Mastering the Elements: Avatar Conflict Analysis

Last year my family was rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender. (I know it’s a kid’s show, but it also has some of the best character development on TV and a surprisingly developed stance on colonialism and intergenerational trauma, and one day I will write a post about repentance primarily by talking about Zuko and it will bring you to tears.)

If you haven’t seen it, the general plot is that there are four nations, each characterized by different “bending” or control over the elements (fire, air, water, earth). One hundred years previous to the beginning of the show, the fire nation began taking over the other nations, which it was able to do partly because the Avatar, the one person each generation who was able to do all four kinds of bending, disappeared. In the first episode, Aang, the Avatar, comes back and begins his quest to restore balance to the world. 

One day, my mom and I were analyzing an encounter she’d had earlier that week, and I said, “I think the problem is that you were trying to firebend, but you’re an earthbender.”

She stopped what she was doing. “Say that again,” she said. And thus, Avatar Conflict Analysis (ACA) was born.

You think I’m kidding, and the only part I’m kidding about is the name. Mom and I started talking about this all the time. What does it mean to be an earthbender and what does it mean to be a firebender? Do people only do one kind of bending when they do conflict or can they do multiple? Can they do multiple at once?

We’ve been talking about this for almost a year now, and we’ve come to some conclusions. We’ve decided that in ACA individuals practice a variety of bending, basing their responses on the circumstances, relationships at play, how much sleep they’ve gotten, etc. But while we all can do any kind of bending, most of us have home bases. We have bending styles that come most naturally to us and others that take more effort.

The other thing we’ve decided rather unequivocally is that the bending itself is amoral. Any type of bending can be used for good or bad. (Interestingly, this is true in the show too—there are good guys and bad guys from every nation. It’s one of the things I like about it.) What determines the morality of an interaction is not the bending used but the integrity that is employed in the bending.

I really, really like this way of looking at conflict. I like it, partially, because it lets me name. I can say, “Austin, I feel like you’re airbending me—what’s going on?” I also like it because I can imagine using it with my kids, who are absolutely going to grow up with The Last Airbender anyway. I can imagine us doing the movements together, trying to figure out which type of bending will work best in which situation.

Firebending

“Fire is the element of power. The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will and the energy and drive to achieve what they want.”—Uncle Iroh, “Bitter Work,” Book 2, Episode 9

Firebending is usually in attack mode. Even firebending’s defensive maneuvers are kind of offensive. Firebending is intended to alarm or to hurt or defend (or all three at once). It can also be used to burn things down—to stop a relationship, a conversation, an idea—and it is almost always characterized by strong feelings, like fear, conviction, or pain.

Like all the other bending modes, fire bending can be used for good or for evil. It’s standing up for someone in your work place who is being hurt by racism or sexism. It’s also shouting at the waitress for getting your order wrong. The time my dad spanked one-year-old me to teach me not to run into the street, he was fire bending. But so was the person who slapped around their kid around for a bad math test grade. Firebending is the Allies and it is the Axis Powers. It is powerful, and it can be used for good and bad. 

A lot of the time firebenders are also airbenders, because firebenders generally experience conflict as destructive—in their experience, it burns things down. So, unless they are strongly motivated or really into drama, people who are inclined towards fire bending often avoid conflict, a conflict style that airbending embodies. 

Airbending

“Air is the element of freedom. The Air Nomads detached themselves from worldly concerns and found peace and freedom. Also, they apparently had pretty good senses of humor.”—Uncle Iroh,“Bitter Work,” Book 2, Episode 9

Airbenders primarily avoid conflict. They jump out of its way or they try to deflect it. They tend to not bring up things that are bothering them. They likely subscribe to “forgive and forget.” They don’t hold grudges or let things get them down for long.

Airbending isn’t the same thing as peacemaking. Peacemaking can be any type of bending that’s being used for good even if it leads to conflict, because true peace is not characterized by a lack of conflict but rather relationships that are full of earned trust. But airbenders are peacekeepers. Their primary goal is that conflict not occur at all or that, when it does, it ends quickly.

