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Waterbending, one of the four Bending Arts, is a hydrokinetic and cryokinetic ability to control water and its forms, combining this with martial arts. The people of the Southern Water Tribe, the Northern Water Tribe, and a few in the Earth Kingdom (though these are of Southern Water Tribe ancestry) mastered this technique some time ago. Its season is winter.
Origin
Source: Moon Learned From:The Moon
The people of the Water Tribe first learned Waterbending by observing how the moon pushed and pulled the tides of the ocean. They then learned how to simulate the effect themselves. As such they have a strong spiritual connection to the Moon (and its counterpart the Ocean) and any adverse effects on these mediums can affect them too.
According to the episode "The Waterbending Scroll," the word 'waterbending' is written in Chinese as 截水神功, which can be translated as "The Divine Ability to Halt Water".'
Fighting Style/Levels
Trainee-
Spoiler: click to toggle Water Manipulation: Almost all forms of waterbending involve moving and shaping a body of water to the user's desire. By simply levitating a large mass of water, a waterbender can move water anywhere they wish, even parting it under the surface of a lake or sea, allowing them to walk along the bottom of a basin without the need to swim. These large bodies can also be used as weapons, either by shaping them into gigantic whips, swung repeatedly at a target as a snake-like body, or simply dropped onto an opponent to smother them or put out a fire. On the sea or ocean, waterbending can be used to create giant maelstroms.
Snow manipulation: A move that pushes and levitates snow for attack, shielding and defense.
"Streaming the Water": Named by Katara, it is a move that draws water from a source that a waterbender moves around their body. A more advanced version demonstrated by Aang apparently involves "sinking and floating".
Water Whips: The most frequently seen move, involves creating a lashing tendril of water to swipe at an opponent. The shape, size and length are all determined by a waterbender's control. More powerful benders can create larger whips or ones of greater finesse. Due to water being incompressible, a whip can be sharpened into a blade that can even slice through metal with relative ease.
Water Jets: High pressure jets can be used to force opponents back or even blast clean through a target if focused enough.
Waves: By moving a large mass of water without separating it from its original source, water benders can create waves of nearly any size. This can be used to sweep opponents away or even as a form of transport, with the bender surfing on the crest of the wave. This same process can be used to propel water borne crafts.
Water Drill: A high pressure rotating column of water. Capable of exerting a significant amount of pressure upon a solid surface, that allows the action of a drill.
Water Walls/Water Shields: Water can be molded into any shape and can by used to deflect an attack, trap opponents in a viscous body, reshaped and propelled at an attacker before they can recover, or solidified into a shield of ice. This diversity and ability to swiftly change to suit the situation is what makes the waterbender's defense so adaptable.
Water Thermokineses: Waterbenders also possess thermokinetic abilities regarding their element, meaning that they can alter the physical state of the water they manipulate (between liquid, solid and gas) at will. Changing the phase of water allows for multiple techniques in the course of a battle, from encasing an opponent in ice to hiding behind a wall of mist. Ice and steam/fog can also be molded in a diverse range of shapes. Ice provides a degree of hard lethality since it can be molded into spikes or blades to pin down or impale opponents. Steam or mist can obscure a battlefield and mask movement.
Water Pressure Manipulation: Waterbenders are also able to manipulate water pressure, allowing their techniques to grasp other objects or cutting through without simply parting around them. Since water is incompressible, it can be used as a semi-solid while being able to move and flow like a liquid.
Ice Spikes: A waterbender can shoot small shards of ice at their opponent, or cause a giant spike to protrude from a body of water. The Northern Water Tribe employs these as a primary defense at their homeland when enemy ships are sighted.
Bubble: When in need to cross large bodies of water, a capable waterbenders are able to create a bubble around themselves, keeping an air supply for them and for others.
Ice Creeper: A waterbender can send a ray of ice on the ground, speeding at an opponent to freeze them.
Ice Shield: A Waterbender can freeze an amount of water in front of them, creating a shield of ice.
Ice Discs: A waterbender can create a cylindrical column of water and proceed to slice razor-sharp sections of it off and send them at an opponent.
