Everyone is an Avatar

[sammoqazqwe]

So I am a major fan of the Avatar Series. I was thinking... The Fire Nation LEARNED[i] to fire bend from the dragons. The water nation [i]LEARNED to water bend from the moon. The Earth Nation LEARNED to earth bend from the giant star nosed moles and the air nomads LEARNED to air bend from the sky bison. So why can't one person LEARN to bend all the elements? And why are there non-benders? If the benders original LEARNED their bending powers that means that they were normal people who learned the technique. So why can't everyone learn any that they choose?

[Count of Monte Fisto]

It is an interesting point, but they have already established a genetic predisposition to whether or not you are a bender and what bending you can do. It it something linked to your chakras and can be disconnected in multiple ways either by powerful bloodbending or spirit/energybending.

As for learning from the masters, I can mostly imagine that has to do with your natural capability to perform bending and learn it on an instinctive level like the bending animals instead of a martial art. It is kind of like Mowgli learning how to live be being raised by the wolves.

Though, there might be bending stemcells or something at some point that may go in any direction at some point based on your age and such. I don't think so, but you never know.

[Pleh]

The Avatar is more than a normal human. They are literally the bridge between the spirit world and the material world and the mediator between the two.

It even goes so far that in some of the original concepts for the show, Mike and Bryan had ideas that the Avatar was actually the spirit of the Earth incarnate, though I believe the idea was scrapped. Even still, it stands as evidence of how very different the Avatar is meant to be from the average human. The fact is that the Avatar, in many ways, actually is not human. The Avatar is actually a force of nature in human form. Each incarnation of the Avatar experiences life just as if they were human, but deep within is an ancient spirit with unbelievable power.

No, normal people probably couldn't learn the other elements. In fact, what makes you think other people haven't tried to do so?

Keep in mind also that even though they've learned from the masters, they still can loose their power if deprived the spiritual source of the energy, such as when Firebenders can't bend in a solar eclipse. This tells us that bending is more than a set of skills you learn. You have to have a connection with the energies that make bending possible.

[Tera253]

There is a little more validity to this claim with the whole thing about Avatar Wan happening. I am not sure how possible it is (or if it is even possible) but apparently he did something somehow that turned him into the first Avatar.
it might be interesting to find out what.

~Azula~

[Pleh]

Nah. We don't have enough evidence yet to start saying that Avatar Wan changes everything. In fact, since Avatar Wan already happened, it has to logically lead to the same scenario we began with. We can't just go dismissing all the evidence to the contrary just because we are about to receive new information. The new information basically is constrained to be consistent with the previous story.

We don't know yet that Avatar Wan "Became" the Avatar. It would seem he encountered something that transformed him, but it's entirely possible that he was still set apart from birth to be the only human who could undergo this particular transformation, because he was the Avatar. We can twist this any way we like because we have so little info right now.

[Tiny]

No, we know that we'll get more information about the Avatar cycle with the new season. Obviously this includes the origin, and the more precise details of the spiritual "contract" that the Avatar fulfills. These are integral to our understanding of the Avatar and will govern any future discussions. I, for one, do not think that we can rule out any game-changing information. However, Pleh is right and we can make reasonable claims based on the information given.

Although the benders may have learned to bend from the forces/animals around them, there is a spiritual nature that makes the Avatar the Avatar. This has been confirmed by Bryke on numerous occasions, although often in regards to theories about the genetics of bending.


I still personally have my theories about the origins but hey no one finished my roleplay

[Tera253]

it's not our fault. you ditched out on us :U

Given that my accuracy in predicting the LOK release date was only off by a couple points, I'm willing to take a stab here and concoct another conjecture.
there's definitely a spiritual link involved for obvious reasons. no need to repeat what's been said. I feel that whatever happens to Avatar Wan is going to probably goign to have something to do with the spirits we meet in book 2. Or it will involve lion turtles. I dunno.
~Katara~

[sammoqazqwe]

Those are all very interesting... But still. How did the original benders do it? the right person in the right place, at the right time, with the right mindset, and the right level of spirituality, PLUS the right genes? It just seems highly unlikely. Could it simply be another thing the creators over looked?

[Pleh]

Unlikely? That's no reason for it not to happen. By the same argument, SOMETHING had to happen, statistically speaking. What's so wrong with this being the thing that happened? The fact that it's unlikely only makes it all that much more precious and special, because it was so unlikely to ever be.

The original benders weren't on their own, either. They were watching the old masters. Waterbenders learned from watching the moon. The Moon has always been waterbending. It's just part of its natural state of being. Likewise with those who have the spiritual/genetic/psychological cocktail required to achieve bending. They're actually not doing anything different than the Moon spirit. Just the same thing on a much smaller scale.

It's like asking how humans learned to walk on two feet instead of all fours. We learn it by watching others do it and then we try to do it ourselves. It takes practice and we have to hone our skills for balance, but eventually we get the process worked out and it becomes a natural part of our existence.

How did dragons learn to bend fire? It came naturally from their breath, but what about the first dragon? How did sky bisons learn to fly (God knows, they aren't very aerodynamic)? Somehow they learned to move the air around themselves to lift themselves off the ground, but how many of them were only able to jump really high or far before they truly mastered flight? And how did the Badger-Moles learn to move earth with more than their strength alone? It had to have been the constant repetition of trying to dig until they connected with the very nature and spirit of the Earth itself, to the point that moving the earth became less of a constant war with the element and more of a transformation to being more like it.

... A transformation to becoming part of it.

But the Avatar is different. The Avatar is by him or herself a cosmic force, seeking only one thing: harmony between all that is. Isn't that what bending really is? A connection to something else which runs so deeply that the two move as one? And the Avatar is the bridge between all, the connection point and the nexus for all that is.

Foggy Swamp Sage had it right. We're all connected in the Avatar mythos. There's not really any such thing as you and me. Such separations are an illusion and when we see the truth in how we are all connected, we can bend everything and everyone around us. But to realize the truth requires that we first bend ourselves. And in many ways, that's what the first Avatar had to be, the first person to bend himself and in that discover the truth of the actual state of the universe.

So, I would amend this topic's original statement. It's not that everyone is an Avatar. It's that everyone is THE Avatar and the world continues to suffer under the delusion that each tree in the forest is a different organism than the other ones next to it.

[Pleh]

Sorry for the double post, but the thread has been inactive for a while and this is almost a new discussion again with the recent episodes.

Well, in light of the recent episodes, I'd have to say it's pretty well impossible now for everyone to be an Avatar. In fact, it seems impossible for any human to hold the power of even two elements without help, much less all four. Not wanting to spoil things for anybody, I'll leave it at that for now.