Nature vs. Nurture vs. Spiritual - Bending

[~*Tea Sage*~]

Hey Mods, I know there's probably a thousand thread about the debate over reason behind bending and I want to make a new one, due to the fact that I can't find any other one using the search tool and the fact that now the series is over (for now) I think we can make more of a decision.

When I meant Nature vs. Nurture, I want to say there is a spiritual factor in both as well.
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Me, I personally believe its all Nurture and Spiritual. And I'll explain by answering some questions I asked myself.

What allows a person to bend a particular element?
Remembered the conversation between Aang and Pathik

Guru Pathik: The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same.

Aang: Like the four nations.
(We see a map of the world, with the various nations represented in different colors. The map shines brightly, and all the lands are the same color. They shine once more, and return to their separate colors, as Pathik continues to speak.)

Guru Pathik: Yes. We are all one people, but we live as if divided.

Aang: We're all connected. (opens his eyes) Everything is connected.

Guru Pathik: That's right. Even the separation of the four elements is an illusion. If you open your mind, you will see that all the elements are one. Four parts of the same whole.

Me. I've always believe that reason why the person can bend only one element is due to his spirit. I believe that when a person is born, they are born with a pure soul (new) and aren't affliated or attuned to any particular element. But as the child grows up, he is expose to certain ideas, emotions, environments, that determine his spiritual affiliation with a particular element, until he dies, where he will reside in the spirit world.

I know the show touches on the topic of reincarnation, but I think that is something strictly unique to the Avatar. The avatar spirit is a unique, in the sense that it has no concept of seperation, it arose from the spirit of the world and manifest itself in form of man into to bring back the harmony and order that man has once lost. Plus it has many incarnations of souls of people had different spiritual affliation.

What allows a person to bend at all?
If you don't recall, bending in itself is a skill or an art, it can be learned and taught. The dragons taught the people of the fire nation to firebend. The bagermole taught people of the Earth Kingdom to earthbend. The air bison taught the air nomad to airbend. And the water tribesmen learn to bend from watch the moon (spirit) push and pull oceans.

It also a little bit spiritual attunement. Remember everyone of the air nomad could airbend, because they were so attuned with nature and the spiritual side. Very few people in the fire nation can firebend do to the fact that they were more focused on worldly matter, and weren't as spiritually attune as the other three nations.

I think Ozai couldn't bend anymore because Aang whipped him clean of any spiritual affiliation, he's basically neutral. I don't even the Avatar is strong enough to genetically modify someone's DNA. (The Lion Turtle holds the key, but I didn't understand a thing he said. Does anyone?)

Why I don't think genetic (aka. nature) should even play a a role in bending:
Note I want to say I know this is probably a little bias of me, I believe so in part because I want the return of the airbenders. I'm not saying air nomad, because the people of that culture is long dead, I said that in the sense that what determine the four nations is their culture. I believe Aang has revive the airbenders, if he really wants to bring balance and order into this world.

We know that Aang has to revive airbending, but the question is how is he going to do it? I think the only way he can revive airbending is that if it is infact a skill, this way people who is more spiritually intune with the element of air can learn airbending.

There is also a possiblity that while the air nomad culture died out, people that culture managed to escaped and assimilated into the culture and ideology of the other three nation, over time airbending became a lost art, thus why Aang is the last airbender. This is the only way I can sort of accept genetic as part of the factor.

Because if aang really was the only the survivor of the air nomadic culture, and Airbending is genetics, then all future airbender will be decedent of Katara and Aang. MEANING all of the airbenders will be interelated which suggest inbred or incest. DIGUSTING RIGHT?

[Horyo]

Mike and Bryan have said that it can probably be seen as a mixture of genetic and spirituality.

Spirituality's flaw is that anyone with enough spirituality can become any form of bender.

Mike and Bryan have also said that they don't believe Airbending will spontaneously appear out of nowhere.

I do believe that the Air Nomads might have inerbred and thus produced offspring whose genes have not yet been shown due to their lack of air nomad influence (due to being raised at the influences of other spiritual factors). Once he finds the people with the right "stuff" he can begin reteaching airbending and helping those who are endowed with the air "gene" to revive their culture.

I should also note: Air nomads had the lowest population and the most (all) amount of benders.

Earth Kingdom had largest population and smallest amount of benders.

