Energybending

"neutral"

- In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements but the energy within ourselves. To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable or you will be corrupted and destroyed.

Energybending is the ability to bend life energy. It predates the four main bending arts, as well as the arrival of the Avatar and the formation of the four nations.

Before the arrival of the Avatar into the world and the separation of the four elements, people bent the energy within themselves. At some point, they discovered the other four bending arts, and, over time, the knowledge to perform energybending was almost completely lost. The last known keeper of the art was the ancient lion turtle, who later passed it down to Avatar Aang, who used the ability to remove Fire Lord Ozai's firebending forever.

The capabilities of energybending are not well understood; what is known is that bending a person's life energy can impart them with knowledge instantly or remove one's bending completely. This bending art is dissimilar to the others because it is so perilous to the user, which is why so few have ever used it.

History
After discovering that the mysterious island on which he consulted his past lives was in fact a lion turtle, Aang sought the advice of the ancient creature on what he should do about Ozai, as Aang could not bear the thought of killing someone. He asked for wisdom on how to stop the Fire Lord without taking his life.



The lion turtle answered, "The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginning-less time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light." The lion turtle brought up a paw, his two claws touching Aang's chest and forehead, causing a green light to illuminate, and imparted the knowledge of the art to Aang.

Aang did not understand at first, but was comforted by this wisdom. During the battle with Ozai, Aang was in the Avatar State, and with the combined powers of the past Avatars and all four elements, the Avatar was ready to deal the final blow. At the last second, Aang regained control and exited the Avatar State, refusing to end the Fire Lord's life. Ozai mocked that even though he had all the power in the world, he was still weak. He attempted to attack Aang, who sensed the attack with earthbending and pinned Ozai down again. In this moment, he realized the meaning of the advice of the lion turtle, and he decided to act on it.

The lion turtle told him that in the era before the Avatar existed, the benders did not bend the elements, but the energy within themselves. In order to bend another's life energy, their own spirit must be un-bendable, or they would be corrupted and destroyed.

It is Aang's "true heart" and "true mind", tested in the heat of battle at the moment of striking down Ozai, that allowed him to harness the wisdom of the lion turtle and successfully energybend Ozai.

As this was happening, Aang's entire body glowed white and blue, while Ozai's body shone orange and red, revealing his life energy. At first, Aang's spirit was nearly enveloped by Ozai's, but at the last moment, his spirit took over and covered Ozai, removing his firebending. This was Aang's revelation; if he truly believed he had no right to take life and did not want to try, he would have to risk his own to defeat his enemy without killing him. In doing so, he was able to remain true to his beliefs, and he secured his final victory over the Fire Nation.

Abilities
There are only two known applications of energybending: The ability to transfer knowledge, as shown by the lion turtle when he granted Aang the knowledge of energybending, and the ability to remove another person's bending, as shown when Aang removed Fire Lord Ozai’s firebending.

Dangers
Energybending is an extremely powerful and potentially dangerous technique. If the bender's spirit is even slightly weak, or bendable, then they will be infected by the spirit of the one they are bending. As a result, the bender can be corrupted and even killed.

Notable energybenders

 * The lion turtle
 * Avatar Aang
 * Amon (Legend of Korra)

Trivia

 * The concept of taking away/disabling bending abilities is similarly found in Chinese martial arts literatures where the protagonist "disables" the martial arts abilities (废除武功) of the villain as a merciful alternative to taking his/her life.
 * The chanting that can be heard while the lion turtle speaks to Aang explaining how to energybend, and when the lion turtle first called Aang to sleepwalk/swim to him, is a Buddhist chant "Na Mu A Me Tuou Fu Shi Ne" - spellings vary.
 * The chanting can be likened to the chanting heard by the Sun Warriors.
 * The position of the hands over the heart and forehead while practicing energybending is reflected in the lion turtle's reference to "the true heart" and "the true mind".
 * At a Comic-Con panel in July 2008, Mike and Brian jokingly named this type of bending "Anti-bending" and "Un-bending", since it was never given a name in the series, referring to the ability stripping a person of their bending.
 * While unnamed in the series, the term energybending has been used on Nick.com and in Avatar Extras.
 * It is possible that, as dragons, badgermoles, flying bison and the moon were the primal elemental benders, the lion turtles were the primal energybenders. Another possibility is that humans invented energybending themselves.
 * Energybending is similar to the idea of Akasha in Buddhism and Hinduism in that it is the basis of everything in the world even before the four other elements.
 * Energybending shares similarities to quintessence (Aether), the fifth element in Western culture, which embodies the inner spirit and life energy.
 * Energybending may be seen as a deus ex machina - a plot device that has been forshadowed little, if at all, before being introduced to easily solve a complex problem. However, it has been stated by the creators that the idea had been devised even before the pilot was picked up; In 2003, the creators brainstormed several ideas that made it into the final season, one of which was the fact that Ozai would not be killed by Aang, instead he would be stripped of his powers using a technique available only to Avatars. However, they did not know exactly what the technique was until later.