The Physics of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra
Introduction
As you may have guessed by reading my previous blog posts, I love trying to find explanations in science that could explain the events I see in my favorite science fiction and fantasy stories. To me, it makes the worlds feel more real and lets me enjoy them even more than I already do. So inevitably I found myself with two main thoughts once I got into Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra: “These shows are so good!” and “How does bending work?”
In case you’re unfamiliar, both Avatar and Legend of Korra take place in a world where certain people can control water, earth, fire or air, typically through martial arts. The Avatar is the one person capable of controlling all the elements and is born with access to incredible bending power. These are two of my favorite fantasy series, but I think you might be able to consider them sci-fi fantasy. You see one of the staples of the show is consistency in the way people bend. Benders can only bend in ways that fall in line with what fire, air, water or earth naturally are in the world. For example, earthbenders can only bend metal if it contains paticulates of earth. This is what makes bending feel so natural in the show. As we’ll see later on in this series, even ideas like firebenders manipulating lightning and airbenders being…
