Edit: How the Air Nomads Likely Survived, Part 2 http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:1044902
Many strange and impossible things have occurred in the Avatar universe, even taking into consideration the already high concentration of weirdness in this fictional world, ranging from a few adolescents taking on an army to the rare skill of lightning generation becoming commonplace. But, in my opinion, the strangest is the apparent extinction of the Air Nomads at the beginning of the Hundred Year War. All through the wonderful Last Airbender and Legend of Korra cartoons, my mind kept on coming back to that first blow the Fire Nation struck against the world. Something just didn’t seem right about the whole affair, even given the broader context given by the wiki (thanks for that, by the way). Something kept bugging me about the event, and for a while, I really couldn’t put my finger on it. So, eventually, I put my nose to the grindstone to figure out why the genocide of the Air Nomads fascinated me so, and I came up with the following reasons.
1. The Air Nomads clearly knew about the upcoming war
As detached as the Nomads were, they seemed to know something was up with the Fire Nation around the time that Aang found out he was the Avatar. Aside from the general feeling of doom felt by the Southern Air Temple Monk’s Council, their decisions involving Aang (which we will get to in a bit) shows that they had a general idea of what was to happen soon, that being the War. Which makes sense, given the nomadic nature of most of the population; someone has to have noticed the Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom. Heck, they were around for years, springing up just before the end of Roku’s reign as Avatar. Being the wise people they were, the Nomads must have known that such an act would lead to open war with the Fire Nation being the aggressor.
Then we have the general knowledge of which nation the Avatar would hail from, and the further knowledge of the Nomads of who exactly the Avatar was. While the attacks on the Air Temples couldn’t have been predicted with 100% accuracy, we can tell that the Air Nomads had a feeling that they would come under fire in some way, given the rushed nature of revealing Aangs nature to him, and the decision to move him to the Eastern Air Temple. The monks knew that Aang needed to know his duties and fast, as a massive and very obvious war was on the horizon. Now, if the Nomads truly felt that they were untouchable, chances are that they wouldn’t feel as pressured to reveal the Avatar so young. Even if that decision was more for convenience, the decision to move Aang clearly was not. The plan, if I remember correctly, was to move Aang to the Eastern Air Temple, the temple farthest away from the Fire Nation that also has easy access to the eastern Earth Kingdom, namely Ba Sing Se. This was clearly no random choice; the monks wanted an easy escape route for Aang if their hunches were correct and the Fire Nation made their move on the Nomads.
Also, as a side note, this couldn’t have been the first time the Air Nomads have come under attack. Given their pacifistic natures and the abilities of the other nations, they make too tempting a target for a largely imperialistic world
2. They are Air Nomads
I know that seems like a redundancy, but let’s look at the name and culture of this particular nation a bit. These are Nomads, not just monks. Whenever we see the air temple, we mostly see the elderly and the young, rarely the young adults or middle aged. Where are they? If their name shows anything, they’re likely abroad, only stopping at the temples for a brief rest before going off to new adventures. I bring this up due to the nature of the initial attack of the Fire Nation. For some reason (most likely due to the mysterious nature of the Nomads and their homes), they believed that the majority of the Airbenders would be at the temples, which makes no sense given their wandering natures. All they would be attacking would be the young, who were probably evacuated as best as possible (difficult given the power granted to firebenders by Sozin’s comet, but not impossible), and the master benders of the entire nation. The rest and majority of the population, again given their natures, would most likely scatter, leaving the Fire Nation to change tactics to wipe out most of the population… again. Which brings me to my next point…
3. Every adult Air Nomad has access to the airbending equivalent of a flying tank
Appa kicks butt, and everyone knows it. When he’s at full health, he can take down thick walls with a flick of his tail, then fly up to get the high ground, so to speak, on his opponents. Add to that high intelligence and a massive bulk, and you have one heck of a battle mount. And almost every single Air Nomad had one. This is why I’m thinking that the ambush approach that the Fire Nation used may not have gone as well as the propaganda (again, we’ll get to that) would have you believe. Even if the Fire Nation was able to pick off most of a nation one by one, they still have to deal with the sky bison, one of the most powerful animals on the planet. Even against a group of firebenders, the combined strength of an airbender and his/her mount was likely more than enough to deal with most attacks. The attacks of the Fire Nation had to be both overwhelming and meticulously planned, the former of which is fairly unlikely given the now full blown War; it’s a bit difficult to focus a great many troops on a few elusive benders when you have the entirety of the Earth Kingdom to deal with. While I’m sure that the tactic worked on some airbenders, most likely novices, it couldn’t have worked 100% of the time, not with a sky bison at the back of every Nomad.
4. The Fire Nation assumes that all the Air Nomads went to the Earth Kingdom, specifically the parts of the Earth Kingdom that they control/have easy access to.