Frosty Breath: A waterbender can use their breath to rapidly freeze objects, such as metallic chains, or an opponent.
Water Knife: ability to compress water, allowing for the sharp edge of a knife. It enables a waterbender to effortlessly cut through metal, wood and stone. Master-
Spoiler: click to toggle Water Spout: This high level technique involves controlling a whirlpool-like pillar of water as a weapon, rotating it and directing its movements at the same time. Another form exists, which is nicknamed the "Water Snake", in accordance to the waterspout's constantly shifting and coiling movements.
Octopus form: A body of water formed around the user into 8 or so whip-like limbs which can be used to grasp or strike an opponent or to intercept and seize incoming attacks. It is assumed that this requires a great deal of concentration.
Ice Prison: Covers an opponent in a prison made of ice. By finely controlling the position of the person within, this technique can restrict the motions of a waterbender's hands, thus rendering them powerless.
Maelstrom: In a large body of water, a waterbender can create a gigantic whirlpool.
Mass Freeze: A waterbender can freeze multiple targets at once.
Monsoon: A waterbender can cause rain to fall from clouds in the sky and cause a monsoon of frozen rain or unfrozen rain.
Water Dome: A master waterbender can collect water from the rain, forming a dome which can be used for both offense and defense. Avatar-
Spoiler: click to toggle Tsunami: Since they can control larger bodies of water, Avatars are capable of creating and controlling water bodies of far greater size and scale, including causing massive tsunamis, at will.
Tidal Wave: A large wave which a waterbender makes with a circular motion with his/her arm.
Special Techniques Cloudbending: In, "The Fortuneteller", it's shown that (because clouds are made with water and air), a skilled Waterbender or Airbender can manipulate them easily to create various shapes (used in that instance to provide a message to nearby villagers).
Sweat Manipulation: First shown by Katara, resourceful Waterbenders can bend their own sweat to use as a makeshift weapon in the case of being separated from a source of water
Condensation: Not only can skilled Waterbenders condense clouds into a usable source of water, but they also can condense invisible water vapor right out of the air.
Plantbending: A member of the Foggy Swamp Tribe, Huu, has illustrated that talented Waterbenders can manipulate plant life--from the highly water-saturated vines and roots found within the swamp lands and seaweed from the ocean floor--they can even rapidly regenerate the plant mass of the plants they bend (since the cell tissues of a plant is more versatile than the cell tissues of an animal--and why Bloodbending can only be achieved on the nights of the full moon; see below), all by bending the ample amount of water within them just as they can with watery mud. Going further, a skilled Waterbender is able to separate and completely extract the water from plants for more effective utilization just as they are able to separate the water from mud, sand, and even polluted river systems etc--albeit in the case of plant life, this process will then leave behind the dried out, withered, dead remains of all the affected former plant life.
Bloodbending: Since the human body is roughly 70% water, Bloodbending does not necessarily bend blood, but the fluids in one’s body, allowing the user to manipulate a body's muscles to move as they wish or to stop movement completely. Potentially, a Bloodbender could stop a victim's heart or crush his/her internal organs, though this has not been stated. Bloodbending is said to only be performed during the night when there is a full moon, when waterbenders experience a significant increase in their powers. Bloodbending is considered to be quite a sinister art since it forces the bender's will over the victim's will.
Solutions: It has been shown that Waterbenders can bend any liquid that is partially water, or anything that contains water.
Water Run: This is a technique in which waterbenders would use all four limbs to run on water at very high speeds, in addition to riding on foreign objects with the same purpose. This technique is first used in "The Serpent's Pass", when Katara forms an ice surfboard and increases her speed in order to effectively freeze the Serpent's midsection without being hit; unfortunately the Serpent broke out. Katara used it a second time in "The Painted Lady" to cross the lake to the village, and Aang did a variation of this by freezing blocks of ice to use as stepping stones. Lastly, Aang uses this against Ozai in "Sozin's Comet, Part 3: Into The Inferno" to run from Ozai's attacks.
Healing Skilled Waterbenders can use a special sub-skill unique only to certain members of each element. Waterbenders in particular possess the ability to heal wounds by redirecting energy paths (or chi) throughout the body, using water as a catalyst.
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