Htydjtk

I was wondering but how exactly does Lava Bending work?

In The Legend of Korra it didn't seem to be explained at all. I was wondering but isn't Lava supposed to be a firebending ability?

I don't have a picture, but remember back in Avatar: The Last Airbender, when Roku destroyed the Fire Sages temple dedicated to Avatar Roku himself, that he used a combination of firebending to bend the lava to destroy everything.

So how is it possible to do Lava bending if you're an Earth Bender? Does that mean that a Lava Bender could bend fire as well as earth? Wouldn't Lava Bending require bending heat/fire?

No canon explanation of the power of lava-bending has been released. It was thought only an avatar could perform this ability. We have seen that highly skilled Earth-benders can also perform this ability.

Lavabending is a technique which involves the manipulation of molten rock. The technique is typically only performed by fully realized Avatars while in the Avatar State in order to accomplish complex feats of bending. The first known user of this technique was the Fire Nation Avatar who preceded Yangchen, who used it to cause the simultaneous eruption of small four volcanoes. - ↑ Ehasz, Aaron, Ehasz, Elizabeth Welch, Hedrick, Tim, O'Bryan, John (writers) & Volpe, Giancarlo (director). (March 17, 2006). "The Avatar State". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 2. Episode 1. Nickelodeon.

SPECULATION:

From its rarity, it can be assumed lava-bending is not a common ability. We have only ever seen 5 people (Kyoshi, Yangchen, Ghazan, Bolin) and Avatar Roku perform it. Lava-bending appears to be an extension of the Earthbending technique. This would be the second such extension of Earthbending with Metal-bending being the first.

• Lava-bending is Earthbending with the addition of heating rock and making it able to be moved and utilized as a liquid. Molten rock is still rock and the lava-bending appears to put the rock under enough pressure to become liquid and able to controlled in a fashion similar to water-bending. The bender is not fire-bending, they are bending a more fluid earth.

Bolin lava-bending, apparently dipping his hand into molten lava to throw it at his opponent, Ghazan, with no fear of being burned.

• I suggest that somehow something is pressurizing the rock because every time Ghazan (Red Lotus Lava-bender) would create a source of lava, he would gesture downward as if he were bringing a great pressure to the rock and then it would become lava and expand as it melted other rock around it. However this is only a theory supported by the visuals.




• The source of the heat which melts the rock into lava, is as of yet, unknown. The ability to lava-bend may provide the energy for the phenomena in the same fashion as fire-bending provides fire from apparently nothing more than the desire of a firebender wanting to create it.




• We know that firebenders can create fire from the very air itself, so it is not unreasonable to assume that lava-benders are also able to create sufficient heat to create pools of self-sustaining lava.




• We have seen with sufficient capacity, a skilled lava bender can create enough self sustaining lava to destroy an entire building made of stone.

Bolin's brother Mako is an accomplished fire-bender and since there have been questions regarding heritage and bending, perhaps this is an indication that capacities in bending may have more to do with genetic heritage than previously supposed. Bolin had no capacity for metal-bending at all, so the two advanced abilities may be mutually exclusive.

Lava bending is literally just the opposite of ice bending, water benders are able to cool water down into ice and some earth benders (Gazon and Bolin) are able to heat the earth up so it melts into lava.

Lava bending isn't available to fire benders as lava is molten earth, lava can cause fires, but lava isn't fire itself. However, I do remember Fire Lord Sozin turning lava back into solid earth by extracting the heat from the lava. Knowing this, I'm questioning why Mako didn't use this technique when Gazon trapped him and the others in the air temple. The only reason I could think of is that he didn't learn the technique.

Why lava bending is so rare and ice bending is a skill that basically every water bender has confuses me quite a bit as the techniques don't really differ that much.

Stand back. I'm going to try science.
Let's recall the mud wrestling scene with Toph and Katara. Neither of them had a problem with the mud. They just found their element within it and went nuts.
Metal is a form of earth. Really, really pure, processed bits of very select earth. Easy enough to bend if you concentrate hard. Oddly enough, one would think lava would be even easier since it's just plain earth. Raw, unrefined, completely mixed up earth. Have you ever really looked at a piece of igneous rock? Especially an intrusive one? It's got a bit of everything in there. If you're lucky enough to get a bit that's happened to cool very slowly you don't even have to look so hard. Try your granite counter tops, or your wealthy friends' granite counter tops.
OK Now, on to the mystic.
Lava is earth + fire. Since the Fire Nation were some big baddies, I imagine the rarity of lava benders is more of a cultural aversion. If not, it would simply be a matter of "Oh, this is just rock. I'll stop it now."
Lightning is fire + air. Among Firebenders, lightning bending is unusual. Not exceptionally rare, just unusual. Then we have, among the Firebenders, Combustion Man and that woman who I am to tired to recall her name. At least a couple different variations among the Firebending people. They're not hug up on themselves.

I think that lavabending is simply liquid earthbending. It could be rare because, as with metalbending, people did not realize the connection between metal and earth and, in this case, lava and earth. Once they did, the ability became common. Again, this is simply a hypothesis but metalbending was once considered rare only because there were no good teachers of it until Toph. Furthermore, I posit that firebenders can CREATE lava, but they are not able to BEND it. For example, I am confident that any firebender could heat up a piece of earth until it liquefied. The masters could presumably do this rapidly and produce hotter lava. However, it will simply remain that: a pool of lava. Great for short-range defense but, without the ability to actually move the lava, it does not serve as an offense for firebenders.

In my opinion both would be able to bend lava. Moreso earthbenders than fire since there is a direct connection as earth and lava are elementally the same. I think only super powerful firebenders would be able to connect with the energy within lava to bend it. Firebending is the connection with one's chi, energy within one's body, that is creating fire. We see firebenders using the outside fire which is energy and Iroh demonstrated that by connecting his energy with another's incoming lightning he could manipulate it and redirect it giving us an instance where a firebender is capable of connecting with outside energy. It stands to reason that a powerful enough firebender with enough control of energy within himself to connect to the energy of lava to be able to bend it. Looking to How Sozin made the lava solidify, I hypothesize that he was in fact connected to the energy of the lava and was draining the lava of its energy slowing down the molecules to solidify. So the connection in essence is the difference to how the two benders would bend the lava. Earthbenders with a direct connection to the lava itself and Firebenders to the energy of the lava

Lava Bending is 100% not Earth Bending. The writers explicitly show lava bending as an immensely powerful form of fire bending in Season 2 Episode 1 of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Aang is trying to figure out how to control the avatar state with the earth kingdom general, and Avatar Roku decides:

It is time you learned. The glow, is a combination of the knowledge and power of all of your past lives.

As Roku is saying this line, we are literally given 4 separate images of avatars performing powerful feats of bending for each element. We see Kioshi, the last earth kingdom avatar, perform an incredible earth bending feat. We then see the last water bending and Air bending Avatars perform their own huge feats, then the second to last fire bending avatar bends lava out of four volcanoes (The last fire bender being Roku which they didn't want to show for some reason).

On top of this, in the first season of Avatar the Last Airbender, in the double episode 'The Solstice' Part 1 and 2, we see Avatar Roku lava bend to destroy the FIRE NATION, FIRE SAGE TEMPLE. This all takes place in the Fire Nation, with a ton of fire benders around, and there is just a lot of fire going on. It would not make sense that they would have Avatar Roku do an advanced form of earth bending to destroy a Fire Sage temple in the Fire Nation with plenty of fire benders to witness it.