The main characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender who practice the different styles of bending namely, Katara, Toph, Zuko, and Aang, each draw from the martial arts style that influenced the creation of the bending style, and they also take on personality traits that are representative of the philosophical principles that the martial art is based on. This chapter explores these four main characters, the elemental categories to which they belong, the martial arts that influence their bending, and how their (...) personalities are influenced by the philosophies from which those martial arts are derived. Waterbending is based on the martial art Tajiquan, commonly known as Taiji. Earthbending is based on a particular type of Kung Fu, Hong Jia, in which the practitioner takes rooted stances to create a strong sense of balance so that they cannot be moved. Aang is the last of the airbenders after the Fire Nation's genocide. (shrink)

Bloodbending is sometimes referred to as the “puppetmaster technique” because it is the only bending art whose focus is on the direct manipulation and control of a target. Incarcerated in a maximum‐security prison designed specifically to hold waterbenders, Hama was powerless to resist her captors due to their restriction of any liquid that could be used to bend. The bending styles in Avatar: The Last Airbender draw their inspiration from real‐world Chinese martial arts. Karl Friday describes satsujinken in a (...) more complicated way: “when a combatant uses force of will to overpower, immobilize, and strike down an opponent before he can react, this is called ‘setsunin‐to’”. It could be a perfect description of bloodbending as practiced by Hama: a use of already established and morally neutral techniques for the domination and overpowering of a person for egoistic aims. (shrink)

This chapter aims to establish what it is that bloodbending is, according to its treatment in the Avatar: The Last Airbender ( ATLA ) series. It explores why this is particularly bad in ways that other forms of bending are not. The chapter addresses the question about potentially permissible forms of bloodbending and whether this affects or does not affect Katara and the Council of Republic City's decision to ban bloodbending in The Legend of Korra. Bloodbending was discovered by Hama, (...) a southern waterbender who was held in captivity by firebenders in a prison where waterbenders were deprived of water. The practice of bloodbending has brought about objectionable consequences, but in ATLA the consequences are miniscule compared to almost all other forms of bending at the end of the Hundred Year War. In order to show what makes bloodbending particularly objectionable, the chapter describes the philosopher Immanuel Kant. (shrink)

When the Avatar and his friends visit a mysterious and mystical swamp, they have visions that call into question the ordinary understanding of time and space. The Avatar must master the four elements and bring balance to the world, but he must also understand the illusion of time and the interconnection of all beings. The three human friends fight with a monster made of plants that turns out to be manipulated by a tribesman, Huu‐the wise man of the waterbender tribe (...) who protects the swamp. Huu explains that this sacred place is one big tree, which expands itself and creates this “whole world,” where everything lives together as a unity. This includes the perception of time and space: “everything is connected.” Plotinus explains that time is not something extrinsic to every soul, but of everyone. In Neoplatonic metaphysics the multiplicity has an original cause, the One, which produces everything from its own nature by emanation. (shrink)

The everydayness of benders reflecting the physical properties of their elements reminds the authors of the work of the late Jicarilla Apache philosopher V.F. Cordova. Cordova describes “bounded space” as a land base defined by geographic features such as mountains, rivers, deserts, lakes, oceans, and canyons. At the beginning of each Avatar: the Last Airbender ( ATLA ) episode, the audience is reminded: “Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony”. The sequence shows four individuals bending the water, earth, (...) fire, and air elements. The specific bounded spaces of the respective nations are reflected in their people and their benders. The ATLA universe provides narratives that point to Indigenous intergenerational ways of knowing. Within the ATLA universe, the authors witness regular connections with the spirit realm or spirit world. Many Indigenous scholars have explored these connections to the “spirit world” as understood in ATLA. (shrink)