Bending personalities and natural opposites

[justadarling]

Okay so can someone explain bending personalities to me? Air and water are the calm elements while earth and fire are more aggressive. But what breaks it down farther than that? How would I describe the difference between water and air? I guess I could say firebenders are generally more hot headed and aggressive while earth benders are not exactly aggresive but strong and firm so that takes care of that xp

Another thing is that when Aang was having trouble earthbending, Toph told him it was because he was an airbender and earth was his natural opposite. But when Korra can't airbend, Tenzin tells her it's because air was opposite to her personality. Toph didnt say anything about personality. She just said the element itself was opposite. So if that was true, wouldn't Korra have trouble with firebending instead of airbending?

I feel like Aangs personality wasnt as opposite to earthbending as it was to fire. Aang was really passive an avoided confrontation which i feel is most opposite to fire, which is super aggressive. So I feel like they kind of tweaked the natural opposite thing so that LoK would be more interesting by having airbending be hard for her to grasp.

I dunno, what do you think?

[FireStat]

From what i remember, Toph told Aang that after he suggested going at the rock from another angle.

So i guess it's something like

Earth: Face Challenges head on and stand firm like a mountain would against wether.

Air: Avoid confrontation and move around/with resistances, like wind would move around an object rather than through it.

Water: Strike a balance between good and bad/ receiving and taking, like a flowing stream that jusst carries along what ever falls into it.

Fire:ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK Kind of hard to place since there are apparently 2 ways to bend fire (the sun warriors and the fire nation. one of which was fueled by rage, the other of which wasn't.

[justadarling]

FireStat

From what i remember, Toph told Aang that after he suggested going at the rock from another angle.

So i guess it's something like

Earth: Face Challenges head on and stand firm like a mountain would against wether.

Air: Avoid confrontation and move around/with resistances, like wind would move around an object rather than through it.

Water: Strike a balance between good and bad/ receiving and taking, like a flowing stream that jusst carries along what ever falls into it.

Fire:ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK Kind of hard to place since there are apparently 2 ways to bend fire (the sun warriors and the fire nation. one of which was fueled by rage, the other of which wasn't.

Ahhh perfect thanks :3

[CreativeButLazy]

Nope Aangs opposite was earth. As an airbender Aang was taught to avoid conflict. Like Tenzin explained, when met with conflict an airbender must be ready to change their course at a moments notice. This way of thinking is exactly opposite to earthbending where one needs to stand their grand and face conflict head on. He had to learn to stand his ground when all his instincts told him to flee.

Now with Korra, it's different. Theoretically her opposite should be fire, the rash and pationate element where water is calm and serene, but she doesn't have a typical waterbending personality. My theory is that since she started out bending 3 elements instead of only her supposedly original element, she never got the instincts of a waterbender ingrained into her the same way Aang did with airbending. So her instincts reflect her temperament which is actually more like an earthbender and firebender, since she likes to charge at things head on, and has a bit of a temper. And this is completely opposite to the ways of airbending which is why she has so much trouble with it. She has to rewire her natural instincts the same way Aang had to when her first learned earthbending.

[justadarling]

CreativeButLazy

Nope Aangs opposite was earth. As an airbender Aang was taught to avoid conflict. Like Tenzin explained, when met with conflict an airbender must be ready to change their course at a moments notice. This way of thinking is exactly opposite to earthbending where one needs to stand their grand and face conflict head on. He had to learn to stand his ground when all his instincts told him to flee.

Now with Korra, it's different. Theoretically her opposite should be fire, the rash and pationate element where water is calm and serene, but she doesn't have a typical waterbending personality. My theory is that since she started out bending 3 elements instead of only her supposedly original element, she never got the instincts of a waterbender ingrained into her the same way Aang did with airbending. So her instincts reflect her temperament which is actually more like an earthbender and firebender, since she likes to charge at things head on, and has a bit of a temper. And this is completely opposite to the ways of airbending which is why she has so much trouble with it. She has to rewire her natural instincts the same way Aang had to when her first learned earthbending.

Mm yea, I get it now :3 I was having some problems because I was only paying attention to temperament, really. Silly silly me xD

[hanaikimoto]

FireStat

From what i remember, Toph told Aang that after he suggested going at the rock from another angle.

So i guess it's something like

Earth: Face Challenges head on and stand firm like a mountain would against wether.

Air: Avoid confrontation and move around/with resistances, like wind would move around an object rather than through it.

Water: Strike a balance between good and bad/ receiving and taking, like a flowing stream that jusst carries along what ever falls into it.

Fire:ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK Kind of hard to place since there are apparently 2 ways to bend fire (the sun warriors and the fire nation. one of which was fueled by rage, the other of which wasn't.

Thank you, this is really helpful! One of my friends keeps asking me about how this works, so I'm going to show her this!