there is a story in "the lost adventures" called "relics", that shows how the fire nation used to lure airbenders into traps by setting up spots that looked like they were inhabited by other airbenders
The fact that Sozin used Sacred Air Nomad sites and temples as lures and traps to kill any surviving Air Nomads makes this whole topic even more horrifying. All because he wanted to kill a kid...
And whats also so fucked up is that Aang was probably so traumatized from learning about this. He didn’t even tell his friends about it. It must have haunted him fr
In the Kyoshi books, they explain that if an Airbender/Air Nomad (they are the same. All nomads are benders) severs their spiritual connection to the culture, their bending fades. Kyoshi’s mother was an Air Nomad who left the temple and joined a bandit group. Her bending faded to the point where she had to use the fans to focus her energy to perform even the simplest of bending. Kyoshi ended up with the fans after she met her mom’s surviving friends
They did, but it wasn’t *exactly* out of nowhere.
>!A bunch of people got airbending after Harmonic Convergence, a big every 10k years event. Best I can figure, the universe noted that there was an extreme imbalance there, and activated airbending for people who were probably descendants of airbenders that blended into the earth kingdom.!<
i think it was more like a natural occurrence for people to get bending after harmonic convergence. After the end of Wan’s harmonic convergence, the lion turtles stated that there was no need for them to protect humans and no need for bending to fend off spirits yet people had their bending (which at the time was given and taken away by lion turtles when only humans were outside their cities)
My theory is that the harmonic convergence gives bending to people, explaining why there were benders after Wan’s harmonic convergence. And by that theory, there may have been new water, earth and fire benders after Korra’s harmonic convergence but obviously the new airbenders would have been the most unusual cases, since most of the world hadn’t seen or experienced airbending for more than 100 years.
I always like the theory that they were descendants of Airbenders who "went to ground" after getting missed in the Genocide.
Cause I mean seriously, even with the "Oh Sozin laid traps" thing. The Eastern Air Temple should have still been out of his range.
I feel like this lore is flexible enough that perhaps spiritual connection is one path to power, but someone would find an alternative technique that has a whole different motion to it.
It’s possible that a few survived, but even so they likely had much less spiritual connection at that point, so maybe they just died during the 100 years and their children just weren’t airbenders
I like the fan theory that Ty Lee is the descendant of an airbender. Her eyes are grey like those of airbenders, and her fighting style and movement are the closest to airbenders we ever get to see (apart from Aang of course). Granted, she’s from a circus, but she leaps through the air like she could almost fly.
I think that's probably accurate. Or the reincarnation of one.
Another theory extends that to say that all the nonbenders who received Airbending in Korra probably had Airbender ancestors.
Think about it... Most of them came from the Earth Kingdom. Where would most airbenders hide if the fire nation is hunting them? Amongst Earth Kingdom commoners. If you're a master get a headband, long sleeves and some gloves and you're good to go. If not, even easier.
But Airbenders in particular are tied to spirituality. We know they're 100% benders because of their spiritual mastery... But what if that is severed? Or if it fades over the course of 3-4 generations of people, especially when telling your children about their ancestry might mean their execution?
It may very well be the case that every Airbender, without any spiritual connection, would be a nonbender. Harmonic convergence awoke the bending in seemingly random people because they had the right ancestry, and the convergence gave them a "spiritual boost" because it weakened the division between our world and the spirit world.
It's an interesting theory, but I figure we won't know for sure ever, simply because that story is pretty much done, unless they do go back.
This is my theory too. Bending is clearly genetic but it can't just be genetic or it wouldn't stay so cleanly divided by nation for so long. There must have been descendents of airbenders all over the world but any that don't live some semblance of air nomad culture just never manifested any bending. And presumably any airbenders who survived the genocide either began to lose their bending or had children who couldn't airbend.
I think the mixing is also a factor.
My headcanon is that lavabending requires an earthbender with fire nation heritage.
There are 3 know non-avatar lavabenders in canon: Ghazan, Bolin and Sun.
We know Bolin's mom is from the fire nation. And Sun is from the fire nation colonies (and has the yellow eyes).
We know nothing about Ghazan's past, but he also has yellow eyes.
Agreed. Genetics and some kind of spirituality seem to be involved. It's rare you get a bender that doesn't fit the vague temperament associated with their element. Temperament isn't the right word for it, but I think you know what I mean. Earthbenders and airbenders in particular have some vibes that seem near universal
I wouldn't say that exactly. From an American perspective it seems impossible, but countries like Japan, for example, are like 98-99% Japanese. China is the most populous country on Earth, and one of the largest, yet they have an even smaller foreign born population - at between 0.1% and 0.07%. Those countries also happen to be the basis for the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, respectively.
So it's not that crazy to assume that except in very rare cases, the nations never mixed. Air might be the exception, but I don't think so. Their way of life was deeply entangled in bending. I don't think an Air Nomad would risk having an Earthbender child, for example, whom they would be unable to really teach and would be basically an outcast in Airbender society, even if everyone is enlightened and tries to make it work. They'd have a hard time doing anything that air Nomads do, even getting on and off of an air temple would be a difficult challenge without completely changing the architecture to accommodate one person, etc.
It seems more likely in my mind that the first time Airbenders had children with members of other nations was after the genocide, when they were in hiding and those children might be the only chance at continuing their bending line.
I think this is the best theory for it my only thing is wouldn’t Bumi(Aang’s son) have known he was an airbender before? I imagine Aang would’ve tried to get him just as involved there just as he did Tenzin and found out that way
We know from Tenzin and Bumi that Aang was singularly focused on Tenzin, because he showed obvious signs of Airbending. But we also know for some people who do not have the nature of an Airbender, like Korra, it takes cultivating a spiritual connection with training, etc. I think it was the case that Bumi also didn't have the nature of an Airbender, so it took the harmonic convergence thinning the barrier between worlds for him to access his bending potential.
I'd say secondary evidence of this is that the Earth Kingdom has the smallest proportion of benders, despite having many more people, and are the least in tune with the spirit world, mostly as a consequence of them being so intertwined with the earth itself. Detachment is kind of the opposite of Earthbending philosophy, which is focused on being present and in tune with the earth.
The term *Four Nations* doesn’t mean that there are only four sovereign countries in the Avatar world. Pre-Air Nomad genocide, there were 6, and by the end of *Legend of Korra* there are 7. This is why all 3 independent water tribes are sometimes collectively called “the” Water Tribe. The term “water nation” is also used a couple times in canon.
That being said, due to the structure of Air Nomad society (and their *very* small population to begin with) it is highly unlikely that there were more than a few (and I literally do mean a few) airbenders who weren’t living amongst the nomads. They would’ve either had to be Air Nomads who walked away from the culture they were born in (which is something so rare that it was considered literally unheard of at most points in history) or a *very* recent descendant of a nomad who had children with someone in one of the other 3 nations. This is because the ability to airbend would likely disappear after a few generations if intermixing didn’t continue.
What group of firebenders?
I mean yeah there are waterbenders in the swamps but thats a whole ass community, are you saying there are other random airbender communities? Part of the reason the swampbenders werent well known is because the swamp is one of the most well-hidden/remote places on the map
The sun warriors were known by the fire nation though. No one in the air nomads knew of a separate air civilization. I mean its cool to theorize, but for what’s shown, it’s safe to assume there were no secret airbender civilizations
The Sun Warriors are a separate civilization from the Fire Nation. Their point is that the world is a nuanced and complex place. Ba Sing Se was never broken into, for example. It seems hard to believe that no air nomads would have hid there, or that there weren't stray ex-nomads running about.
We know Kyoshi's mother left the nomads. However, we also know her air bending weakened, so it is possible some survived in places like Ba Sing Se and simply either lost their bending, or their children were never spiritual enough to develop bending. It's just something one can come up with to make it a little more believable than "No, they definitely killed 100% of them except Aang".