Like firebenders, airbenders generally associate conflict with destruction, and they often don’t believe in repair. That is, consciously or not, they often think that something broken will remain so. So most of the time they choose not to put relationships or themselves at risk by provoking or engaging in conflict.

Airbending is smoothing things over and helping everyone feel better when a dinner party almost got contentious. It’s also refusing to acknowledge when something hurtful happened. Airbending is people pleasing and bending over backwards and turning the other cheek, assuming the best of the people around you. It’s also the U.S. refusing to enter WWII. It is social grace and it’s taking the long way home because you don’t want to run into someone.

Waterbending

“Water is the element of change. The people of the Water Tribes are capable of adapting to many things. They have a sense of community and love that holds them together through anything.”—Still Uncle Iroh, “Bitter Work,” Book 2, Episode 9

Waterbending has to do with redirecting energy, social and interpersonal. I usually associate water bending with a term from a different fantasy series: people speaking. (This term is from The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, which is straight up one of the most satisfying books I’ve ever read.) People speaking is having influence over how other people see the world. It is, my dad would say, the ability to tell the story and make it stick.

At its best, water bending is channeling and creating positivity, peace, and understanding. It’s the ability to take aggression and direct it somewhere that is not harmful. Waterbenders can use their abilities to heal the people around them. They can tell stories that are empathetic and complex and recognize the humanity of everyone involved.

At its worst, waterbending is manipulative. It’s the ability to be aggressive, to cause pain, to be selfish without looking like you are. In ATLA, this is presented in the form of bloodbending—bending the water in someone else’s body to force them to do what you want them to. The worst waterbending tries to deny other people their agency.

Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Lincoln, Hitler, Mao, Pahoran—they were all people speakers, and they were all waterbenders. Waterbenders can redirect conversations and interactions. They can make things go differently than they otherwise would have. 

Earthbending

“Earth is the element of substance. The people of the Earth Kingdom are diverse and strong. They are persistent and enduring.”—It’s always going to be Uncle Iroh, “Bitter Work,” Book 2, Episode 9

Earthbending is standing your ground. It’s planting your feet. It’s recognizing where you’re at. Earthbending is hard to describe without earth-related metaphors. In earthbending, you listen and communicate carefully. You say what you mean, and you try to understand what other people mean (even if they’re not saying it directly). Earthbending is seeking to see yourself and others clearly.

Earthbending often requires the ability to clearly differentiate between your energy and someone else’s. There’s a Hawaiian word I’ve never found a good replacement for in English—kuleana. It means stewardship, honor, area of influence. Earthbending means recognizing what is and what is not your kuleana. To that end, earthbending is often non-complimentary behavior: not reflecting the attitude or the behavior of the person you’re interacting with but carefully choosing a different, often opposite response. When someone is unkind to you, earthbending is responding with kindness. (There’s a truly fabulous Invisibilia episode about this.)

At its best, earth bending is practicing integrity and being firmly rooted in your convictions. It’s the Anti-Nephi-Lehis. It’s Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.—active resistance to and recognition of what is wrong and a refusal to respond to evil with evil. It’s acting instead of being acted upon. Earthbending being where and what you are and seeing with clear eyes. At its worst, it is stonewalling, the silent treatment, or a refusal to move from your position even when you know you’re wrong. Misused earthebending can ruin relationships and can perpetuate harm.

The Avatar State

“It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it become rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations, will help you become whole. It is the combination of the four elements in one person that makes the Avatar so powerful.”—Uncle Iroh, “Bitter Work,” Book 2, Episode 9

The ultimate bending in The Last Airbender is being an Avatar, a master of all four elements. Avatars can decide what type of bending works best at for any particular situation. They can combine types of bending, adapting easily. Avatars have the capability to do conflict well and wisely. All types of bending are required; none of them are complete without the others.

The goal is not to never do one kind of bending or always do another—it is to be an Avatar. Jesus, I would submit, was an Avatar. He firebended when he interacted with the Pharisees, when he called Peter Satan. He waterbended when he told those who were sinless to throw a stone.  He airbended when he said to render to Cesar that which was Cesar’s. And earthbended when he was with Pilot, when he didn’t answer stupid questions. Jesus was an Avatar, and he said, “Be like me.”