Talk:Air Acolytes/@comment-72.22.124.129-20120411031221/@comment-108.81.17.211-20120512232220

I kind of assumed everyone in the Avatar Universe was reincarnated. The only reason the Avatar is able to easily access their previous lives is because they have the strongest spirtual influence of any other person on Earth and were able to find their previous incarnations because the left some type of spirtual-cosmic scar on their minds or spirit.

Maybe bending is based on the reincanation of spirits. Spirits that were airbenders in past lives will reincarnate into airbenders into their next life--same with all the other elements. The only reason they were most frequently born into their respective nations was because those spirits had a preference in doing so because they might have had some type of emotional attachment there, like family and friends. Kind like how Korra just so happened to be reincarnated into the South Pole, were Katara lived, and Aang reincarnated into the Southern Air Temple, where Monk Gyasto, a friend of Avatar Roku, lived.

So, that being said, it might not be impossible for airbenders to have been reincarnated. It's just that the art form of airbending was lost.

And maybe bending is just an individual spirit--an 'impurity' that latches itself onto a soul of a person that will them be able to manipulate the elements. That would explain why their bending could be taken away without them being killed--just severely weakend.

IDK. Just speculation. I put too much thought into this, lol. Or maybe I read it somewhere but forgot where, so...don't shoot me if you've read this or something like this elsewhere....