[~*Tea Sage*~]

I also recalled that, but did they refute that claim? Oh well, I hope someone ask them to confirm this during SDCC.

I think your right in that aspect of spirituality, I also can't fathom or imagine how people as evil as Zhao and Ozai can have any spirituality at all.

I still cringe at the thought of incest or inbreding, but you could be right about that aspect of a gene. There has been cases where certain genes are express only when influences by some external influences, which is generally dormant.

But still what about the fact that they learned it animals and spirits? How do you geneticism to that? Yeah yeah...evolution, but at what point did the human and animal branched off, and at which point were they conciousness or self-aware enough to bend element?

About what bryan and mike said about they don't believe Airbending will spontaneously appear out of no where, I still believe that comment doesn't her my theory.

I think they are right, there is nothing to influence a soul to attune to element of wind. The air nomadic culture was wiped out 100 years ago so there is really no external influence. A person can't learn airbending, because the original airbenders the Flying Bisons are gone, and well all airbending teacher is erraticated. The only way a person can learn bending is through aang once he revives the culture and reintroduce the world to the lost art.

P.S. Thanks for the note!!

[Horyo]

Either folklore or exaggeration.

But it could also have been that they have spiritually imbued their bodies and encoded it into their genetics when all people were the same.

Then they began see the differences and branched off and out.

[~*Tea Sage*~]

good point...oh and guess what man!! I finally got found the Lion Turtle's speech. I was browsing around Avatar Spirit site, I got this off of kenb215's post:

What the Lion Turtle said:

The Old Masters (initial speech):

The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost.
The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harm.
Since beginningless time darkness thrives in the void but always yields to purifying right.

The Old Masters (when dropping Aang off):

...Wait for him. He will come.

Avatar Aang (when Aang grabs the trapped Ozai):
In the era before the Avatar we bent not the elements but the energy within ourselves.

Avatar Aang (during the spirit-bending):
To bend another's energy your own spirit must be unbendable or you will be corrupted and destroyed.

I think the last two part of the speech add insight to both of our side in this debate.

P.S. Man that speech was just soo moving, especially the first part, its almost poetic.

[manzai]

Actually I was looking up stuff about population ecology and maximum viable population after the finale because I was thinking about the airbenders return, but inbreeding from the offspring of one individual wouldn't work anyway. In purely genetic terms, it produces unfit individuals and causes the species to die off anyway. The minimum viable population for a species cannot be definitively known without running several simulations and extrapolating the data statistically, but in very general terms, scientists estimate terrestrial vertibrate species need 500 to 1000 individuals to maintain a viable population.

I know I'm treating the air nomads like non-sapient animals for the sake of this example, but even given human intervention (zoos and farming) the lowest population bottleneck I could find was 12 individuals, which occurred in the early 20th century in a species of European bison (ironic, isn't it? bison...) After being raised in captivity, the bison population as able to grow to 3000 indivduals, but they are susceptable to certain diseases because of the "genetic bottleneck." In other words, the population suffers from adverse affects of inbreeding whether they actually bred that way or not. So I think that's where the 500 individuals comes from. You need at least that many to avoid adverse effects of a genetic bottleneck.

So, even if there was a surviving population of air nomads who made a conscious effort to restore their population, they might not need a full 500 individuals since they're sapient and can better keep track of family trees and breed selectively and lots of other stuff, but I think they would still need a lot of breeding pairs. I don't know much biology but I think it's still got to be over 100 at least. But I just got all this stuff from wikipeda, so if someone else knows more about population ecology please correct me. And, of course, the Avaverse probably isn't that realistic.

All of that basically supports your position though: airbending can't be recreated exclusively by Aang's offspring anyway, so they wouldn't inbreed.

As for bending being genetic, I don't think M&B ever refuted that it was, but they have always kept the nature of bending in general very vague. I think that's because they knew they wouldn't explain how the airbenders could return, (at least in this series), but because they knew it is necessary for universal balance (well, in the fictional universe they made up), so they didn't want to shut the door on it. The nature of bending as described by M&B, even with the genetic aspects, would still make it pretty easy for the airbender population to return, more or less for the reasons you said. I think the onus should really be on people who think they can't come back to prove that, rather than on people who think they could come back.

[paleiko]

"The true mind can weather all lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. From beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light."

