

What I mean by this is: take waterbenders for example--they need water to
bend. This is an external source for their bending. An example of an internal
source would be firebending, since it comes from their chi. So do airbenders
rely on an external source because there is air in the world, or does it come
from inside them like firebending?


CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-26T14:51:27.343
55952
2020-04-03T09:31:06.387
2020-03-30T14:15:57.287
36222
50436
question
avatar
Do airbenders rely on an external source to bend or is it all internal


Airbenders bend air. It's all around them, so their bending looks almost as if
they produce it, like firebending. If a waterbender is in the ocean all they
need to do is "push" the water. Airbenders are the same. They rely on the air
around them to bend their respective element.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-02-27T13:44:12.013
56896
2020-03-30T14:15:41.087
2020-03-30T14:15:41.087
36222
50436
55952
answer


The way you define the difference between an external and an internal source,
air benders usually rely on an external source (I'd call it bending material)
- air - but true flight/levitation and some spirit-related abilities like
spirit projection (that may or may not be counted as air bending techniques)
do not since they rely on the spiritual energy of the bender and do not
manipulate air but only the bender themself.

But this relates to what I would call bending material and you asked for the
source. Unfortunately, we have very little lore regarding the source of air
bending. We know water bending relies on the moon and the ocean and fire
bending relies on the sun at least to some degree. avatar.fantom.com names
"air" as the source of air bending, and "earth" as the source of earth
bending. However, this is not backed by any reference or lore and it is
unlikely that it is the (whole) truth since we have no confirmed lore to
support this and the wiki only mentions "sun" as the source of fire bending
but we know that a powerful comet can also fuel or enhance fire bending. It is
unlikely that only water bending is rooted in the spirits - especially since
air bending has a way deeper connection to the spirit in the first place.

So all in all, all bending styles have an external source to some degree even
when we know close to nothing about the sources of air and earth bending and
all bending styles require bending material for most of their techniques with
the distinctiveness that fire bending is the only bending style that usually
needs nothing but the benders own chi as bending material.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-03T09:31:06.387
57144
2020-04-03T09:31:06.387
33164
55952
answer