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Hey brother, lightning bending,
possibly the coolest form of bending
we see in all of Avatar.
It is first introduced into the show
at the beginning of season two,
when you see Azula blasting it out of her royal fingertips.
This, combined with her signature blue fire,
marks her as an immediately
and immensely dangerous adversary.
Like I remember thinking to myself like, whoa,
did she just shoot lightning?
Is that allowed?
Is that even fire?
Is that a fire?
Last I checked, jolting on Flare
on different on Pokemon.
That's all I'm saying.
But it's a skill that innately lets you know
that this is someone of extreme ability,
like leagues above any other fire bender
we have seen thus far.
Like, hey, remember last season
when Ang merged with the Spirit of the Ocean
and became a giant koi fish water monster
that took out an entire Fire Navy fleet at once.
And he basically looked invincible?
Yeah, well, never mind.
This girl can shoot lightening.
And suddenly Ang looks awfully beatable again,
especially since Ang spends most of that episode,
deciding that he doesn't want to go
into the avatar state anymore.
Yeah, right Ang.
Okay, we all know how this season's going to go.
You're going to stand on your moral high ground.
And the lightning bending will give Azula the edge
for most of the season.
But eventually push will come to shove.
You're going to have to enter the avatar state,
and oh my god, she killed him.
Yeah.
Sorry Ang's ace in the hole, meet lightning,
the most advanced,
dangerous only available to the royal elite,
season ending bending, until that is,
Legend of Korra, where I'm sorry, what is this?
Are those just regular Joe Schmo fire benders
shooting lightening
out of their very non-royal fingertips?
Like how did this happen?
How did the coolest ability
that defined the best villain
of the original series,
that was a mark of her mastery,
become so commonplace?
Well today we find out.
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[Voiceover] Hey brother.
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Okay, so let's just start with the basics.
What is lightening bending and why is it so rare?
Well, according to Iroh
there are two kinds of energy that surrounds everybody:
yin and yang, or positive and negative.
And if you separate the two, you create an imbalance,
which the energy naturally seeks to restore.
And when the bender who has separated the two,
brings them crashing back together.
It creates lightening,
which they can then redirect as they see fit.
And it sounds simple enough, right?
Except that Iroh also throws in
this just tiny little caveat:
- Only a select few fire bender
can separate these energies.
And I think is that line right there,
that is the cause of so much confusion,
because despite Iroh saying this, in all of his wisdom,
we still see in Legend of Korra a factory
full of lightening benders.
So the short answer is that
lightening bending becomes common,
as a result of economic development,
and the Industrial Revolution,
not because of a widening of the genetic pool
of available potential lightening vendors.
See, here's the thing.
While I Iroh is incorrect
when he suggests that only a special select few fire benders
who have won the bending lottery
are able to shoot lightning,
he is factually correct that at that moment in time,
only a select few benders can actually do it.
Those few being himself, Ozi and Azula.
But that's it.
That's the full list of people who are capable
of lightening bending during the show.
And do you know what all three of them
happen to have in common?
They are members of the royal family.
But again, it's not genetics or their royal blood
that gives them this ability.
The important part,
is that they are at the highest level
of the social hierarchy within the Fire Nation,
or they were before Iroh got all like banished and stuff.
But I mean, what are the odds, right?
I mean, it just so happens
that these select few fire benders
who can lightening bend,
also happened to be the richest people
in the entire world?
Yeah, this is no coincidence.
It's the same reason why,
out of every member of the Fire Nation, every citizen,
every soldier in the Fire Army,
Ozi, the Fire Lord, is the best fire bender in the world.
Like think about that.
How often is your political leader
also the literal best soldier in the country?
And it makes sense.
The identity of their nation
is literally derived from their bending.
It's literally called the Fire Nation.
And their nation, especially under Ozi's rule,
is defined by power.
And as such the higher up the government
or the military you go,
the greater you can expect the bending to be,
which no doesn't mean like if you're better at fire bending,
you just immediately move further up the government.
It just means that the higher up you are,
the more resources you have
to become better at fire bending.
So really it is no shock at all
that the secret of lightening bending
is kept within, specifically the royal family,
because bending lightening
would not just be a representation of your political power,
but it is literally power coming out of your hands.
That said, you might be wondering, well,
couldn't other people also just discover it though,
like if they saw someone else do it,
couldn't be like work backwards,
and try and figure it out for themselves?
Well, yes, that's true.
But even that is pretty uncommon, because one,
it is still really hard to do,
even if you know how to do it.
Two, demonstrations of it are extremely uncommon.
And three it's really not that useful.
And that's really the big one,
because while being able to shoot lightening
is undeniably cool, outside of combat,
there's really not much use for that ability,
at least pre-Industrial Revolution.
It's difficult to do.
It's dangerous to try.
And even if you can, so what?
I mean, if anything,
you might've just marked yourself as a threat.
And I mean that because you might be wondering, well, gee,
if this is such a deadly ability,
why doesn't the Fire Lord train his entire army
to be able to do this?
Wouldn't that give them the edge to finally end
this hundred year war?
Yeah, probably.
That probably would have worked.
But here's the thing about tyrants.
They are always afraid
of the people they are suppressing
And of Ozi was the kind of person who could trust his army
with this skill,
he wouldn't be the kind of person who became a tyrant
in the first place.