I think it refers to spiritbending. A true mind can achieve spiritbending, because the illusion of separation (-> bending elements instead of energy) doesn't affect him anymore. And if Aangs heart had not been true, he would have been poisoned by being in close contact with Ozais spiritual energy. It's kind of revealed by the "your spirit has to be unbendable or it will be corrupted"-blabla.

[~*Tea Sage*~]

Great post manzai....it really raised alot "Hmm...", "Ohh Okay", and "Your Right..." I guess In a sense I'm kind of glad Bryan and Mike were vague about it........but still sometimes a little more hint would be nice, but I fully understand where you were going.

Haha thanks for clarifying that paleiko, it makes sense now. I think it gives spiritual a more important role in bending, but doesn't support or refute whether nature or nurture played the more important role or even played a role at all.

[attonbitus]

I'd say even in the avatar world, they don't know exactly what will make a person a bender. They have general theories like we do but they aren't 100 %

The two best case studies are
1) The twins from the earth kingdom. One is a bender and the other is not. They were from the same house hold so they were probably raised the same.
2) The other is Piandao. Both his parents were firebenders and probably raised him the same why they were raised. Obviously he's not a fire bender himself.

[Horyo]

Which is why I like the compromise theory of spirituality and genetics =D

[feaw]

Jul 24, 2008 12:08:39 GMT -5 attonbitus said:

I'd say even in the avatar world, they don't know exactly what will make a person a bender. They have general theories like we do but they aren't 100 %

The two best case studies are
1) The twins from the earth kingdom. One is a bender and the other is not. They were from the same house hold so they were probably raised the same.
2) The other is Piandao. Both his parents were firebenders and probably raised him the same why they were raised. Obviously he's not a fire bender himself.

ur forgetting practacly the second most important role... Katara. the only water bender in her entire tribe of maybe 50 people or more....

ok so..... bending has some genetics but isnt much... its more spiritual... not sure who said this but someone said something about being born pure and then growing into ur culture and maybe, just maybe being lucky enough to bend. i dont think anyone can just try to bend and do it.... and as for the airbenders, i dont believe at all that aang would be willing to rebuild the air nomads with his water/air kids. im pretty sure somewhere in the episodes he said something about "no... it has to be 2 air nomads" in the begining episodes... i always believed that maybe some air nomads escaped and are hiding. cuz its possible, Pathik popped out of now where right when all hope of air nomads were gone. the air benders are gone but maybe air nomads are still around meaning they can learn air bending from aang... so maybe in the future if they decide to release a couple episodes thats what could happen. then aang would have to worry about the having kids with an air nomad woman he doesnt even know just for the sake of the air nomad population..

[paleiko]

And you're forgetting what we learned during the flashbacks in "The Puppetmaster" and "The Southern Raiders". Katara is the only bender who is left because the FN captured all other benders.

Aang has to rebuild the Air Nomads whether he likes his his possibilities or not. They are essential to maintain the cycle. And he was fine with the Mechanist staying at the Western Air Temple, so I doubt that he'll refuse to teach his own children airbending.

[feaw]

Jul 24, 2008 17:45:20 GMT -5 paleiko said:

And you're forgetting what we learned during the flashbacks in "The Puppetmaster" and "The Southern Raiders". Katara is the only bender who is left because the FN captured all other benders.

Aang has to rebuild the Air Nomads whether he likes his his possibilities or not. They are essential to maintain the cycle. And he was fine with the Mechanist staying at the Western Air Temple, so I doubt that he'll refuse to teach his own children airbending.

true i guess he could teach them air bending, but they still wouldnt be pure bred air nomads. but i think that wont be a problem since i dont think aang will try to rebuild the air nomads... instead leave it's ruins as a reminder to the fire nation of their mistake. the avatar already brough balance to the world he doesnt need balance in the elements because he learned from pathik that all elements are one.

[paleiko]

And how is the next Avatar supposed to learn that without gaining insight into all four types of bending? The Avatar needs a master to learn airbending. How is the world in balance if one element is completely missing? That's like taking away one season and saying "That will be alright, who needs autumn anyway?"

I don't think that Aang will just sit around and say "Oh well, my people died out, so what?". He is deeply rooted within their culture, I think he will search for a way to conserve it and pass it on.

[feaw]

didnt avatar roku tell aang that the cycle was broken? i need to rewatch the finale....
anyways ur rite about the element thing... not 100% sure about it tho.
maybe we'll find out if they come out with book 4 : air.. lol. i wish