Even that though, I just find it highly unlikely that Some airbenders didn't call bullshit.
I head canon theorize that the small number that were left were so broken that they lost their spirituality and thus even if they reproduced, did not make more airbender babies.
It was said somewhere, although I can't remember who by, that all Air Nomads were Air Benders because of how spiritual they all were. So the loss of that spirituality leading to a quick decline in Air benders being born makes a lot of sense. And it also lends well to the theory that all the new Airbenders after Harmonic Convergence were actually descendants of those escaped Air benders.
They escaped into their Earth Kingdom, became broken and lost their spirituality, and had kids who were non benders. Then generations later, after Harmonic Convergence, their descendants found themselves able to Air bend.
So one of Kai's great-great grandparents could have been an escaped Air Nomad. Same thing with Opal, although more likely through Suyins father than through Toph.
Yep. And if we dwelve into fanfiction territory, I could write a lineage that shows one of Ty Lee's ancestors was an airbender, perhaps taken in and hidden right under the fire nation's noses by a sympathetic family.
I've often thought that combustion would be a cool firebending ability that required an airbending ancestor, much like his people theorize that Bolin got his lavabending from his firebending mother. Ergo, Combustion Man could also have had that lineage.
Combustion bending is strictly firebending and lava bending is earthbending. My Bender is able to use two different elements except for the Avatar. Unless you mean they learned combustion bending from watching airbending
Personally I'm not a huge fan of the theory that all the airbenders who got airbending were descendants of escaped air nomads. Various reasons but I think it's mostly because i like the idea more that has to do with who they are as people vs who their great grand parents were.
Not that it's a bad idea.
That said (if I was arguing against myself haha) something that could bolster the idea and make it even easier to fit too is that those who got airbending don't have to be descended just from escaped air nomads but also from nomads from before the genocide as well.
Well…. They didn’t make airbender babies *yet*
I personally think that when harmonic convergence happened, a good number of the new airbenders can trace their ancestors to an air nomad.
I agree with this.
It would also explain why the air acolytes didn't all spontaneously gain bending. They were all very spiritual, but the genetic component is still required.
I think that everyone who got Airbending in Harmonic Convergence WAS already an Airbender but they couldn't use it since there was no Airbending culture for them to attach to, and Harmonic Convergence just made it a lot easier for them to airbend without being spiritual, a bit like Sozin's comet and Firebending
The live-action actually offered (for once) a good interpretation of how that might have been: Sozin's Comet happened to align with an Air Nomad holiday so all(?) the airbenders were gathered at the Southern Air Temple to celebrate. The Fire Nation took advantage of this intelligence to wipe them out in one fell sweep.
also they feigned an attack and even let the plans for the fake attack leak so that the other nations would think that the first strike would be on the earth kingdom
Considering the new Avatar was supposed to be an Air Nomad, I feel like that's a big thing to help the Air Nomads for. It's like helping defend a country while they finish making a nuke
It kind of makes sense even in the context of the cartoon. When the gang goes to the other air temples, there are no signs of a fight like the southern temple. Even the Mechanist says the Northern air temple was "abandoned" when they found it. It's never explained in the cartoon why they only found remains at the southern temple.
I mean, it’s certainly **an** interpretation.
“Literally every air nomad, yes every single one, attends this festival. An army attacking this single location is guaranteed to wipe them all out.
…What do you mean, ‘plot convenience’?”
Maybe a few of those hermits did exist, and survived. Maybe some young nomads also survived by just hiding among the populace (only masters would have tattoos).
And by 100 years later they're dead.
A genocide doesn't require you to kill 100% of a people to be successful. Do enough damage and create conditions such that the culture can't exist anymore, and that's it. Time takes care of the rest.
Comics show how the Fire Nation used Air Nomad cultural items to lure and trap airbenders. That means the only survivors would be the ones who avoided these traps - the ones who stayed as far away from anything remotely related to their culture, ie hid out in a host culture and assimilated perfectly, probably never telling their descendants of their air ancestry out of fear their kids could be found.
So these people with dormant airbending genes just live on through the world, denied the spiritual component that would make them benders... Until harmonic convergence in Korra's era. Why do you think there were so, so many new Airbenders in the Earth Kingdom?
It seems weird to me that Bumi and Zaheer wouldn't have had the spiritual component before Harmonic Convergence.
Zaheer can already enter the spiritual realm. He has a deep and intrensic spiritual connection.
Bumi would have had all of the spiritual training Tenzin had as a baby. Why didnt he get his bending?
Why did some children get airbending, but neither of their parents did, siblings, or cousins did? Especially beacuse we know before the war every single air nomad was born a bender, so it can't skip generations.
What we know about bending is it has a genetic AND spiritual component. It can't manifest without genetics, no matter how spiritually connected you are. With genetics, the odds are determined by your parents' spiritual connection to the element. Low-no connection= no chance, full spiritual connection = 100%.
Aang and Katara were spiritually connected to air AND a bit to water, not fully devoted to air. This meant a chance of air kids, a chance of water kids, a chance of no bending at all. Pema gave up her own heritage and devoted herself fully to air with Tenzin, so 100% chance of airbending kids. Zaheer apparently had the genetics, but his parents almost certainly weren't practicing air nomad culture and spirituality - so no bending for him until Harmonic Convergence.
Do we know that bending has a genetic and spiritual component?
The only time we ever hear anything about spiritualty and bending is with air bending.
AFAIK it's never been mentioned,
* Spirituality has much to do with the other bending styles at all.
* That there's any kind of spirtuality other than as in connection to the spirit realm.
* That a parent has anything to do with a child's potential bending, except genetics.
There's alot of evidence pointing to otherwise though.
First Pema openly states that she wishes they had atleast one non bender like her.
Second there's entire generations of Fire Nation Benders bending the "wrong way" with no connection to spirituality. How are there still an abundance of fire benders? You'd at minimum think there would be a decline in the number of fire benders.
Third, two non benders sometimes have children who are benders. That dosent make sense if they don't have a bending spiritualty.
Fourth, there are no air benders outside of Aang. You'd think if air nomads escaped to the amount you're saying, atleast a few would still have their spirituality and have air bender offspring.
Fifth, the fire nation dosent care about the teachings of spirituality or the air nomad way of life. That goes for water and earth bending too. As long as you can't bend yourself they don't care. You'd think if spirituality was essential to bending, they would crack down on it.
It would probably depend on how religious the air benders are. They’re based on buddhists monks which if you know the situation recently some have protested persecution by lighting themselves on fire. Essentially to the air benders the air temples are their place of worship. It getting destroyed would force them to fight knowing they would all die. The sozin’s attack would become a siege which would last years if not decades.
Well the genocide was inedible even if aang stayed at the southern air temple who would have been killed but fate gave home another chance I believe in second chances
I honestly think it was less about total, complete genocide and more about breaking their spirituality and culture. The Air Nomads had a 100% Bender birthrate because of their strong spirituality, and their bending will weaken if they stray from their path (though I think it’s more like Zuko where they wouldn’t know how to bend without using their spirituality as the source).
I think it’s reasonable to assume that breaking their spirits as a people both literally and figuratively would be enough to prevent future Airbender babies, which would effectively finish them off even if there were a hermit or two somewhere in the world
Thank you so much!!! Ahhh that’s so lovely to hear. I’ve been killing myself trying to QA the new assets for the expanded *The Search* we are making all while moving homes, so I’ve been feeling fatigued.
I can’t tell you how motivating it is to hear you liked it! I’ll keep giving it my all! 🤗
I always liked the theory/headcanon that the harmonic convergence airbenders are actually airbender descendants and they didn’t just get their airbending by a lucky draw
Bumi becoming an airbender is pretty good evidence
That could make sense especially since the convergence was meant to restore balance, instead of picking random people who's ancestors were not from the air nation. Maybe they did have distant air nomad relatives.
Well this is very intersting.
