to get
the hot air out of the balloon, but instead could only create
a vacuum around the balloon.
The balloon only functions because the cold air
on the outside is denser than the hot air on the inside,
causing it to rise.
So if there's no air on the outside,
then the air on the inside suddenly becomes heavier
than its surroundings, causing it to sink.
But in reality, the difference in pressure
would probably cause the balloon to explode first.
So, yeah, I guess that one's not too peaceful.
Finally, vacuums would have been infinitely useful
in The Hundred Year War, not just to disable machines,
but to disable firebending itself.
We'll never surrender!
That's right. Fire needs oxygen to exist.
What was that?
That was the worst firebending I've ever seen.
In fact, fire is essentially burning air.
So could airbenders theoretically be the perfect
peaceful counter to firebending?
Simply creating a vacuum between themselves
and the firebender could prevent an attack
from ever reaching them.
Maybe that could have been another reason
Sozin wanted to take out the airbenders.
So I wiped out the air temples.
Who knows?
Number three: Weather Control
Yeah, I know airbenders obviously create wind.
And together they could even make
a sort of tornado. But what if
they could also create massive rainstorms
and even devastating lightning storms?
Take that firebenders.
Well, I can take it! And now I can give it back!
Oh, and this one is probably going to break
our pacifist rule.
In order to understand
how an airbender could create a storm,
let's take a look at how storms occur naturally.
Most rainstorms in the real world
are created based on the behavior of the air,
more specifically, weather fronts.
When a cold air mass meets a warm air mass,
the two don't quite get along.
Since the cold air and the warm air
have such vastly different densities,
they clash into each other.
If the cold air mass is the stronger of the two,
it'll form a sort of wall of denser air,
which forces the less dense warm air rapidly upward
creating storm clouds along the way.
This usually results in abrupt and powerful weather conditions,
including heavy rain and devastating thunderstorms.
I can't back out just because of some bad weather.
So since we established that airbenders
could probably control the density of the air,
could an airbender create their own cold fronts?
Think about it.
When the airbenders make this tornado.
They're the direct source of its power,
meaning the tornado can only be as strong as their airbending.
If they are weak airbenders or tired airbenders,
then the tornado would probably be a lot weaker.
But for the lightning storm, it wouldn't matter how good
their airbending skills were.
As long as they were strong enough
to make the initial cold front. Mother Nature would do the rest.
Once the storm started, there would be no stopping it.
That's rough, buddy.
Let's imagine for a second, a world where the Air Nomads
attacked the Fire Nation instead of the other way around.
Then everything changed when Air Nomads attacked.
They could pummel them
with constant, relentless storms,
leaving a devastating path of destruction.
And the Fire Nation would have almost no way of fighting back.
Okay, we surrender.
Once the airbenders started a storm,
they wouldn't even have to stick around,
and the firebenders would be completely stranded
in the Fire Nation.
It would be too dangerous to fly out of the storm
with lightning, and the seas would be too rough to sail.
There is a storm coming, a big one.
Yeah, airbenders are scary, and these are just a few
of the theoretical applications to airbending.
With science and a little creativity,
who knows what else the Air Nomads could have
in their airbending arsenal.