Eturnalshift wrote:
If a fire bender can manipulate heat, does that mean he could also create an absence of heat by shifting the energy elsewhere from his target? Can water benders manipulate water in all forms, such as ice and vapor? Can earth benders manipulate things like diamonds; if so, can they manipulate organic life since Carbon exists therein?
Also, if I'm bending a pencil, does the mass remain the same; if I stretch a 10" pencil over 3', will the width get thinner or will there be some creation of matter?
Near as I can tell, firebenders can only increase heat. They can make fire spring out of nothing, but there's no evidence on screen of them ever using their power to even diminish the power of a flame, which leads me to believe that they can't. Their fire also holds a considerable amount of kinetic energy, and less actual burning. That tends to be reserved for plot device and lightning.
Waterbenders can play with ice and vapor, and can leech water out of plants and trees (though for the most part, they don't know this; some crazy old witch finds out she can do this and teaches the primary water chick). The extent to which they can manipulate water in human beings is puppeteering, and this is demonstrated as unbelievably difficult (the same two characters know the trick, and even then the crazy old witch can only do it during the full moon).
For the most part, earthbenders just throw rocks, walls, anything made of stone. There's at least one example of someone bending gem-like material, and some earthbenders bend coal in one episode, but only one earthbender in the world can bend metal. There's nothing to indicate they have any control over Carbon as a periodic element, since for the most part what they can and can't bend is intuitive and makes sense in terms of classical elements.
Mass remains the same, at least for earthbending. Waterbending is a bit harder to judge on the fly, and the other two elements don't really have mass, nor is it even relevant since both air and fire can spontaneously create their respective elements.
/nerd
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