Talk:Airbending/@comment-76.24.189.176-20120121100340/@comment-4521003-20120213074602

Sacra vacca... I don't have enough time to answer all of your points right now, so I'll respond to the  point concerning fire "properties" first. And I do apologize for any contradictions. I assure you they are not intentional, since I stick only to the facts available. I will do my best to clear up the contradictions later.

Flames don't have "properties" like that. If you removed flames from a sulfur fire, the sulfur would not go with it. The sulfur would stay behind because it is not "trapped" in the flame, nor is it possible to "trap" it in the flame in any way. When a fire burns something, that doesn't mean the flame is filled with that substance and that the substance is somehow attatched to the flame. When you put different substances in a flame, only the part of the flame where the substance is burning actually changes. The rest of the flame stays the same, and the entire flame returns to normal once the substance is no longer in the flame. If flames took on "properties" like you say, then the part of the fire the substance touched would stay different, yet it doesn't. (And I know it is a fact that the flames return to normal because of lab experiments I have performed myself.)  If a firebender removed flames from a sulfur fire, they actually would cease to be sulfur flames once there was no sulfur to burn. The flames are only sulfur flames as long as they physically are burning sulfur. And the same goes for anything else you try using to "fill" a flame.

Also, controlling fire doesn't mean controlling oxygen. Oxygen is everywhere in the atmosphere, so bending fire does not require controlling oxygen like you insist. Fire is separate from oxygen. Oxygen is only a fuel source, not something that is an actual part of the flame. It is possible to burn a fire without oxygen, too. There are special reactions that don't involve the typical combustion reaction that still produce a flame. So flames themselves must not be all that tied to oxygen, since if they were then such unique reactions would not be possible.

If flames can be made without a regular combustion reaction, then that means the fire that firebenders use does not have to be made with oxygen. The energy required for flames can come from something other than the normal chemical reaction, so the essence of flame is not tied directly to oxygen. In addition, the fact that firebenders don't burn a fuel source is even stronger proof that oxygen is not an integral part of creating flames to bend. The reason oxygen is so important in regular fire is because the oxygen is necessary for the chemical reaction whn something is burning, but firebenders don't appear to be burning anything. There is nothing to suggest that firebenders rely on oxygen. Even if they did, that doesn't mean the firebenders would be able to manipulate oxygen. If firebenders could manipulate oxygen, they would be airbenders, not firebenders.

(I'm not done, but I must leave this discussion. I will return later.)