is bending genetic?

[Victory-Neo]

my bro and i are debaiting this for a while now an i want to know what your opinions is on this subject or is there something i miss?

[PebbleDrop856]

It doesn't seem like it. Toph, Katara, and many other benders didn't have parents who could bend. I would think it depends on the element though. For example, all the Air Nomads were benders. The Royal Family for the Fire Nation seemed to have at least one bender in each generation.

This is all guesses by the way, so some of it may not be true.

[CreativeButLazy]

It's partially genetic, partially a spiritual thing because even with a pair of identical twins one was a bender while the other wasn't.

[Victory-Neo]

CreativeButLazy

It's partially genetic, partially a spiritual thing because even with a pair of identical twins one was a bender while the other wasn't.

my brother was saying something like that, too.

[mintiswirl]

The original series did say that all the children born in the Air nomads were benders, but the other nations it might be genetic, or might not.
In the Aunt Woo fortune telling episode one of the twin boys wasn an earthbender and the other wasn't

[Nekoikoi]

See I think it is genetic because there are benders, but then there are those within a family of benders who cannot bend. For example (which I just realized others are saying too sweatdrop ), in the episode with Aunt Woo, the cloud-reading fortune teller, Aang is hastily making a barrier to protect the village from the volcano lava and requests help from any earthbenders. Twin brothers pop up and one says they can bend, the other says that he cannot. So I think it's right to guess that bending is like any other genetic attribute, just like hair color, height, body type, etc.
I think for cases such as Katara, her Gran-gran came from the north pole which did have benders. The bending gene simply skipped a generation and went to Katara. As for Toph, I think her dad was an earthbender so she just received the bending gene.
This is my theory any ways.
Additionally, in the new series, Legend of Korra, Tenzin's wife is pregnant with their fourth child and says to Katara that she hopes it's not another bender and is normal like her. So this also makes me think it's genetic.

[Victory-Neo]

i heard there's going to be a comic tie in between the last airbender and legend of korra. maybe they can explain it in the comic.

[The Salacious Queen]

Nekoikoi

I think the same thing pretty much. Something being genetic doesn't mean that you will always get the trait, but that you will have a higher chance. and simply because no one in your family carries the trait it doesn't mean that you have no chance of getting the trait just that the odds are lower.

This would also account for the fact that the four bending styles were so divided originally, because the people carrying the traits only mated with each other so there wasn't much of a chance for a water bender carrying an earth bender for instance. In the new series it will be interesting to see if this changes as they all have combined now.

[Nicole Ekishou]

No.

In The Fortuneteller, you had a pair of twins where only one fo them was an Earthbender.

Of Aang and Katara's three children, Tenzin is an Airbender, Kya is a Waterbender, and Bumi can't bend at all.

And of course. Mako is a Firebender, while his brother Bolin is an Earthbender.

The latter is particularly important, as it seems to suggest that one's environment and/or culture may have something to do with what kind of Bender you can be. In the Elemental nations, you only came out as that nation's type of Bender. But in Republic City, which is a melting pot of peoples who don't identify with one particular nation, even siblings can be different types.

[TOXIC_507]

seems to me cause it ruins through the family it all has to deal with genes so......yea i would say its genetic.

[E spiritus Halloween]

It's genetic, with a minor role played by psychology and spirituality.

Thus far there have been no examples of anyone with both parents with no ability to bend or having no bending heritage giving birth to a child who can bend.

Parents with the ability to bend or who are descended from someone who can bend will be more likely to produce a child who can bend. The more benders in their heritage the better the odds seem to be, just look at the air benders.

Now if the child is born to a mixed bending heritage their psychology and spirituality will likely be the thing that determines what sort of bender they will be. With the bending brothers; Bolin is a stockily built, friendly guy who is pretty laid back. In other words he is psychology incompatible with fire bending, but he has the right build for earth bending. His brother Mako is fairly quiet and more of an introvert but has a fierceness of both presence and fighting ability that makes him prefect for fire bending, but absolutely terrible for earth bending.

As far as Sokka and Katara are concerned it's clear that the "bending gene" is pretty diluted in their family. We know that their Mom, Dad, and Grandmother aren't benders, so optimistically that would mean that the best we could hope for is that their Grandfather may have been a water bender. If that were the case that would mean there may have been only a 25% chance that Katara would be born a water bender.

This would have also meant that Aang and Katara's offspring had a 62.5% chance of being a bender.

[Feymark]

It depends on several things; one being the spirituality of the parent. It may be completely random unless the parents are all spiritual to the point where the bending may come from the spirit world (the moon and ocean spirits) and the air acolytes may end up having airbending children.

Although I am interested on whether people have the latent ability to bend all elements. After all, people started out bending the energy inside them and the original elemental benders learned. Even Sokka was confirmed to have potential in waterbending. From what I've seen, all people may have the ability to bend.

If this is the case, Amon may have developed the ability to energybend, as it's just another 'elemen't per se.

[XbuffyxoverxbellaX]

I don't think so, but now that republic city exists and all of this mixing of the nationalities and benders are going on, I really don't know. Maybe it's genetic but it can skip a few generations?

[mischeivous]

Then does anyone know how Mako and Bolin ended up with different elements?

[ixKanamexi]

this helps.ty