I must say, the strategy that the Fire Nation used to eliminate Air Nomads after the initial raid on the temples was pretty clever. Why hunt down your enemies all across the world when you can make them come to you, especially when you have the resources of the most powerful nation in the Avatar world at your back? Of course, even this great plan falls to a bad assumption. The whole crux of the ambush plan was to spread rumors throughout the Earth Kingdom about the “safe havens”. While this is a good bet, why do they assume that all the Air Nomads fled to the Earth Kingdom? There are plenty of unoccupied lands that could make good hiding places for the displaced Nomads, especially given the fact that apparently there are places in even the Fire Nation where no one goes, like the ruins of the Sun Warriors. You also have the stronghold of the Northern Water Tribe, providing plenty of empty land for the Nomads, though the whole “we don’t eat meat” thing might bite them in the butt when it comes to nutrition.
Even those who escaped to the Earth Kingdom would have an easy time hiding, given the vast and fragmented land holdings. On top of that, how exactly did the Fire Nation expect their little rumors to get to every single Air Nomad who happened to flee to the Earth Kingdom, given the size of the Earth Kingdom, the isolated nature of many of the settlements, and the limited range of influence of the Fire Nation beyond the colonies?
And now, probably the most important reason of all…
5. The Fire Nation would have advertised that they destroyed all the Nomads whether they actually did or not.
This point is mostly speculation, but I think it still makes sense given the background info of the war.
Let’s face facts, the Fire Nation’s main worry wasn’t just the Avatar in the beginning of the war. The first Fire Nation colonies sprang up when there was a full-fledged Avatar walking/flying around. Even if the Fire Nation did succeed in killing the Avatar and every last Air Nomad, it would take 3 more lives for the Avatar Cycle to truly come to a close. Clearly, the Fire Nation was going to start a war whether the Avatar was involved or not, especially given its immense technological prowess and man power. How does this play into the likely survival of the Air Nomads? One word: propaganda.
Its been pretty well established that the Fire Nation twisted facts pretty severely when it came to the War, especially when it came to the Air Nomads, painting them as a legitimate military force rather than a militia at most (not to say airbenders couldn’t hold off an attack, they just weren’t proper soldiers). Who’s to say they twisted the facts surrounding the complete desolation of a major power, both to increase moral for their own troops but to also demoralize their opponents. Or perhaps the Fire Nation wanted to make its opponents fly into a war blindly, fueled by emotion and fervor rather than causes that would result in more preparation.
They most likely wouldn’t have to worry about airbenders appearing after a while. Given the Nomads disdain for combat and the obvious reason why they were targeted, they would most likely follow tradition and cut themselves off from the rest of the world completely, perhaps even at the cost of their wandering natures. All the Fire Nation would have had to do was keep up the pressure for a while until no more Nomads showed their face and not mention any reports of Air Nomads escaping ambushes. Then they could brag about destroying an entire nation till the hippo-cows came home.
6. It is ridiculously easy to hide in the world of Avatar.
This is more of a reason of how the Nomads could have survived rather than why they probably did, but, again, I felt it needed recognition
Anyone else notice that hidden colonies and civilizations seem to be freaking everywhere in Avatar? The Foggy Swamp tribe, the Sun Warriors, and the lost colony of 2 ton sky bison seemed to have a pretty easy time of hiding from the rest of the world, even given that some of them, like the new sky bison, should have been incrediably obvious to passersby. Apparently, an anthropologist of Ba Sing Se never looked at a lush swamp and said, “Hey, maybe people live there!”. Not once did a Fire Nation citizen come across the ruins of the Sun Warriors and notice movement, loud chanting/drumming, or fire. Even with improved transportation, it is easy to make oneself scarce in this universe. Given the scattered Air Nomads probably knew that they were specifically targeted, they could make like a lost library and disappear into the apparent vastness of the Avatar world. Even if they did decide to go to, say, the Earth Kingdom or Northern Water Tribe (their best bets for safety), they could easily cover or obscure their tattoos as Aang has several times.
TL:DR I find it unlikely that the Air Nomads truly went extinct, given that they clearly knew about the War in advance, they were much less centralized than the other nations in keeping with their Nomad name, almost every one of them had access to the animal equivalent of an airbending tank, the Fire Nation’s strategy hinged on some shaky planning, the Fire Nation would have claimed to have killed all the Nomads regardless of whether they did or not, and it is ridiculously easy to hide in the world of Avatar, especially given the elusive nature of the Air Nomads themselves.
So, I wouldn’t be that surprised to learn that the current “last airbenders” aren’t the only ones around, though any remaining Nomads may be singing a slightly different tune.
Thoughts?
Edit: How The Air Nomads Likely Survived, Part 2 http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:1044902