Talk:Bending arts/@comment-201.42.190.193-20120318125254/@comment-4888161-20120403015541

You are the one who doesn't seem to get it. Mako and Bolin come from a multiracial family and it was specifically worded that way. If they only were decended from one country, they would not be sibling who could bend two separate elements.

People who are descended from the Fire Nation (or any other nation for that matter) are a race of their own. This is similar to how people decended from China are called "Chinese" and people decended from Japan are known as "Japanese" and that is different. They may both be Asian cultures, but they are separate races. They would likely be insulted if you lumped them together as one race. If you had a person who was half Chinese and half Japanese, they would be considered multiracial, or from a multiracial family. That same dynamic exists with the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom heritage in Mako's and Bolin's family. So that is the politically correct term, and the four nations are technically four different races.

Airbenders are another example. Aang was the last one left, and all airbenders in LOK (that aren't the Avatar as that is the exception to the rule) are decended directly from him. All new airbenders would have to be. Other children were born and raised on Air Temples after the airbender genocide, but none of them became airbenders because they weren't decended from the Air Nomads. They didn't have the proper heritage required for it to be possible that they could become airbenders.

I said this before:

Without being descended from the proper land, a person has no chance to be a bender of the corresponding element. In other words, it's a lineage of RACE and not of family. That lineage doesn't mean that they will become benders of that corresponding element. It just mean that they could (have the chance to become) be. What you are missing about what Bryke meant by saying there were no lineages, is strictly about families of benders and families of non-benders not being what decides it. ''However, it is proven that they must be decended from the proper race.  '   '''And being decended from that race is vital. And being descended from a race is a form of lineage.'' Otherwise, it would not be possible for airbenders to become a population of only 1. It would not be possible for Mako and Bolin to be brothers with different bending elements.

All I'm saying is that lineage (of race not family) has to do with deciding bending eligibility. It doesn't even have all to do with deciding that. It just has a role in deciding that. I'll keep it at that for now. But lineage (of race) and the spiritual stuff are both two out of an unknown number of factors that add up to an unknown whole that will, as Bryke said, never be fully revealed anyways. I'm not saying I know everything that goes into it. I don't. Spirituality was confirmed. And lineage of race is also a factor and was confirmed to be part of it. Even if it hadn't (and it has) been confirmed, It would still be cannon based off all the evidence we get in the show.