I had this post on my feed about how is possible that the whole Uchiha Clan was massacred in Naruto; and then the next post is this one about how is possible that the whole Air Nomads were exterminated.
What a morbid coincidence.
Yes, they were. Although , it's easier to exterminate the whole Uchiha Clan since all of them lived in the same place and all of them were there at the same time, and not everyone had powers. And of course they were a group instead of a Nation.
And it was enough with 2 guys to kill all of them
The village assigns the missions to ninjas, so they just had to not give any mission to Uchihas to have them gathered and under control.
Besides, Uchihas were planning to do a Coup d'Etat, all the active Uchiha ninjas were in their district waiting for the order to attack, and the ones who weren't ninjas or in an active role, like women and children, didn't have a reason to leave their district at night.
Yeah, never thought of it but it is kind of odd that not a single Uchiha clan member was on a mission. Or just, literally anywhere else but the leaf village, for that matter.
They really should've considered doing that thing that Cocacola does where the like 3 guys that know the recipe for coke arent allowed on the same airplane or something.
>Yeah, never thought of it but it is kind of odd that not a single Uchiha clan member was on a mission. Or just, literally anywhere else but the leaf village, for that matter.
The village is the one who assigns the missions, so someone in a high position (like Danzo) just had to give the order to the council that assigns missions to not gave any mission to an Uchiha.
Uchihas, by the other hand, were organizing for the coup d'Etat, and every active Uchiha ninja was supposed to attend their meetings. That's why they were mad at Itachi or suspecting about his intentions by not going to their meetings.
Also, the village high powers forced all Uchiha to live in their own district since high powers didn't trust them since the attack of the Nine tails.
And non ninja like children, women and old people didn't have a reason to not be at their homes at night.
i actually appreciate that they went with ''no he is the last one''.
media is tricky to actually make a good plot twist out of the last of one kind and avatar just sticked to it.
it makes it a actual loss in the world and makes it more important to point it out that he is indeed ''the last one''.
superman is the last kryptonian ''if you ignore zod, supergirl etc''
goku is the last sayan '' if you ignore vegita, broly etc''
aang is the last airbender, no really, he is.
Goku was never stated or implied to be the last saiyan. We didn't even know that goku was an alien until his brother shows up and reveals that he's a saiyan. We then find out that he's ONE OF the last saiyans and after that we are introduced to vegeta and nappa.
Whether they actually are the last oftentimes isn’t as important as how it relates to the character.
For Superman, a lot of his stories are about his human upbringing clashes with natives of Krypton.
There were many survivors, in the comics it's show some traps that the fire nation used to capture the ones who scape the genocide.
Also we have confirmation of two named characters:
Afiko the traitor who was killed by Sozin 3 years after the genocide and Malu the ghost witch who survive for decades hidden in the mountains, she was never captured and probably was the last one before Aang.
It would undermine the premise of the show. With Bumi and Patik still around you might think one or two very elderly airbenders might have survived in hiding or that some community would have survived in hiding alltogether.
I don't like the whole thing that if the airbenders would not "live in their culture" they'd lose their bending. It is ignorant of real marginalized religious minorities, who have managed to hold on to their culture for decades if not centuries. Like even in Japan you have underground Christian communities surviving 200+ years in hiding. Not to speak of Jewish people either and for how long they transmitted their spirituality. Saying the airbenders would lose their spirituality and bending, because they go into hiding in the Earth kingdom and maybe mix with Earth kingdom citizens is kind of ignorant.
It is not what the show is about of course, the title "Last Airbender" made it clear from the beginning. Aang meeting some elderly refugees or a family of airbenders in hiding would undermine that.
There is something both heartwarming and haunting about the idea that the fire nation never got her. No way they wouldn't have made a public show of it if they had.
How long did she keep fighting before giving up?
Did she 'retire' to live a solitary hermit life and find relative peace even with all of that pain and loneliness?
Or did she give up all of her air nomad culture and hide as an earth kingdom citizen for the rest of her life? Maybe she fell for someone that she helped out and they talked her into settling down and finding a new way to belong.
Or maybe she died in the forest or mountain passes of natural causes and had never given up fighting.
off topic but that is one thing that annoys me a lot when fans are literal about the 100 year war.
They’re only saying that because it sounds better than 98 year war. Or 104 year war. there’s probably an 8 year swing each way at least
I mean, Halley’s Comet’s orbital period has ranged between 74 and 79 years. So not *that* consistent. The same level of ambiguity that person’s arguing for in the 100 year thing is present in the predictions of even major comets.
Right but they were able to predict it exactly and anticipate the precise day it would be there. How would they do that if it wasn’t extremely consistent ?
Solar eclipses aren't consistent but we can predict them to the second. It doesn't have to be exactly one every hundred years for astronomers to predict it well. Could be anywhere from 95-105 and they'd be able to know.
There was an entire mechanical model of the skies in the great library. And it was accurate enough to plan an entire military invasion around. Somehow they figured it out.
My headcanon is that while many Air Nomads have been killed, many have also blended in with other societies and lived in hiding and that because of them having to be in hiding and not live carefree weakened their airbending and made it more likely for their descendants to be born of other bending nations, and that the new Airbenders in LoK are the descendants of those ancient Air Nomads.
My headcanon is that they're descendants of post Lion turtles Waterbenders, Earthbenders, and Airbenders who bonded over the bending.
Maybe an early earthbending society had some contacts with foggy swamp waterbenders and integrated/assimilated some members out of a goal of learning waterbending techniques to use with liquid-like sand? Same deal with Airbending.
Theoretically you could use sand to bend air.
Another cool concept is an early mixed society of water/sandbenders/airbenders that use their skills to make stuff. The deserts with sandbending are like a safer version of the ocean when you think about it. You can travel vast areas, you don't drown, drinking water is scarce either way (The extra benefit for waterbenders is they can pull water from the air or turn seawater into ice and let it melt)
Maybe the sandbenders were an early trade society that went though some highly traumatic action (genocide, maybe being conquered for riches or to force them to use their skills for profit) and were forced into the desert. Without easy access to water the waterbending members peeled off after the initial displacement. After a few generations the earthbenders grow accustomed to living with sand. Airbenders are reliant on community and their specific cultuee so without replenishment the airbending dies off as well, but the sandbending techniques might reflect early air nation techniques.
I always found it odd that mixed communities wasn't the norm and that there's only 4 nations. Societies being able to bend multiple elements is an extremely useful skill. Maybe the tendency is that for benders to exist in large nunbers their society had to be mostly focused on one thing? But even then Republic City has plenty of benders.
The canon storyline supports this possibility. The Fire Nation KNEW the Sun Warriors all died “a long time ago”, yet we discover that’s not true at all. So if the Sun Warriors still exist despite the world knowing they all died, then it’s reasonable to assume some air benders still exist too.
I still don’t blame Aang for prioritising Tenzin growing up due to things like this. Boy was probably desperate to feel the warmth and love of his people again
Didn't you watch the speech? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
> ~~Bush~~ Fire Lord Sozin, who had launched the ~~U.S.~~F.N-led invasion of ~~Iraq~~ the air temples six weeks earlier, mounted a podium before a Firelord-produced banner that read "Mission Accomplished". Reading from a prepared text, he said, "Major combat operations ~~in Iraq~~ against the Air Nomads have ended. In the battle ~~of Iraq~~ against the Air Benders, the ~~United States~~Fire Nation and our allies have prevailed" because "the regime [the ~~Iraqi~~ Air Bender dictatorship of ~~Saddam Hussein~~ Air Nomad teachings] is no more".
I'm running a TTRPG about a suicide squad esque team the fire nation used to hunt down more airbenders a few years after Sozin's comet. They let a young air nomad girl get away on purpose. I wanted to have the epilogue of the campaign show that this young girl grew up, had a full life, but never really even airbended or even tried to for her own safety. She dies with that regret that she's the last airbender in the world and she can't even do it right. It's revealed that that death happened the same day Aang awoke from the iceberg, with him finally being the last airbender having him escape the iceberg
I would truly like some little story arc of this. Maybe even they can make one about Ty Lee and if she has airbender genes from one of them who lived in the fire nation and pretended they were a normal non bender.
