The Avatar Cycle - No airbenders left?

[WaterBending_Monk]

If Aang and his children retain this quality, it will take more than a century to even have a community of Airbenders.

True but you gotta remember pleh, the avatars usually live long lives. They usually don't die until they are in there 80's or higher. And you figure even if it took a century or more to create a whole community of airbenders, that would be enough time until the next air nomad is called to be the avatar. Like the next water nation avatar after aang dies could live to be 85 or 90. then the same for the earth and fire nation avatars. So saying 80 is the average number of years of the next three avatars life span, thats around 240 years right there. So even if they never did soulbending that's plenty of years to repopulate.

and yue was 16 when she was of marrying age, so you gotta figure that they can get married at a young age. With that in aang and katara's mind they just might get married at a young age and maybe 5 years or so after they get married, they would think about having kids cause im sure repopulation will cross their minds. So it sounds like both theories would be a good idea, but even without soulbending it sounds like they have more than enough time to repopulate.

[Pleh]

Yue had a marriage arranged by her parents which could just as easily have not taken place for five more years.

The timeline was more of a side point for me. Everything's an estimate based on variables we can't know.

One thing that you're counting on that I don't trust is the idea that Aang's kids are guaranteed Airbenders.
The determining of bending ability is only constant in its non-formulaic nature.
Especially when Katara is such a powerful waterbender herself.

[WaterBending_Monk]

I guess there's a lot of things we can't be totally sure of. Like if aangs kids would even be airbenders like you said. or if soulbending would even cross aangs mind cause maybe all he knows what to do with soulbending is take a persons bending away cause that's the only thing he used soulbending for so far.

One thing I do know is that one way or another the avatar cycle will continue because the only way the avatar cycle can stop is if an avatar dies in the avatar state. And even if there are only like 50 or 100 airbenders when it's time for an air nomad to become an avatar, im sure the most worthy airbender out of those 50 or 100 will be chosen. We all made some pretty good points though. I would love to debate the creators of avatar on this topic. heh.

[Pleh]

Yeah, I kinda feel I've made my point. I do agree with you that the Avatar cycle will continue.

[sokkaguy101]

Hehe, your post Pleh brings me back to my original point, all Air Nomads and born Airbenders...So Wikipedia says so anyway, which is why i believe that Aangs children will be Airbenders...

[Pleh]

Hehe, your post Pleh brings me back to my original point, all Air Nomads and born Airbenders...So Wikipedia says so anyway, which is why i believe that Aangs children will be Airbenders...

How many times must I say it?
All Air Nomands were all benders.
But if there was ever an occasion radical enough to make an exception, it's this one.

Remember that Wikipedia is not the final say on anything. It's not necessarily canon posts from Mike and Bryan.
In fact, once you get to college (high school will vary more depending on the teacher) most reasearch class professors will not accept wikipedia as a reliable source.
If you want to establish canon rather than conjecture, look up interviews with Mike and Bryan.
(Wikipedia may have links to these interviews, but that does not validate the other information it presents.)

I believe that the creators, in an interview, stated that all Air Nomads were Airbenders.
However, my argument is that Aang's kids will not be able to be true Air Nomads according to their monastic tradition for several reasons.
Primarily, one chief monastic rule of the airbenders is that a child is raised by someone other than their parents.
This eliminates attachment and thus heightens enlightenment about the detached nature of air.
But that's just one example of the many monastic traditions that will simply be impossible to duplicate.
So then, with such critical cultural differences in their lives, will the spirituality of Aang's children be guaranteed to fit the Airbenders standard?

There is no reason to say that the kids won't be airbenders.
I disagree with the thought that they will be guaranteed either way.

[sokkaguy101]

Fine, thats all well and good, but if Aang has children with Katara, they wouldn't be born Airbenders, and then because they were being raised by their parents, loose their bending ability...

Also, i believe that as long as the meditated enough, they would keep their spirituality. It wouldn't be as strong, that i do agree with you, but they will still have hightened spirituality...in my opinion anyway

[Renori Fa]

Aang and Katara's children = airbenders!

[airbenderautumn]

doesnt it say on the nick website that all air nomads are ???benders?????


???+ 8-)= ::)
so if aang and katara have a kid it would be born an airbender wouldnt it?

??? TEACH ::)
so then aang can teach her/him airbending and then she/him will teach there child airbending and so on

::)TEACH :o
and when aang finally dies the last person one of aang and katara's descendants can teach the water avatar airbending so therefore the watertribe avatar can airbend!!!!


??? ::) ;) ??? ::) ;)
and soon enough the air nomads will be a whole race again!!!!!!


:(
plus its kinda sad because even though there is hope for the airbenders there is none for the air bison coz there is none left besides appa!!!!

