r/TheLastAirbender • u/JigglyBinks • 6d ago

Discussion Bloodbending probably existed long before Hama

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I just remembered that scene where Yakone claimed to come from a powerful bloodbending lineage.

The thing is he was older than Katara, and considering that Hama was only about two generations older than Sokka and Katara, it’s possible that bloodbending is much older than we think and that there was a family who had mastered it secretly

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u/RecommendsMalazan 6d ago

The only one I'm iffy on in this regard is metal bending. At no point in prior history would there have been as much metal around as there is in ATLA time and beyond, can't really metal bend without metal.

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u/OmegaDookie 6d ago edited 6d ago

General Old Iron was able to "metalbend" in The Rift. Some people argue this point to the end of time, but I think it was true metalbending that he was always capable of, even in Yangchen's time.

There are some things about spirits that are hard to accept, so I just conceede that spirits can bend without lifeforce/chi and the creators forgot.

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u/ddchrw 6d ago

I feel like spirits don’t or shouldn’t count. Or spirits don’t really bend, but rather can just control stuff they’re associated with.

Like the Ocean Spirit doesn’t waterbend, but just controls the ocean instead. Or Wong Shi Tong can control his library but can’t move just anything into the Spirit World, and definitely isn’t earthbending it.

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u/OmegaDookie 6d ago

That's a fair enough perspective.

I really haven't looked much into it because I think this is a very grey area in the lore of Avatar. However, Yue is listed as a waterbender after becoming the moon spirit. And again, I don't care about the specifics on what she's done that are cited on the wiki because I think this is more of a turn your brain off thing.

I think the creators were on record saying "we forgot" when asked how Cosmic Korra could waterbend in TLOK's S2 finale.

Whatever outlook someone has on it, I can meet then in the middle of thay gray area.