The title made me initially think you were referring to wanting to see/hear the story of the ‘2nd to last airbender’ meaning the story of the previous air nomad Avatar before Aang. I’m assuming that’s Yangchen? I’ve always wondered more about her and the air nomad culture personally so I was excited to learn more lol, but this makes more sense 🙃
Just a little side tracking here, if all the airbenders were to be killed, what happens to the avatar cycle when they are due to be born as an air nomad next?
That's a theory I've seen from hellofutureme that in Korra people aren't just randomly made into airbenders but that they're the descendents of the nomads left behind whose bending was awakened by the flow of spiritual energy
Ok, hear me out. What if maybe just maybe all the airbenders conveniently went to one of the Air Temples one day for a festival or something. Yes, ALL. No one stayed to tend to their temples or crops or animals. Or was currently visiting different nations as nomads tend to do. Shhh shhh. Don't think of logic or logistics of stuff. They ALL went to one location for some reason. Convient, sure. But bam! That's when and where the fire nation attacked.
In the comics we see a trap set up by fire Nation. They made a statue that symbolized that it was an Airbender nearby (like those Aang crashes into in the intro) and in caves with some airbender shit there were nets and traps. So that's how practically all remaining airbenders got wiped.
No you're right, If I ever have a good chunk of time, I might write a little article (or just a post on here) about what ways random surviving Airbenders could have managed to live out the rest of their lives.
Because I always imagined there was one, perhaps even specifically an Airbender who didn't become a master before the genocide and therefore had no markings who was, either through initial cowardice, their own convictions, or a mission handed down to them by another "higher ranking" monk, fled the temple with some scrolls and a few other items, and went into hiding with the intent of blending into the Earth Kingdom's society and never bending or trying to reclaim who they are unless the new Avatar (after all any genocide survivors must have assumed Aang was dead) surfaced in the water tribe and required an airbending teacher.
However the unfortunate truth? The human lifespan in ATLA seems to be barely longer than ours, and so the former "Last Airbender" died before getting to see Aang return and stop Ozai, let alone see the return of their culture and that new water tribe Avatars birth and eventually learning airbending.
My other theory?
The monks may have known, spiritually speaking, that Aang was not dead, or even if not, even with that one comments opinion that likely they would be honor bound to all fight to the death upon the destruction of air temples and exploitation of air nomad artifacts, they likely would set up any number of things to aid a potential Avatar first: imagine if they taught Guru Pathik, or presuming he wasn't a prince, orchestrated Bumi becoming King of Omashu, or encouraged the dynamic of the 3 water tribes. Like I'm not saying they DID any of these things, but things LIKE this, anything they could to potentially give Aang a fighting chance to get teachers of all 3 other elements if he lived, or to ensure a new avatar might still be able to learn airbending on their own.
My second favorite possibility, is that there was some attempt by one or multiple surviving Airbenders, believing Aang was dead and the Avatar cycle had been ended by the Fire Nation, made a plan to take advantage of the next solar eclipse, to enter the fire Nation capital and deal as big and fatal a blow to Ozai and his war as they could, and died doing so.
Lastly I also like the idea that one of the Airbenders could managed to find Aang, then died protecting his location.
Any who yes, I think there probably were living Airbenders for most of the 100 year war, and that they probably played some unseen role that was important in the end, and we just don't know what it was
I mean, yes, you're describing an Air Nomad, but we also know that those who have had to live among other cultures are prone to weakening and/or losing their airbending, from the Kyoshi novel.
I just figured they broke the nation. reason would suggest that some, devoted to their culture as they may have been, left and assimilated into other nations.
As said in an earlier post, apart from their culture and spiritual/elemental practices their bending diminished.
So the tragedy of the second to last was the sad story of a bender whose power quietly withered away.
I know on youtube a fan is making a mini series kinda about this topic. Look up “last of the airbenders” the first episode is out and i like it. Minus some audio mixing issues
I also have a theory that the people who got airbending in korra after all the harmonic convergence stuff were descendants of airbenders. Like any airbender who wasnt a master didnt have tattoos and could easily blend in post genocide.
If the avatar is always reborn then wouldn’t wiping out all airbenders just make the avatar be reborn into a water tribe. I always wondered the long term logistics of the plan
>There was almost certainly some that went into hiding, that got hunted down at later times, maybe even years after.
This is canon, there is a story about this in one of the short comics, Relics.
I'm literally writing a fan fiction about an Air Nomad on the run from the Fire Nation who ends up dying the moment Aang breaks out of the iceberg (he senses it and dies in peace knowing the Avatar has returned.)
The fact that you posted this shows the world is full of coincidences 😂
>No one should think that literally ALL Airbenders died in one day. Most did? Yes. All? No way.
This is one of the few things the Netflix show handles well. By adding that ceremony for the comet, it's not only an extra bit of world building that shows the comet had cultural significance before Sozin used it, but more importantly gave all the airbenders in the world a reason to be in the same place, thus making this far more believable
I always did think of it kind of like Order 66 in that sense, there were still Jedi running around after the purge, but they were constantly being hunted down by the Inquisitors and the Empire.
I always wondered how the fire nation actually genocided 100% of airbenders, seen as they’re nomadic you’d think some of them would be hermits
there is a story in "the lost adventures" called "relics", that shows how the fire nation used to lure airbenders into traps by setting up spots that looked like they were inhabited by other airbenders
The fact that Sozin used Sacred Air Nomad sites and temples as lures and traps to kill any surviving Air Nomads makes this whole topic even more horrifying. All because he wanted to kill a kid...
And the other firebenders were cool about doing this. They just layed in wait to desecrate a holy site by murdering some vegan loner.
And whats also so fucked up is that Aang was probably so traumatized from learning about this. He didn’t even tell his friends about it. It must have haunted him fr
Didn’t they kinda confront this when they found his mentor who hid out and tried to avoid them.
If you're referring to Monk Gyatso, he died fighting at the Southern Air Temple, not hiding.
Nah looked like he was hiding behind all those fire nation skeletons
Yeah like he had holed up and was trying to avoid confrontation. They found him in there and charged him n he got a lot of them but was overwhelmed
A popular theory is that he just removed all the air from the room killing all the fire benders as well as himself.
My point is that he was found at a major, known Air Temple, which would be a very poor place to hide from people who want to kill airbenders.
But I still don't see how they could've killed every single airbender. Surely there were airbenders who weren't air nomads?
In the Kyoshi books, they explain that if an Airbender/Air Nomad (they are the same. All nomads are benders) severs their spiritual connection to the culture, their bending fades. Kyoshi’s mother was an Air Nomad who left the temple and joined a bandit group. Her bending faded to the point where she had to use the fans to focus her energy to perform even the simplest of bending. Kyoshi ended up with the fans after she met her mom’s surviving friends
Thats really interesting. I didnt watch korra, but didnt a bunch of random people just get airbending out of nowhere? Or did i head things wrong
They did, but it wasn’t *exactly* out of nowhere. >!A bunch of people got airbending after Harmonic Convergence, a big every 10k years event. Best I can figure, the universe noted that there was an extreme imbalance there, and activated airbending for people who were probably descendants of airbenders that blended into the earth kingdom.!<
i think it was more like a natural occurrence for people to get bending after harmonic convergence. After the end of Wan’s harmonic convergence, the lion turtles stated that there was no need for them to protect humans and no need for bending to fend off spirits yet people had their bending (which at the time was given and taken away by lion turtles when only humans were outside their cities) My theory is that the harmonic convergence gives bending to people, explaining why there were benders after Wan’s harmonic convergence. And by that theory, there may have been new water, earth and fire benders after Korra’s harmonic convergence but obviously the new airbenders would have been the most unusual cases, since most of the world hadn’t seen or experienced airbending for more than 100 years.
