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I know this may seem like a duplicate question but I'm sure IT'S NOT, as I have searched a lot for an answer and I couldn't find one. So everyone is saying that one person cannot bend 2 elements at once, but if anyone else noticed the guy with the third eye in "The Last Airbender" (Combustion Man)according to this and this he is bending both Fire and Air, how is that possible?

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Amr Bitar
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  • As it stands, this is a dupe. If you could offer more info about why you think this character is able to contradict the accepted canon, that would undupe it. – Valorum Dec 14 '14 at 13:45
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    The wiki strongly suggests that his powers are solely firebending based http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Combustion_Man. Although it's far from an exhaustive source of info, I'd expect a revelation that he was able to master two elements to be prominently mentioned. – Valorum Dec 14 '14 at 13:50
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    That image is a fan created chart, not something created or released by anyone affiliated with the writing or production teams. – phantom42 Dec 14 '14 at 14:50
  • Fire benders are unique to the other types of benders in that they can actually create fire, which pretty much is combustion. Like other benders who have mastered extended bending, he's just learned to push the boundaries of fire bending. – phantom42 Dec 14 '14 at 14:56

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None of the charts you included in your answer include the water specialization of healing, despite the fact that it was showcased as an important, but somewhat rare, ability from the very start of The Last Airbender. While interesting, these charts must be understood as fan creations, and can in no way be considered canonical.

What is canon, however, is the Avatar I.P. Bible, which makes the following points :

  • A bender's powers cannot extend beyond his native element. (a Waterbender can only bend water, a Firebender can only bend fire, etc.)

  • Only the Avatar can master all four elements.

These charts probably come from small misunderstandings in the way the bending arts function. Let's take, for the sake of example, the noble art of mudbending. Introduced in season 2 of The Last Airbender, the Foggy Swamp Tribe routinely make use of mudbending by bending the water present in the mud found pretty much everywhere in the swamp. In season 4 of The Legend of Korra, however, Toph Beifong, a known earth and metal bender, is also seen manipulating mud. Is she suddenly bending water? No. Despite Toph being a bending genius, it would be impossible for her to bend water. What she is doing is simply bending the earth inside the mud.

So, then, what of Combustion Man and P'Li? Combustion is described in the wiki as the ability to channel energy through the forehead (third eye), superheating the air into a beam of explosive energy (superheated gases, logically, are very hot, and take lots of expansion). While air does indeed play a role in this power, bending it is not required. Otherwise, one could imply that even basic firebending is a subset of airbending, where the bender uses his mastery over air, and thus the oxygen it contains, to manipulate the fire. However, as it can be seen every time one fights, firebenders have the ability to simply create fire from apparently nothing, not simply manipulating existing fires.

In the same vein, would you consider a firebender using his powers to boil a pot of water to be waterbending? Probably not.

TL;DR

Combustion Man and P'Li are not mixing airbending into their firebending, they are simply heating the air very rapidly, making it expand in an explosive fashion. Bending more than one element has always been restricted to the Avatar according the the series' I.P. Bible.

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Dungarth
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  • I understand what you're trying to imply, but superheating the air would mean it will explode right where it's heated, but as you can see when he launches an attack he takes a deep breath before and he kind of shoots the heated air(Bends the air to shoot it at targets). – Amr Bitar Dec 14 '14 at 17:23
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    Taking a deep breath could be the result of the technique being very difficult and requiring intense concentration (we've seen what happens otherwise), and not a sign of airbending. Also, we know that this technique requires the use of the mystical third eye, which acts as a conduit for a lot of energy. Maybe the blast you see moving is the result of the "focal point" of that eye rapidly adjusting, and thus gradually moving the point where the air gets superheated. – Dungarth Dec 14 '14 at 19:00
  • But that would mean that he's not using his own heat to heat the air like other firebenders do, as I don't think it is possible for his own body heat to reach that far away. – Amr Bitar Dec 14 '14 at 22:20
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    Waterbenders don't exclusively bend their own water (in fact, most of them can't), nor are airbenders restricted by their lung capacity. Earth benders aren't mysteriously made of rock either. Why would firebenders be restricted to their own heat? Bending is using your chi to manipulate the elements; if you can project your chi far away, in theory, you should also be able to bend far away stuff. Couldn't combustion be using your chi to superheat air on a linear path, with a fast traveling blast at your point of focus? – Dungarth Dec 15 '14 at 04:20