So anyone who's watched even a little bit of Avatar: the last Airbender will have asked himself, "which of those powers would I choose if I could have one?" For me the answer is obvious, but let's talk about them all first:

Air bending
ammo: There's virtually always air around
Coolest ability: flight
Practical uses? magical rake, magical snow shovel, but not really a lot else.
combat attack: air blasts, pretty much telekinetic blows. Also can create tornadoes, but hard to control and of limited use.
combat defense: air benders can dodge faster than anyone else

Fire bending
ammo: it comes from within.
Coolest ability: firing flame out of your hands is inherently cool. (Or hot.)
Practical uses? Not really any, except starting cooking fires without matches.
combat attack: flamethrower. Fire bending is all about attack
combat defense: no special defenses

Water bending
ammo: ice bergs, glaciers, rivers, and the sea. If you're away from those, you have to rely on spontaneous springs.
Coolest ability: icing up an enemy to freeze him in place
Practical uses? Can be used to catch fish. Also boat propulsion?
combat attack: firehose, ice balls, icing up an enemy.
combat defense: ice shields, moving water shields. Most effective against fire, least effective against earth.

Earth bending
ammo: the ground on which you walk. Don't try to fight at sea, though.
coolest ability: opening and closing doors in solid walls
Practical uses: see below
combat attack: throwing boulders, causing earthquakes beneath your enemy, turning the ground he walks on into quicksand. Also destroying city walls during sieges and taking out any fixed fortifications anywhere.
combat defenses: rock shields, which stop anything.

What strikes me is that for everyday life, earth bending is far and away the most useful of the four. You can dig ditches and canals, create city walls, dig mines, and build buildings; it's the civil engineer's dream power. Anything a bulldozer or a cement mixer can do, an earth bender can do faster, cheaper, and more easily.

In one-on-one combat, "on any given day" any of the four can prevail against any of the others, but overall earth benders have a substantial advantage. Their rock shields are the best defense and can stop anything except maybe a water-bender's firehose attack. High-speed thrown boulders are the most effective attack available to any of the four because they're the hardest to defend against. And as long as they're fighting on land, the earth benders never run out of ammo.

Plus, no walled city can stand against an army of earth benders, because the walls won't stand for long. On the other hand, earth benders are the best defenders you could ask for in a walled city, because even if the enemy does knock a city wall down (e.g. with siege engines or firehose attacks), the earth benders can repair it in minutes.

So though I really like the idea of being able to fly, I have to say that if I were to pick one, it would be earth bending.

Which would I least like? Water bending not only is almost useless in everyday life, it's also far less potent in combat. It works best against fire users, for obvious reasons, but it's nearly useless against earth benders. And in terms of where people live, and where they fight, water benders are the ones most likely to not have any ammo available. Where they're going to shine is in naval combat, for obvious reasons, but navies don't win wars. Armies do. (The Royal Navy didn't defeat Napoleon. The Athenian navy didn't defeat Sparta. There are exceptions in history but not damned many.)

All of them are awesome, and any trained bender is vastly stronger than a non-bender. These comments are about relative advantages of each against the others.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 05:12 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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