bolins-mustache:
wow guys
i’m probably really dumb for not knowing this right now
but a friend on facebook just asked me why fire benders are able to make fire from nothing
while earth and water benders have to have earth and water nearby to use their powers
and i’m not really sure what to tell her since i don’t actually know WHY fire benders can use their powers without a source
Well, fire is just a form of energy, both heat and light. It’s also combustion of oxygen, in which oxygen reacts with something to form something else while releasing heat and light energy. Since the original benders bended (bent?) the chi, or energy of their body, to create bending itself, let’s assume that firebenders use their own energy to cause a reaction of oxygen and something else, or else combust it. Therefore, the firebenders don’t make fire from nothing, they use their chi to ignite the air itself. That may also mean their firebending is much stronger in a place with a higher content of oxygen or any other flammable gas. We can also say that bending does not work in anywhere without oxygen in it’s gas form, so it can’t happen in space or a vacuum in general.
But this is all based on eleventh grade chemistry, which is a class I am not extremely successful in, so I may be incorrect.