Talk:Air Nomads/@comment-142.59.79.172-20110102231008

Though it is said that genetics have nothing to do with one's bending capability, I do see a certain relationship between genes and bending. Thus I devised a reasonable explaination (at least to me) to make sense of the whole ordeal. My theory is that there is three parts in determining whether someone will be able to bend or not.

First there is "potential", a.k.a. genes/lineage/ancestry. This potential will fundamentally determine whether someone would have the the ability to bend and what kind of element they are capable of bending. The bending ability acts like any other human feature, such as eye colour, hair colour, bone structures, and such, and could be passed down through a bloodline, though there could be gaps, like how Katara is a waterbender while her parents and brother are not. For the record, even identical twins aren't identical, although identical twins have the same genotype, or DNA, they have different phenotypes, meaning that the same DNA is expressed in different ways, thus one twin maybe capable of earthbending and the other cannot.

The second factor would be "spirituality", or understanding, enlightenment, and personality. Basically, a bender would have to have a innate understanding of his/her affliated element to be able to bend. This is shown by the fact that most (not all) firebenders have aggressive personalities, because a timid and shy person who is a pacifist do not have the spirituality, understanding, and personality to match the aggresive and passionate nature of fire.

The third key part to bending is "technique", which is self-explanatory, one must have the proper way of directing and controlling his/her element to be able to be bend. Thus in history there are people "learning" from animals and celestial bodies about the secrets of bending.

Of course, this is all based on theory, and doesn't really explain how avatars came to be. Oh well, everything here is fictional though, so we'll just have to wait and see, afterall, the creators have the final say.