Talk:Energybending/@comment-68.38.48.32-20110323021401

I can't believe all the bickering everyone's posting on here about energy-bending being a fifth element.

It appears that energy-bending was the pre-cursor to the current four elemental bending arts. As quoted from the above article, "Before the arrival of the Avatar into the world, and the separation of the four elements, people bent the energy within themselves." So TECHNICALLY, energy-bending is not a separate bending art from the four. I believe it was Iroh who said that the four elements are combined in everyone (my apologies if I accidentally butchered that). It seems to be more or less a bending of all the elements together, which would be life, in a person.

I can see then why only a fully-realized Avatar would be the only human with the ability to use the technique. The Avatar can use all four elements, and would therefore have access to bending life energy, since energy bending was done before the four elements were separated.