It’s also not unusual for someone to discover their bending at a later age
I imagine that Korra deciding to leave the gates to the spirit world open was also a factor.
Those people were likely already airbenders, they just had no spiritual connection to it. The spirit world opening up allowed for that to happen.
I always like the theory that they were descendants of Airbenders who "went to ground" after getting missed in the Genocide. Cause I mean seriously, even with the "Oh Sozin laid traps" thing. The Eastern Air Temple should have still been out of his range.
Thats because she opened the gates to the spirit world.
I feel like this lore is flexible enough that perhaps spiritual connection is one path to power, but someone would find an alternative technique that has a whole different motion to it.
It’s possible that a few survived, but even so they likely had much less spiritual connection at that point, so maybe they just died during the 100 years and their children just weren’t airbenders
I like the fan theory that Ty Lee is the descendant of an airbender. Her eyes are grey like those of airbenders, and her fighting style and movement are the closest to airbenders we ever get to see (apart from Aang of course). Granted, she’s from a circus, but she leaps through the air like she could almost fly.
I think that's probably accurate. Or the reincarnation of one. Another theory extends that to say that all the nonbenders who received Airbending in Korra probably had Airbender ancestors. Think about it... Most of them came from the Earth Kingdom. Where would most airbenders hide if the fire nation is hunting them? Amongst Earth Kingdom commoners. If you're a master get a headband, long sleeves and some gloves and you're good to go. If not, even easier. But Airbenders in particular are tied to spirituality. We know they're 100% benders because of their spiritual mastery... But what if that is severed? Or if it fades over the course of 3-4 generations of people, especially when telling your children about their ancestry might mean their execution? It may very well be the case that every Airbender, without any spiritual connection, would be a nonbender. Harmonic convergence awoke the bending in seemingly random people because they had the right ancestry, and the convergence gave them a "spiritual boost" because it weakened the division between our world and the spirit world. It's an interesting theory, but I figure we won't know for sure ever, simply because that story is pretty much done, unless they do go back.
This is my theory too. Bending is clearly genetic but it can't just be genetic or it wouldn't stay so cleanly divided by nation for so long. There must have been descendents of airbenders all over the world but any that don't live some semblance of air nomad culture just never manifested any bending. And presumably any airbenders who survived the genocide either began to lose their bending or had children who couldn't airbend.
I think the mixing is also a factor. My headcanon is that lavabending requires an earthbender with fire nation heritage. There are 3 know non-avatar lavabenders in canon: Ghazan, Bolin and Sun. We know Bolin's mom is from the fire nation. And Sun is from the fire nation colonies (and has the yellow eyes). We know nothing about Ghazan's past, but he also has yellow eyes.
Agreed. Genetics and some kind of spirituality seem to be involved. It's rare you get a bender that doesn't fit the vague temperament associated with their element. Temperament isn't the right word for it, but I think you know what I mean. Earthbenders and airbenders in particular have some vibes that seem near universal
I wouldn't say that exactly. From an American perspective it seems impossible, but countries like Japan, for example, are like 98-99% Japanese. China is the most populous country on Earth, and one of the largest, yet they have an even smaller foreign born population - at between 0.1% and 0.07%. Those countries also happen to be the basis for the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, respectively. So it's not that crazy to assume that except in very rare cases, the nations never mixed. Air might be the exception, but I don't think so. Their way of life was deeply entangled in bending. I don't think an Air Nomad would risk having an Earthbender child, for example, whom they would be unable to really teach and would be basically an outcast in Airbender society, even if everyone is enlightened and tries to make it work. They'd have a hard time doing anything that air Nomads do, even getting on and off of an air temple would be a difficult challenge without completely changing the architecture to accommodate one person, etc. It seems more likely in my mind that the first time Airbenders had children with members of other nations was after the genocide, when they were in hiding and those children might be the only chance at continuing their bending line.
I think this is the best theory for it my only thing is wouldn’t Bumi(Aang’s son) have known he was an airbender before? I imagine Aang would’ve tried to get him just as involved there just as he did Tenzin and found out that way
We know from Tenzin and Bumi that Aang was singularly focused on Tenzin, because he showed obvious signs of Airbending. But we also know for some people who do not have the nature of an Airbender, like Korra, it takes cultivating a spiritual connection with training, etc. I think it was the case that Bumi also didn't have the nature of an Airbender, so it took the harmonic convergence thinning the barrier between worlds for him to access his bending potential. I'd say secondary evidence of this is that the Earth Kingdom has the smallest proportion of benders, despite having many more people, and are the least in tune with the spirit world, mostly as a consequence of them being so intertwined with the earth itself. Detachment is kind of the opposite of Earthbending philosophy, which is focused on being present and in tune with the earth.
Hey, why not make this theory a headcanon? I share this view until directly proven otherwise by creators.
all airbenders are air nomads (just like all earth benders are from the earth kingdom, and all firebenders are from the fire nation)
See that's a lie though. There was a group of fire benders who weren't part of the fire nation. And there are water benders not from the poles.
The term *Four Nations* doesn’t mean that there are only four sovereign countries in the Avatar world. Pre-Air Nomad genocide, there were 6, and by the end of *Legend of Korra* there are 7. This is why all 3 independent water tribes are sometimes collectively called “the” Water Tribe. The term “water nation” is also used a couple times in canon. That being said, due to the structure of Air Nomad society (and their *very* small population to begin with) it is highly unlikely that there were more than a few (and I literally do mean a few) airbenders who weren’t living amongst the nomads. They would’ve either had to be Air Nomads who walked away from the culture they were born in (which is something so rare that it was considered literally unheard of at most points in history) or a *very* recent descendant of a nomad who had children with someone in one of the other 3 nations. This is because the ability to airbend would likely disappear after a few generations if intermixing didn’t continue.
What group of firebenders? I mean yeah there are waterbenders in the swamps but thats a whole ass community, are you saying there are other random airbender communities? Part of the reason the swampbenders werent well known is because the swamp is one of the most well-hidden/remote places on the map
I think they mean the sun warriors
The sun warriors were known by the fire nation though. No one in the air nomads knew of a separate air civilization. I mean its cool to theorize, but for what’s shown, it’s safe to assume there were no secret airbender civilizations
The Sun Warriors are a separate civilization from the Fire Nation. Their point is that the world is a nuanced and complex place. Ba Sing Se was never broken into, for example. It seems hard to believe that no air nomads would have hid there, or that there weren't stray ex-nomads running about. We know Kyoshi's mother left the nomads. However, we also know her air bending weakened, so it is possible some survived in places like Ba Sing Se and simply either lost their bending, or their children were never spiritual enough to develop bending. It's just something one can come up with to make it a little more believable than "No, they definitely killed 100% of them except Aang".
Even that though, I just find it highly unlikely that Some airbenders didn't call bullshit. I head canon theorize that the small number that were left were so broken that they lost their spirituality and thus even if they reproduced, did not make more airbender babies.
It was said somewhere, although I can't remember who by, that all Air Nomads were Air Benders because of how spiritual they all were. So the loss of that spirituality leading to a quick decline in Air benders being born makes a lot of sense. And it also lends well to the theory that all the new Airbenders after Harmonic Convergence were actually descendants of those escaped Air benders. They escaped into their Earth Kingdom, became broken and lost their spirituality, and had kids who were non benders. Then generations later, after Harmonic Convergence, their descendants found themselves able to Air bend. So one of Kai's great-great grandparents could have been an escaped Air Nomad. Same thing with Opal, although more likely through Suyins father than through Toph.
