Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
^^^ Combustion-based propulsion bursts aren't about consistent energy output, though. It's jut kerrpow and you've made a fast hop, not so much doing something out of the ordinary as much as you did it really fast.
And Bending is also based around manipulating the elements via martial arts, which propulsion doesn't really work with. At all.
I mean, there's a reason everyone does stances and stuff when bending, and it's not just to look cool.
^^I was going to get into that, actually. I think it's because it's hard to generate strong enough bursts to propel a human body, and even harder to do it without blowing up your own feet.
^It's not impossible Zuko, Azula, and Iroh have all done it.
And it's also because it's cooler to see people throw fireballs than it is to see them move really fast and punch people.
^I'd disagree, but eh.
Not impossible, but to see it done on a regular basis instead of by very skilled benders would make anyone wonder.
I wish I had that scene from the opening, with the entire rank-and-file of Firebenders all leaping together to throw fireballs.
...I'm still confused as to how metal is not of the earth
^It is. The first step to learning metalbending is to realize that. Toph did it because she could "see" the earth inside the metal.
Ah, so it's less that metal bending is insanely difficult, requiring the imperfections, and more a mental block, right?
The same way that plants aren't. They're not earth, they're not dirt and stone. They have been tempered, refined, made artificial.
Also, there are quite a few examples of other powers too, apparently. Cloudbending and lavabending are the ones I have found from looking around.
Also also, the way that bending interacts with the martial arts practiced is fairly interesting in itself.
I don't know, I can think of some awesome application of explosive propulsion and martial arts. Like using a passing cut with such a technique, or expanding sword sparks in such a way that my bind action is supported and theirs isn't.
And it's personal, but I find martial arts more interesting than blasts of fire and stuff. For instance, the medieval German technique of fuhlen, which allows you to pre-empt an adversary's technique and take advantage by feeling the pressure of an attack. This doesn't translate very well visually, but it's a really interesting (and fun) technique because it's about combined application of knowledge, strategy and technique. You feel the pressure, measure distance, check your position in relation to your adversary and that tells you what technique would be best for them to do, so you then unleash the best counter to that -- all in the same instant your techniques collide.
Visually, this just comes off as a perfect "play", but the process itself is much more complex and sophisticated than can summarised in the words "skill" or "judgement".
@Ica: I guess, they don't really explain it in great detail.
You sure? I'm pretty sure that she doesn't see the metal itself as earth, but rather the impurities within it.
What about stuff like natural iron?
And, for that matter, all human beings are star dust when you get down to it.
^^Hence my assertion that 70 years worth of refinement has made it so that a metalbender CAN perceive metal as earth itself.
Yeah, I can think of some, but I can think of a lot of other ways that bending can do stuff without even focusing on the martial art at all, merely the stances. For example, lavabending.
Yes, the bending can support the martial arts, but the show doesn't, and I won't say that the show was dragged down by it. They are two different styles; the creators of the show merely decided that they didn't want to put an emphasis on the physical fighting aspect of it.
I suspect this was done for a variety of reasons, actually. For one, it wouldn't fit within Aang's character to be a particularly good hand-to-hand fighter. As it is, within the show, Aang mostly utilizes Airbending to be evasive, and long-range attacks, usually Waterbending or Airbending, to launch attacks from a distance.
And even this is because of the attitudes/philosophies behind each type of Bender. Firebenders are very aggressive, and they flow with their passions (this is incorrect, but I don't want to spoil it for you). Waterbenders are calm, and pretty much go with the flow. Earthbenders are solid, reliable, but also very rigid. They are the best at hand-to-hand fighting. Airbenders are nomadic, spiritual, and don't like to be tied down.
There are definitely multiple fighters who use their bending to supplement their fighting prowess, or their fighting prowess to supplement their bending. Zuko and Toph are both people who do this; Zuko uses his Firebending to support his twin-sword fighting style, and Toph is very aggressive and hands-on with her Earthbending. They are also Firebenders and Earthbenders respectively, though.
