Fire bending gets lightning bending

Because the writers aren't very creative. Astral projection doesn't make any sense as an airbending ability, flight is something they were basically already capable of just slightly more convenient but more difficult to achieve, fartbending is a meme. I guess I can't blame them, apart from soundbending I can't really think of much you could do for special airbending

Airbenders get astral projection, can suffocate their opponents and can fucking fly. They're fine.

Imagine how much air and gasses are inside your body, now imagine someone being able to do whatever the fuck they want with them.

In the Foggy Swamp Korra threads we had several ideas about Airbenders using wind and sound to their advantage with Alternative forms of Airbending with Mongols and Ninjas.

Flying nimbus from Wan's era, air scooters, superspeed, unassisted flight

Originally, the special abilities were niche and extremely rare.
Some water benders can heal, and a desperate prisoner driven mad created blood bending.

Toph only figured out metal bending because of her blindness and unique badger mole style( being able to bend bits of sediment and imperfections with the metal).

Lightning is extremely dangerous to the user and has to be performed carefully(at least it's supposed to be).

Air benders being able to fly could arguably have been somewhat set up in the orignal series with the guru try to guide Aang towards enlightenment.

Korra retcons everything to retarded levels.

Any shitter fire bender can lightning bend to the point that it is a mundane blue collar job.

Full on psychic blood bending horseshit with Amon.

Lava bending is retarded, and something only the avatar should be able to do as it is two elements.
A earth bender could probably STEER lava, and a fire bender could probably force the heat out of it, but outright creating it is a stupid.

Metal bending seems to be mostly limited to Tophs descendants and their students, but the Magneto style metal bending is taking it too far for me personally.

>Originally, the special abilities were niche and extremely rare.
Only because of specific circumstances.

>Toph only figured out metal bending...
Her unique style of bending made it something she could discover more easily than a regular earthbender. Nothing saying she can't teach it to others once she discovers it.

>Lightning is extremely dangerous to the user and has to be performed carefully(at least it's supposed to be).
It is extremely dangerous to the user if not performed correctly or done in super-dangerous circumstances. But if you know how to do it and you do it right you're fine. Iroh claimed peace of mind was required to do it but Azula was able to do it while undergoing

>Korra retcons everything to retarded levels.
Making things more common decades later =/= retcon

>Any shitter fire bender can lightning bend to the point that it is a mundane blue collar job.
Lightningbending is more common in TLOK but it is still rare, and they are a coveted commodity for power plants.

>Full on psychic blood bending horseshit with Amon.
Bumi bent Earth with his face only, there's no reason Amon/Yakone/Tarrlok can't do what they do.

>Lava bending is retarded, and something only the avatar should be able to do as it is two elements.
>A earth bender could probably STEER lava, and a fire bender could probably force the heat out of it, but outright creating it is a stupid.
If Waterbenders can control the state of water(freeze/steam) why can't Earthbenders control its state(melt/cool)?

>Metal bending seems to be mostly limited to Tophs descendants and their students, but the Magneto style metal bending is taking it too far for me personally.
Again, Bumi bent earth with his face.

Attached: lightningbending.png (1204x1538, 2M)

>Iroh claimed peace of mind was required to do it but Azula was able to do it while undergoing
Azula is a once in a ever prodigy.

>Making things more common decades later =/= retcon
true but it does make it less special and more mundane which is an idiotic "muh power scaling" move

>Lightningbending is more common in TLOK but it is still rare, and they are a coveted commodity for power plants.
This is incredibly fucking stupid. Lightning bending is insanely dangerous and taxing, doing it in shifts to power a power plant for hours at a time should be insanely exhausting.

>Bumi bent Earth with his face only, there's no reason Amon/Yakone/Tarrlok can't do what they do.
He did bend with his face, what motions did the blood benders use to bend?

>If Waterbenders can control the state of water(freeze/steam) why can't Earthbenders control its state(melt/cool)?
They bend rock, even metal bending is seeing the imperfections in the metal and using that to bend, they shouldn't be able to lava bend for the same reason they shouldn't be able to compress Earth to make diamonds, because that's retarded.

>Again, Bumi bent earth with his face.
Yes, because he was the best Earth bender on the planet.

Poisonous gas like carbon monoxide? Acidic gas?

It's not canonically from airbending and I don't think astral projection requires airbending. We didn't see anyone else than Jinora doing it but as far as we know, people with great spirit connection might have been able to do it, regardless of their bending. That said, it's my personal opinion and it can't get further than that because we don't know anything about that skill.

That's dumb. It's just creative airbending.

As we never explicitely saw anyone do relevant "soundbending" aside from yelling very loudly, I wouldn't say that it is a special bending. Considering that the technique would require to litteraly bend finescale pressure waves, if it would exist, I think it would be some kind of special bending.

As far as we know, flight would be the only airbending special bending. It's not traditional airbending, it's not only creative airbending, it's really something else. Only known benders able to do it are Guru Laghima, Zaheer and sky bisons (everyone seems to forget that those beasts fly).

>Full on psychic blood bending
>Bumi bent earth with his face
Yea I agree, being able to bend with their mind is no sign of "special bending", Ming-Hua also bent water with her mind as she did'nt have arms.

As far as we know, if we stick to what was presented in both series and other canon products, that's what I personnally would call "special bending". For me, special bending does not necessarily mean that the bender must be extremely talented (e.g. Mako and Bolin). The special bending isn't necessarily exceptional either and can be underwhelming in a fight. A "special bending", for me, is an original extension of the bending, the kind of "outside the box" technique, that is obviously related to the bending. So:

>Water
Bloodbending
Healing
Spiritbending
>Fire
Lightning
Combustion (sparky sparky boom)
Spirity flamy thingy
>Earth
Lava
Metal
Sand
>

cont

>Air
Flight

You know, just taking all the oxygen out of an area, or pumping it in to poisonous levels, would fit the bill and be pretty OP.

>It's not canonically from airbending and I don't think astral projection requires airbending. We didn't see anyone else than Jinora doing it but as far as we know, people with great spirit connection might have been able to do it, regardless of their bending.
Jinora calls it an airbender technique in season 3