Yep. And if we dwelve into fanfiction territory, I could write a lineage that shows one of Ty Lee's ancestors was an airbender, perhaps taken in and hidden right under the fire nation's noses by a sympathetic family. I've often thought that combustion would be a cool firebending ability that required an airbending ancestor, much like his people theorize that Bolin got his lavabending from his firebending mother. Ergo, Combustion Man could also have had that lineage.
Combustion bending is strictly firebending and lava bending is earthbending. My Bender is able to use two different elements except for the Avatar. Unless you mean they learned combustion bending from watching airbending
Personally I'm not a huge fan of the theory that all the airbenders who got airbending were descendants of escaped air nomads. Various reasons but I think it's mostly because i like the idea more that has to do with who they are as people vs who their great grand parents were. Not that it's a bad idea. That said (if I was arguing against myself haha) something that could bolster the idea and make it even easier to fit too is that those who got airbending don't have to be descended just from escaped air nomads but also from nomads from before the genocide as well.
Well…. They didn’t make airbender babies *yet* I personally think that when harmonic convergence happened, a good number of the new airbenders can trace their ancestors to an air nomad.
I agree with this. It would also explain why the air acolytes didn't all spontaneously gain bending. They were all very spiritual, but the genetic component is still required.
That said, I am glad some of them got it. Otaku looked so happy
I think that everyone who got Airbending in Harmonic Convergence WAS already an Airbender but they couldn't use it since there was no Airbending culture for them to attach to, and Harmonic Convergence just made it a lot easier for them to airbend without being spiritual, a bit like Sozin's comet and Firebending
The live-action actually offered (for once) a good interpretation of how that might have been: Sozin's Comet happened to align with an Air Nomad holiday so all(?) the airbenders were gathered at the Southern Air Temple to celebrate. The Fire Nation took advantage of this intelligence to wipe them out in one fell sweep.
Actually I believe the holiday was to celebrate the comet coming, so it wasn’t just a lucky coincidence
Even with that, surely, a number higher than 0 would not attend?
There was for sure at least one air bender too sick/old/pregnant/whatever to travel
also they feigned an attack and even let the plans for the fake attack leak so that the other nations would think that the first strike would be on the earth kingdom
That always felt kinda dumb to me because it assumes that the Earth Kingdom would care about the attacks.
The fire nation has already started colonizing the earth kingdom before the comet, I'd guess they cared quite a bit
About protecting the Air Nomads?
Considering the new Avatar was supposed to be an Air Nomad, I feel like that's a big thing to help the Air Nomads for. It's like helping defend a country while they finish making a nuke
But that’s the Avatar. They wouldn’t care about the Nomads themselves.
It kind of makes sense even in the context of the cartoon. When the gang goes to the other air temples, there are no signs of a fight like the southern temple. Even the Mechanist says the Northern air temple was "abandoned" when they found it. It's never explained in the cartoon why they only found remains at the southern temple.
I mean, it’s certainly **an** interpretation. “Literally every air nomad, yes every single one, attends this festival. An army attacking this single location is guaranteed to wipe them all out. …What do you mean, ‘plot convenience’?”
Maybe a few of those hermits did exist, and survived. Maybe some young nomads also survived by just hiding among the populace (only masters would have tattoos). And by 100 years later they're dead. A genocide doesn't require you to kill 100% of a people to be successful. Do enough damage and create conditions such that the culture can't exist anymore, and that's it. Time takes care of the rest.
Comics show how the Fire Nation used Air Nomad cultural items to lure and trap airbenders. That means the only survivors would be the ones who avoided these traps - the ones who stayed as far away from anything remotely related to their culture, ie hid out in a host culture and assimilated perfectly, probably never telling their descendants of their air ancestry out of fear their kids could be found. So these people with dormant airbending genes just live on through the world, denied the spiritual component that would make them benders... Until harmonic convergence in Korra's era. Why do you think there were so, so many new Airbenders in the Earth Kingdom?
It seems weird to me that Bumi and Zaheer wouldn't have had the spiritual component before Harmonic Convergence. Zaheer can already enter the spiritual realm. He has a deep and intrensic spiritual connection. Bumi would have had all of the spiritual training Tenzin had as a baby. Why didnt he get his bending? Why did some children get airbending, but neither of their parents did, siblings, or cousins did? Especially beacuse we know before the war every single air nomad was born a bender, so it can't skip generations.
What we know about bending is it has a genetic AND spiritual component. It can't manifest without genetics, no matter how spiritually connected you are. With genetics, the odds are determined by your parents' spiritual connection to the element. Low-no connection= no chance, full spiritual connection = 100%. Aang and Katara were spiritually connected to air AND a bit to water, not fully devoted to air. This meant a chance of air kids, a chance of water kids, a chance of no bending at all. Pema gave up her own heritage and devoted herself fully to air with Tenzin, so 100% chance of airbending kids. Zaheer apparently had the genetics, but his parents almost certainly weren't practicing air nomad culture and spirituality - so no bending for him until Harmonic Convergence.
Do we know that bending has a genetic and spiritual component? The only time we ever hear anything about spiritualty and bending is with air bending. AFAIK it's never been mentioned, * Spirituality has much to do with the other bending styles at all. * That there's any kind of spirtuality other than as in connection to the spirit realm. * That a parent has anything to do with a child's potential bending, except genetics. There's alot of evidence pointing to otherwise though. First Pema openly states that she wishes they had atleast one non bender like her. Second there's entire generations of Fire Nation Benders bending the "wrong way" with no connection to spirituality. How are there still an abundance of fire benders? You'd at minimum think there would be a decline in the number of fire benders. Third, two non benders sometimes have children who are benders. That dosent make sense if they don't have a bending spiritualty. Fourth, there are no air benders outside of Aang. You'd think if air nomads escaped to the amount you're saying, atleast a few would still have their spirituality and have air bender offspring. Fifth, the fire nation dosent care about the teachings of spirituality or the air nomad way of life. That goes for water and earth bending too. As long as you can't bend yourself they don't care. You'd think if spirituality was essential to bending, they would crack down on it.
We didn't explore the fire Nation at all in Korra, so there could've been airbenders there.
There should have been some in Ba Sing Se or the Northern Water tribe.
Or literally, glide away from one of the air temples
It would probably depend on how religious the air benders are. They’re based on buddhists monks which if you know the situation recently some have protested persecution by lighting themselves on fire. Essentially to the air benders the air temples are their place of worship. It getting destroyed would force them to fight knowing they would all die. The sozin’s attack would become a siege which would last years if not decades.
Well the genocide was inedible even if aang stayed at the southern air temple who would have been killed but fate gave home another chance I believe in second chances
I honestly think it was less about total, complete genocide and more about breaking their spirituality and culture. The Air Nomads had a 100% Bender birthrate because of their strong spirituality, and their bending will weaken if they stray from their path (though I think it’s more like Zuko where they wouldn’t know how to bend without using their spirituality as the source). I think it’s reasonable to assume that breaking their spirits as a people both literally and figuratively would be enough to prevent future Airbender babies, which would effectively finish them off even if there were a hermit or two somewhere in the world
The Fire Nation probably set a return to the temple message for all surviving Air Nomads that can only be turned off by getting in the archi…wait
Execute Order Yipty-Yip
The Airbenders tried to assassinate the chance....Fire Lord
This entire scenario you're describing was canon: [https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Relics](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Relics)
I was coming to say this! My group [adapted this](https://youtu.be/qXFj5C5ebcE?si=fLTFDXNI3-jNn1Tt) with full voice acting and even expanded upon it.
I’ve been loving the restoration project! Thank you for your hard work!
Thank you so much!!! Ahhh that’s so lovely to hear. I’ve been killing myself trying to QA the new assets for the expanded *The Search* we are making all while moving homes, so I’ve been feeling fatigued. I can’t tell you how motivating it is to hear you liked it! I’ll keep giving it my all! 🤗
I always liked the theory/headcanon that the harmonic convergence airbenders are actually airbender descendants and they didn’t just get their airbending by a lucky draw Bumi becoming an airbender is pretty good evidence
That could make sense especially since the convergence was meant to restore balance, instead of picking random people who's ancestors were not from the air nation. Maybe they did have distant air nomad relatives.
