[Yorae_paladin1]

Originally Posted by cat746

I just Love how this series ends, i mean if they did wrap everything up then they wouldn't have anything to do for the movies and would have to make up a different plot, as it is they have hinted about trying to find Zuko's mother, and left other unanswered questions here and there

As for the the Air Nomads, i believe that the bending powers are genetic, but i think that the same thing would apply to bending as applies with typical people getting certain physical attributes from their ancestors, you get the occasional people that have like their great grandparents hair/eye colour but noone else in the family has that hair colour, its just a dormant gene that can be triggered by the other parent having the same dormant gene or just triggers randomly. i think that even if a person's great great great grandparent had air abilities it is still possible for that child to get them, though their other parent may still need to have some form of air bending in their own ancestry as well.
i think it likely that there are air benders around, but there families are protecting them or they are living in seclusion because they knew if they were found the fire nation would likely kill them, but i think that it would be a case of before the war, children would have been screened at a certain age for any type of bending if they hadn't already shown talent by accidentally finding they were able to do certain things, and during the 100 year war they've kept it hidden and virtually not shown anyone out of fear, even now it may take them a while to show the air bending abilities because they are so used to hiding it, but i believe there are other air benders out there they just haven't had any training whatsoever and Aang will have a big job on his hands, that's if what i am theorising is correct, but it would make matters a lot simpler if that was the case.

i think that it would be extremely difficult for Aang to give people air bending abilities, unless there was maybe a dormant gene, or possible talent, because it's extremely difficult to make something out of nothing, but a lot easier to remove something that is already there, like with taking Ozai's abilities away

Spoiler for Sozin's Comet part 4, Ultimate Avatar Technique:

How Awesome is Aang's what i at least call "Ultimate Avatar Technique"!!!! i mean the air bubble with the fire around the middle and water/earth running diagonally was just Awesome! the look on Ozai's face when he saw it was priceless as wel l, but i reckon if an avatar has that around em, not much is gonna get past them, especially when they were mad like they were! but just Had to make comment on that, cos it was just so kool and a Big thumbs up to whoever thought of that one!

Bending powers don't seem genetic at all considering that the originators of the disciplines learned there abilities from a respective beast air nomads from flying bison the sun warriors(original fire benders) from dragons, original earth benders from badger moles etc. they weren't born with that.

Also another bit I thought lightning in firebending could only be used with a completely calm state of mind yet Azula was hardly that in the final eps she totally lost it. I asume the reason her bolt didn't kill Zuko outright was cause her insanity weakened her powers.