The martial art used to support each Bending style actually supports this. For example, Airbending utilizes Bagua-style Kung Fu.
As you can see, that supports the Airbender style fairly well.
Natural iron being the iron within the earth?
We don't know. Raw iron has never been shown.
Refinement is the exact opposite of what I'm saying, though. Refinement is the removal of the impurities, whereas from what I can tell, Toph is utilizing those very impurities to Bend the metal.
It is always possible that there is a metal which is easily Bent. For example, was iron in common use back in the first show, or was steel? If it was iron, then with the advent of steel, Benders may be able to Bend steel to much greater effect than iron, because the carbon within the steel may allow them to. Then again, maybe it's just a plot contrivance, ignoring continuity in order to effectively tell a better story.
^^ It's also wrong, given that all effective martial styles use footwork and upper-body technique simultaneously. For instance, most karate strikes are supported by footwork, even if it's just a pass forward. Japanese kenjutsu, insofar as we're talking weapons, is generally based on voiding an attack while making one's own blow to an opening. And in the West, Liechtenauer tradition German swordsmanship is based on making an initial decisive attack and following it with a flurry of blows if it fails, all the while stepping around one's adversary to support both attack and defense. Stepping out of the way of an attack while keeping your own on target is a fundamental ideal in pretty much all forms of personal combat and, metaphorically, all forms of warfare.
I think he meant refinement of the technique.
Welp
Given that like, half of the entire reason Toph was able to do it was because her speshulness, I really would like to know exactly how anyone else was able to learn it. I can buy that advanced earthbenders were able to, but for it to become commonplace? Well, no, I can't buy that, sorry.
I'm noting some very distinct differences in the footwork here.
(For reference, one is the martial art Earthbending is primarily based upon, and one if the martial art Airbending is primarily based upon.)
^^Well even 70 years later not every schmoe can do it. Being an advanced Earthbender might be a requirement for the police force in the first place.
It would make sense. How many people have been shown to know how to use it?
The lightning-bending is the other aspect I'm really frowning on. That one really, really wasn't supposed to be easy, and is really fucking dangerous if screwed up.
Yeah, that thing where everybody could lightning bend was bull to me. I guess it's supposed to show how techniques have evolved but it still felt like it devalued how badass Azula was.
The thing about both those demonstrations is that both lack context. The first one (which represents Earthbending here, right?) was better than that it showed footwork in context of offensive techniques. Attacks from a static position are mostly good for self-defense, and you can see that there's actually some good footwork in there once the guy gets into it.
One interesting thing I noticed from Bagua is that it's a flat-footed style, which is interesting given its emphasis on mobility. Flat-footed styles ground one better and provide more support, but reduce mobility. This can be applied to swordsmanship, too; Miyamoto Musashi preferred a flat-footed kind of footwork when many kenjutsu (and kendo) schools teach one to use the balls of their feet for support. If you test it out, you might find that moving by the balls of your feet allows for much greater mobility and acceleration, although a mistake or taking a strong blow is more likely to imbalance you.
Those videos are certainly interesting, but ultimately they don't display anything that could help me reach a conclusion on their resultant mobility.
Try these, then.
Maybe they design the iron in the time period that Korra takes place in with cores or bubbles of earth? So the rest is as pure as they can get it, but there is still something that allows the benders to manipulate it?
Or maybe Metal Bending is an entirely new branch of bending that was discovered after the events of the first show, and the police would suck at any Earth Bending as they were trained just to concentrate on metal?
Well, we've only seen them manipulate wires with metalbending (which could be specifically designed to be bending friendly). Hell, we may even seen "bending proof metal" in the future.
Wires... Well, we haven't seen enough, really. I mean, there are a lot of metals that we haven't seen, that might be able to be Bent but wouldn't make suitable building materials.
Wires?
Oh, there could be multiple reasons for that then. A bending friendly metal, some sort of casing that is easy to bend, small amount of metal could be easier to bend, etc.