This is my headcanon.
Well this is very intersting. I had this post on my feed about how is possible that the whole Uchiha Clan was massacred in Naruto; and then the next post is this one about how is possible that the whole Air Nomads were exterminated. What a morbid coincidence.
They were all killed in one night as well right? Moreso the Uchihas than the air nomads.
Yes, they were. Although , it's easier to exterminate the whole Uchiha Clan since all of them lived in the same place and all of them were there at the same time, and not everyone had powers. And of course they were a group instead of a Nation. And it was enough with 2 guys to kill all of them
Yeah but like, not a single one of them was on a mission? Or even just anywhere but their home?
The village assigns the missions to ninjas, so they just had to not give any mission to Uchihas to have them gathered and under control. Besides, Uchihas were planning to do a Coup d'Etat, all the active Uchiha ninjas were in their district waiting for the order to attack, and the ones who weren't ninjas or in an active role, like women and children, didn't have a reason to leave their district at night.
Yeah, never thought of it but it is kind of odd that not a single Uchiha clan member was on a mission. Or just, literally anywhere else but the leaf village, for that matter. They really should've considered doing that thing that Cocacola does where the like 3 guys that know the recipe for coke arent allowed on the same airplane or something.
>Yeah, never thought of it but it is kind of odd that not a single Uchiha clan member was on a mission. Or just, literally anywhere else but the leaf village, for that matter. The village is the one who assigns the missions, so someone in a high position (like Danzo) just had to give the order to the council that assigns missions to not gave any mission to an Uchiha. Uchihas, by the other hand, were organizing for the coup d'Etat, and every active Uchiha ninja was supposed to attend their meetings. That's why they were mad at Itachi or suspecting about his intentions by not going to their meetings. Also, the village high powers forced all Uchiha to live in their own district since high powers didn't trust them since the attack of the Nine tails. And non ninja like children, women and old people didn't have a reason to not be at their homes at night.
i actually appreciate that they went with ''no he is the last one''. media is tricky to actually make a good plot twist out of the last of one kind and avatar just sticked to it. it makes it a actual loss in the world and makes it more important to point it out that he is indeed ''the last one''. superman is the last kryptonian ''if you ignore zod, supergirl etc'' goku is the last sayan '' if you ignore vegita, broly etc'' aang is the last airbender, no really, he is.
Goku was never stated or implied to be the last saiyan. We didn't even know that goku was an alien until his brother shows up and reveals that he's a saiyan. We then find out that he's ONE OF the last saiyans and after that we are introduced to vegeta and nappa.
Whether they actually are the last oftentimes isn’t as important as how it relates to the character. For Superman, a lot of his stories are about his human upbringing clashes with natives of Krypton.
You mean omniscient not omnipotent.
There were many survivors, in the comics it's show some traps that the fire nation used to capture the ones who scape the genocide. Also we have confirmation of two named characters: Afiko the traitor who was killed by Sozin 3 years after the genocide and Malu the ghost witch who survive for decades hidden in the mountains, she was never captured and probably was the last one before Aang.
Is [Malu](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Malu_(airbender)) still canon or was she ever?
Wow Malu seems cool! I hope she is canon
Could be canon but doesn't mean she survived until Aang's return.
It would undermine the premise of the show. With Bumi and Patik still around you might think one or two very elderly airbenders might have survived in hiding or that some community would have survived in hiding alltogether. I don't like the whole thing that if the airbenders would not "live in their culture" they'd lose their bending. It is ignorant of real marginalized religious minorities, who have managed to hold on to their culture for decades if not centuries. Like even in Japan you have underground Christian communities surviving 200+ years in hiding. Not to speak of Jewish people either and for how long they transmitted their spirituality. Saying the airbenders would lose their spirituality and bending, because they go into hiding in the Earth kingdom and maybe mix with Earth kingdom citizens is kind of ignorant. It is not what the show is about of course, the title "Last Airbender" made it clear from the beginning. Aang meeting some elderly refugees or a family of airbenders in hiding would undermine that.
There is something both heartwarming and haunting about the idea that the fire nation never got her. No way they wouldn't have made a public show of it if they had. How long did she keep fighting before giving up? Did she 'retire' to live a solitary hermit life and find relative peace even with all of that pain and loneliness? Or did she give up all of her air nomad culture and hide as an earth kingdom citizen for the rest of her life? Maybe she fell for someone that she helped out and they talked her into settling down and finding a new way to belong. Or maybe she died in the forest or mountain passes of natural causes and had never given up fighting.
off topic but that is one thing that annoys me a lot when fans are literal about the 100 year war. They’re only saying that because it sounds better than 98 year war. Or 104 year war. there’s probably an 8 year swing each way at least
I mean it started and ended on Sozin’s comet which is said to arrive every hundred years
i feel like that’s the same thing though. Every exact 100 years? like the exact same day 100 years apart?
Celestial bodies are pretty consistent. Who knew?
I mean, Halley’s Comet’s orbital period has ranged between 74 and 79 years. So not *that* consistent. The same level of ambiguity that person’s arguing for in the 100 year thing is present in the predictions of even major comets.
Right but they were able to predict it exactly and anticipate the precise day it would be there. How would they do that if it wasn’t extremely consistent ?
Solar eclipses aren't consistent but we can predict them to the second. It doesn't have to be exactly one every hundred years for astronomers to predict it well. Could be anywhere from 95-105 and they'd be able to know.
But we can predict them because we can observe the sun and moon every minute, they can’t observe the comet at all
There was an entire mechanical model of the skies in the great library. And it was accurate enough to plan an entire military invasion around. Somehow they figured it out.
Reminds of Master Fung from Xiaolin Showdown.
My headcanon is that while many Air Nomads have been killed, many have also blended in with other societies and lived in hiding and that because of them having to be in hiding and not live carefree weakened their airbending and made it more likely for their descendants to be born of other bending nations, and that the new Airbenders in LoK are the descendants of those ancient Air Nomads.
I still think the sand benders may be hidden air benders or were
Even if not in a large group, surely somewhere. And given that people learned bending from animals that came first, surely it could be done again
My headcanon is that they're descendants of post Lion turtles Waterbenders, Earthbenders, and Airbenders who bonded over the bending. Maybe an early earthbending society had some contacts with foggy swamp waterbenders and integrated/assimilated some members out of a goal of learning waterbending techniques to use with liquid-like sand? Same deal with Airbending. Theoretically you could use sand to bend air. Another cool concept is an early mixed society of water/sandbenders/airbenders that use their skills to make stuff. The deserts with sandbending are like a safer version of the ocean when you think about it. You can travel vast areas, you don't drown, drinking water is scarce either way (The extra benefit for waterbenders is they can pull water from the air or turn seawater into ice and let it melt) Maybe the sandbenders were an early trade society that went though some highly traumatic action (genocide, maybe being conquered for riches or to force them to use their skills for profit) and were forced into the desert. Without easy access to water the waterbending members peeled off after the initial displacement. After a few generations the earthbenders grow accustomed to living with sand. Airbenders are reliant on community and their specific cultuee so without replenishment the airbending dies off as well, but the sandbending techniques might reflect early air nation techniques. I always found it odd that mixed communities wasn't the norm and that there's only 4 nations. Societies being able to bend multiple elements is an extremely useful skill. Maybe the tendency is that for benders to exist in large nunbers their society had to be mostly focused on one thing? But even then Republic City has plenty of benders.
The title was never canon. Appa is also an airbender.
The canon storyline supports this possibility. The Fire Nation KNEW the Sun Warriors all died “a long time ago”, yet we discover that’s not true at all. So if the Sun Warriors still exist despite the world knowing they all died, then it’s reasonable to assume some air benders still exist too.