So in summary lightening bending, not super useful,
definitely mostly a sign of status,
but also a pretty heavily guarded secret,
which is why the skill remains extremely rare
outside of the literal highest echelon of society,
until society needs that skill.
Okay, so one of my favorite things about Avatar
is seeing how the fact that each nation is defined
by its bending,
has impacted their culture and economy,
and the way they develop technology.
And I would say that in three out of the four nations,
the fact that they can bend
has really more halted the development of their technology.
It's not that they don't have it,
but it's almost always tied back to the bending.
For example, the water tribes live at the poles.
Not because it's comfortable or easy,
but because they can control
literally everything around them.
They're able to make use of canals.
But they control it by bending.
They have a really strong navy,
but it's not because they have super advanced ships.
It's because they're on the water.
Omashu uses bending and gravity
to send the packages all over the city.
Ba Sing Se actually has something of a monorail system,
but it doesn't run on anything other than bending.
And the Air Nomads, well, man, they do not care.
They, they made gliders.
Does that count?
Those are cool.
And have you seen the lock on this door?
Like look at that.
Woo.
Marvel at the wizardry.
The Fire Nation on the other hand,
they're like, okay, what can we do with fire?
We can cook food.
That's good.
But also let's build stuff like big metal boats,
and tanks and machines that run on fire.
I mean, it's not like you can't make energy
with the other elements.
But fire literally is energy.
And as such,
the Fire Nation is way more technologically advanced
than the other nations,
which is what leads them to such a time
of extreme prosperity,
where somebody wants to share it with the rest of the world.
- We should share this prosperity
with the rest of the world.
- Yeah, it's not a horrible sentiment,
but he doesn't really mean share, does he?
He more means,
do everything I say, and then maybe,
maybe you can play with my toys.
Probably not.
If it's advantageous to me, maybe then.
But mostly do what I say or else.
On the flip side though,
as soon as the war to share everything with everyone else
is over,
Zuko becomes the Fire Lord,
and immediately just shares everything with everyone else.
It's almost like the war was pointless.
But as it turns out,
some people were already sharing,
specifically the areas of the Earth Kingdom
that the Fire Nation had colonized
in the very early days of the war,
which was not a cool thing to do,
but a hundred years later,
they have pretty much just accepted the new way of life.
Earth and Fire nation citizens just living together.
And a lot of them were very happy about it.
In fact, team Avatar actually goes in,
and tries to re separate them.
And they don't want that.
So instead they actually unite all of these colonies
into the United Republic of Nations,
a fifth country for the world.
And it's meant to serve as a haven for immigrants
from all four nations.
And they establish Republic City as the capital city.
And that is where most of Legend of Korra takes place.
And this mixture of cultures,
combined with the technology from the Fire Nation.
creates a booming industrial revolution.
They actually look into the origins of this
in the comic series, The Rift.
But in a nutshell, here's how it goes down.
It starts with a factory called the Earth and Fire Refinery,
get it, which is actually founded by Toph's father.
And apparently it's the world's first ever
international business venture,
which like,
are you seriously telling me no two people
from different countries
have every started a business together before then?
Because if so, yeah, sure.
But the factory produces a lot of jobs for non benders,
and benders of different elements alike.
And is more families move there to work at the factory,
a whole village pops up around it,
which then leads to more factories, and more jobs,
and more families, and more factories,
and more people and Republic City.
Interestingly though, as the machines in the factories
became more and more developed,
the need for benders became less and less.
And largely they started being let go,
because they commanded more wages,
and employers started favoring non benders instead.
And that eventually causes this whole
bender supremacy uprising,
which team Avatar has to go in there and quell.
But I'll let you read that whole story for yourself.
But eventually that gets sorted. A
and as manufacturing, booms, the city grows and grows,
and needs more power in the form of electricity.
And that is where suddenly lightening bending
becomes an extremely valuable economic commodity.
And boy oh boy, will nothing drive forward
the development of a skill or product like the demand
from the market.
Just look up face masks.
And that is why suddenly the secret is out.
There is a reason to try,
and risk learning how to lightening bend.
- Hey, I found some work down at the power plant,
and made some decent money.
- This is why it is no longer reserved for the royal elite,
but as instead embraced by the masses on factory floors.
But whatever, as far as I'm concerned,
Azula would still kick all
of their non-royal butts in a flight,
even you Mako.
- Aaaah!
- Guys, quick announcement that this Friday night,
November 20th, at 6:00 PM Eastern,
we are going to be having another trivia night
right here on the channel on YouTube.
And we are going to be unveiling our brand new animal mugs
for Carlin Brothers Coffee.
You guys have been asking for them all year.
Last year, they sold out insanely quickly.
But we have brand new models,
which we'll be unveiling during the stream on Friday.
Plus another little charming announcement.
But I'm going to keep that one a secret.
You have to tune in to find out.
Hope to see you there.
But then my question for you and everyone else is,
what is your favorite sub bending style?
Let me know in the towel section down below,
thanks as always for watching today's video.
Don't forget to leave a light on if you haven't already,
and subscribe so you don't miss
any future Avatar action from us.
If you want to see why Ty Lee
is almost definitely an air nomad,
you can check out this video right here,
But Ben, until next week I will see you
in another life brother.