<p>Shadowbending is non-canonical, the only time it appeared was as a result of a contest for children, in a one-off publicity comic whose existence was never acknowledged by the main story. </p>

<p>I want shadowbending to be a thing really bad. It just seems so dark, mysterious and evil. I like the dark side of bending and I absolutely loved every moment of bloodbending in the series. But like most of you I have no idea how it'd actually work. If it was just manipulating shadows it could be pretty weak because more experienced benders would know that they're fighting a shadowbender so there's nothing to be afraid of.  </p><p>But I can see a few uses to shadowbending. Like creating copies of yourself to confuse the enemy.  </p>

I still think it'd be most likely the abillity of some powerfull spirit.

<p>In my opinion, shadowbending should be a psychic power that is unleashed from the human's unconscious cognitive functions, that are not used by a human's personality like the conscious ones in everyday life. The shadowbender has to have some sort of awakening in his unconscious personality traits or functions, to be able to control the enemy's brain and make him/her hallucinate and create illusions in the opponent's mind, and make it believable in front of his eyes by using the bender's Imagination and Intuition to trick him/her in whatever the bender desires. </p><p>In addition to this, shadowbendi​ng has to have something that makes it more special so why not. This power is called shadow for a reason, using it's term for controlling the shadow of the offender or objects against them or a way of escape and cover is very effective. Also the fact that most of it is sorcery or some kind of black magic used by mages and sorcerers, makes it difficult for the enemy to find and hunt down their weak point. </p><p>To top it off, with the power of shadows, they can use their own shadows to go possess other's and have physical control over the body of the possessed person but not their mind. This is the theory that I have from shadowbenders, I hope you agree with me and my ideas of how I want this to be.link to understand cognitive functions </p><p>Thx for reading!!! </p>

<p>What martial art would shadowbenders (Like analay) use? </p>

<p>Well, as it's depicted in that comic, she's able to propel her shadow as an construct that is at least amorphous enough to twist in the wind, plus it's presumably solid. The shadow's ability to change shape & bind the opponent would be the single greatest advantage it has over the "other" elements. The only thing that comes close is waterbending, & even that's not able to change shape as freely, since Analay doesn't seem to need to do much to control her shadow, whereas Katara needed tons of movement to maintain the multi-tentacle technique. This would classify it as a soft martial art, which means that the styles of waterbending/tai-chi & airbending/Baguazhang would suit it fairly well. However, a unique martial art would be better, since your opponent would be less likely to know the moves. </p><p>Given that, to make use of that advantage, you'd probably something fluid, but which uses a lot of grappling. According to Wikipedia, jujutsu is the progenitor for a lot of modern forms of grappling martial arts, such as judo. Bending often imitates a weapon, & in this case there would be a lot of whip & net style moves. Whips are used in Chinese martial arts, but since I can't find any information on that, the closest I could suggest is incorporating some techniques from Filipino martial arts, such as kali. </p><p>Also, I don't know if there are specific martial arts that focus on it, but the shadow's opacity, as well as its ability to rapidly & easily change size & shape, are all qualities that would lend it well to feinting & other distraction techniques. Especially because it could likely stretch to attack from multiple angles simultaneously. </p>

<p>Since shadows are just areas where light doesn't reach fully, we'd firstly have to determine which benders can bend light, these benders should also be shadowbenders then </p>

<p>Ahh, then if it's her own shadow, does that mean she's OP or NoP under a new moon? </p>

<div class="quote"><i> <p>NervousShipper wrote: Ahh, then if it's her own shadow, does that mean she's OP or NoP under a new moon? </p> </i></div>
<p>I would say, she has no power under a new moon </p>

I always thought airbenders would be able to manipulate light using mirages and changes in air pressure but I'm not sure if that could translate into shadowbending