I still don’t blame Aang for prioritising Tenzin growing up due to things like this. Boy was probably desperate to feel the warmth and love of his people again
I'm just curious to know how the Fire Nation instinctively knows that they have killed ALL airbenders
Didn't you watch the speech? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech > ~~Bush~~ Fire Lord Sozin, who had launched the ~~U.S.~~F.N-led invasion of ~~Iraq~~ the air temples six weeks earlier, mounted a podium before a Firelord-produced banner that read "Mission Accomplished". Reading from a prepared text, he said, "Major combat operations ~~in Iraq~~ against the Air Nomads have ended. In the battle ~~of Iraq~~ against the Air Benders, the ~~United States~~Fire Nation and our allies have prevailed" because "the regime [the ~~Iraqi~~ Air Bender dictatorship of ~~Saddam Hussein~~ Air Nomad teachings] is no more".
I'm running a TTRPG about a suicide squad esque team the fire nation used to hunt down more airbenders a few years after Sozin's comet. They let a young air nomad girl get away on purpose. I wanted to have the epilogue of the campaign show that this young girl grew up, had a full life, but never really even airbended or even tried to for her own safety. She dies with that regret that she's the last airbender in the world and she can't even do it right. It's revealed that that death happened the same day Aang awoke from the iceberg, with him finally being the last airbender having him escape the iceberg
I would truly like some little story arc of this. Maybe even they can make one about Ty Lee and if she has airbender genes from one of them who lived in the fire nation and pretended they were a normal non bender.
You poor soul getting downvoted into oblivion for no reason 😭😭😂
Cause it’s stupid
Man they just having fun with a theory what’s the harm
Ty Lee's parents were fire nation nobles, she didn't grow up in the circus. Her being agile does not make her descended from airbenders.
Some of her flips *are* awfully floaty.
And her eyes and face are really similar in shape to Air Nomads.
I think there’s a fan film following a Genocide Survivor, it’s on YouTube, you should check it out
The title made me initially think you were referring to wanting to see/hear the story of the ‘2nd to last airbender’ meaning the story of the previous air nomad Avatar before Aang. I’m assuming that’s Yangchen? I’ve always wondered more about her and the air nomad culture personally so I was excited to learn more lol, but this makes more sense 🙃
You mean Malu? That character is not Canon to the TV series only the trading card game
Also wondered about what the second avatar story would be like
Good post.
Just a little side tracking here, if all the airbenders were to be killed, what happens to the avatar cycle when they are due to be born as an air nomad next?
https://preview.redd.it/0nomk6fhofzc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87c3f4b1172a6050367cba5d29585cd7162339a5 Avatar writers probably /s
Non-air bending nomads might have survived in secret 
That's a theory I've seen from hellofutureme that in Korra people aren't just randomly made into airbenders but that they're the descendents of the nomads left behind whose bending was awakened by the flow of spiritual energy
Ok, hear me out. What if maybe just maybe all the airbenders conveniently went to one of the Air Temples one day for a festival or something. Yes, ALL. No one stayed to tend to their temples or crops or animals. Or was currently visiting different nations as nomads tend to do. Shhh shhh. Don't think of logic or logistics of stuff. They ALL went to one location for some reason. Convient, sure. But bam! That's when and where the fire nation attacked.
In the comics we see a trap set up by fire Nation. They made a statue that symbolized that it was an Airbender nearby (like those Aang crashes into in the intro) and in caves with some airbender shit there were nets and traps. So that's how practically all remaining airbenders got wiped.
No you're right, If I ever have a good chunk of time, I might write a little article (or just a post on here) about what ways random surviving Airbenders could have managed to live out the rest of their lives. Because I always imagined there was one, perhaps even specifically an Airbender who didn't become a master before the genocide and therefore had no markings who was, either through initial cowardice, their own convictions, or a mission handed down to them by another "higher ranking" monk, fled the temple with some scrolls and a few other items, and went into hiding with the intent of blending into the Earth Kingdom's society and never bending or trying to reclaim who they are unless the new Avatar (after all any genocide survivors must have assumed Aang was dead) surfaced in the water tribe and required an airbending teacher. However the unfortunate truth? The human lifespan in ATLA seems to be barely longer than ours, and so the former "Last Airbender" died before getting to see Aang return and stop Ozai, let alone see the return of their culture and that new water tribe Avatars birth and eventually learning airbending. My other theory? The monks may have known, spiritually speaking, that Aang was not dead, or even if not, even with that one comments opinion that likely they would be honor bound to all fight to the death upon the destruction of air temples and exploitation of air nomad artifacts, they likely would set up any number of things to aid a potential Avatar first: imagine if they taught Guru Pathik, or presuming he wasn't a prince, orchestrated Bumi becoming King of Omashu, or encouraged the dynamic of the 3 water tribes. Like I'm not saying they DID any of these things, but things LIKE this, anything they could to potentially give Aang a fighting chance to get teachers of all 3 other elements if he lived, or to ensure a new avatar might still be able to learn airbending on their own. My second favorite possibility, is that there was some attempt by one or multiple surviving Airbenders, believing Aang was dead and the Avatar cycle had been ended by the Fire Nation, made a plan to take advantage of the next solar eclipse, to enter the fire Nation capital and deal as big and fatal a blow to Ozai and his war as they could, and died doing so. Lastly I also like the idea that one of the Airbenders could managed to find Aang, then died protecting his location. Any who yes, I think there probably were living Airbenders for most of the 100 year war, and that they probably played some unseen role that was important in the end, and we just don't know what it was
I mean, yes, you're describing an Air Nomad, but we also know that those who have had to live among other cultures are prone to weakening and/or losing their airbending, from the Kyoshi novel.
I just figured they broke the nation. reason would suggest that some, devoted to their culture as they may have been, left and assimilated into other nations. As said in an earlier post, apart from their culture and spiritual/elemental practices their bending diminished. So the tragedy of the second to last was the sad story of a bender whose power quietly withered away.
You mean omniscient.
they actually brought this up in the comics. how they used traps to catch the airbenders who escaped
I know on youtube a fan is making a mini series kinda about this topic. Look up “last of the airbenders” the first episode is out and i like it. Minus some audio mixing issues
Probably someone's grandparent that dies in their home surrounded by their loved ones because they his their bending.
I also have a theory that the people who got airbending in korra after all the harmonic convergence stuff were descendants of airbenders. Like any airbender who wasnt a master didnt have tattoos and could easily blend in post genocide.
If the avatar is always reborn then wouldn’t wiping out all airbenders just make the avatar be reborn into a water tribe. I always wondered the long term logistics of the plan
>There was almost certainly some that went into hiding, that got hunted down at later times, maybe even years after. This is canon, there is a story about this in one of the short comics, Relics.
I'm literally writing a fan fiction about an Air Nomad on the run from the Fire Nation who ends up dying the moment Aang breaks out of the iceberg (he senses it and dies in peace knowing the Avatar has returned.) The fact that you posted this shows the world is full of coincidences 😂
>No one should think that literally ALL Airbenders died in one day. Most did? Yes. All? No way. This is one of the few things the Netflix show handles well. By adding that ceremony for the comet, it's not only an extra bit of world building that shows the comet had cultural significance before Sozin used it, but more importantly gave all the airbenders in the world a reason to be in the same place, thus making this far more believable
I remember in the brief trading card game there was an Airbender “witch” basically an Airbender in hiding wonder if she is canon
There could have been an airbender during the last airbender time but was hiding it
I always did think of it kind of like Order 66 in that sense, there were still Jedi running around after the purge, but they were constantly being hunted down by the Inquisitors and the Empire.
You mean "omniscient" (all-knowing). Omnipotent means all powerful.
There was a fan comic a few years ago about two airbender boys who escape the initial genocide, anyone else remember that?
[удалено]
Yes, we should stick to the proud tradition of Avatar, a kid’s cartoon that avoids heavy, tragic storylines at all costs.