:-X but i dunno bout momo though

[WaterBending_Monk]

That's right, the nick website does say that I think. So if all air nomads were benders then that completely diminishes the spirit bending theory. You can't spiritbend an air nomad cause he/she is already a bender! lol. And I think it would be wrong to spiritbend anyone else into an air bender because they are already a part of a different nation (water, fire, earth). If a person was supposed to be an airbender they would've been born that way. You shouldn't play god are make someone an air bender and tell them to switch nations. Now katara and aangs children really do seem the most logical way to repopulate the air nomads.

[sokkaguy101]

However, if you had someone like Teo, who lived like an Airbender, in an Air Temple and even an Air Nomad told him he had the heart of an Airbender...maybe in cases like that there could be exceptions?

[agunimaster]

2 options:

1. It ends
2. It skips air

3. Aang repopulates airbenders(theory)

[WaterBending_Monk]

True shuffle. There are people who live as any nation they want like that. That could be an exception but there probably aren't many people like that left. And who knows if they would even agree to be spiritbended. It just seems much simpiler for katara and aang to repopulate ya no.

[airbenderautumn]

i think if aang and katara went and lived at the air temples for a while(and maybe clean the up) and aang meditates for ages like all the time then wen katasra has her baby she/he would be an airbender so long as unno theyu do meditating and stuff plus i think katara would do it

[kingroku]

With respect to your previous posts, I just wanted to say that the chances of their baby being an air bender is relatively small compared to the child being a water or non-bender at all.

For example, We don't even know if Katara's mother is a water bender, the Southern Raiders was just a bit complicated. Everyone might say she is but has anyone seen her water bend? Yon Rha said there was "one" water bender. Hakoda is a warrior, non-bender, and Kiya we are unsure of. (Unless the creators said it somewhere down the line that she was a water bender) Katara is the only water bender we were certain of.

Its an uneven sided dice. Now I'm not saying it's impossible for them to get an air bender son/daughter but its all down to chance.

Also, the creators said on one of the commentaries (can't remember which) that Aang was definitely the last air bender... so Aang's future dreams of re-population is now zero and possibly the same with the Avatar cycle. Not sure if the Avatar can survive with just three re-incarnations but I doubt it. Can't be a fully realised Avatar until he or she masters all four elements.

[WaterBending_Monk]

Good point. Well if that's the case kingroku, then it really is goodbye airbenders. The avatar cyle would just continue without airbenders. Although that seems pretty imposible now that I just said that because the world needs to survive on the balance and all four nations.

[Pleh]

I believe that, when Mike and Bryan said that Aang was the last of the Airbenders, they meant that he is definitely the only one remaining.
Not necessarily to say that he is the last one that ever will be.
I honestly haven't seen that interview personally, but that's kind of what I heard.

I seriously doubt that the Airbenders are gone forever. Especially with the good odds of either spiritbending or natural repopulation (I suspect a mixture of the two) bringing them back.

[airbenderautumn]

maybe the next avatar (if their tru;y was no more airbenders left) could bring his past lives out infront of him and get the to teach him like when aang used his past lives in the finale. but i think their is some hope for the air nomads

[franzh]

I consider this from a Jedi point of view because it's applicable. When they were wiped out only Yoda and Obi-Wan was left but there were still potential Jedi's AKA Luke and many more in later books.
Using this mentality I figure there are a lot of people out there with the Airbending gift they just haven't been found and trained.

[Pleh]

It's a good thought, but I don't think Avatar necessarily works like Star Wars does.
Bending does not equal the Force. There are no medichlorians in Avatar.

It's true that the first Airbenders learned from the bisons, but that doesn't tell us much anything.
As far as we can tell, Airbenders are not born in the other nations, or at least those with the spiritual potential to be Airbenders seem to be non-benders.

[buttfacemurphy]

there are probably still airbenders or people who dont know they have a grandparent or whatever in the world. Like there could be some that was takin into prison before they killed them and maybe some escaped and lived in the fire nation like hama. and maybe they will come out cause the war is over/

OR

if aang can take someones bending away then maybe he can do the opposite and give bending to his kids or people. then teach them the way air nomads lived

[Avatar Thor]

Dude obviously whom every he gets married to his kids will be born air benders and he will probably be teaching air bending to younger children....

[Pleh]

Obviously? What is obvious or guaranteed about bending? If anything is "obvious" about who is chosen to be able to bend, I think it would be that there's no way to know who can bend by birth.
Yes, it is highly likely one of Aang's children could become an Airbender, but we don't know that they would have the capability.

[Tiny]

Bending comes from spirituality, and not from the genes, but seeing that Aang is spiritual (monk) he could pass down airbending to his children

There I have to disagree. Bending has to be genetic, otherwise there would be no plausible reason for families to be bending families.
However, it was revealed that there were NO non-bending air nomads, for some reason. So I think that the likelihood that Aang would have airbenders for children would be high.

[nutshak]

Ayyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!BD

i bought up the topic a while ago that there probably was a couple of airbending monks down at the local earth kingdom shops while the war was taking place. so they where probably still alive. so they would have gone into hiding and had children, and there children would have had children, which means there would be air nomad blood in them which means hey presto! theres your avatar.



Presto: Did somone call?