Highlights

Psychic bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender is a rare, advanced bending art form that involves extending chi outside the body to manipulate an element.
Psychic bending is not telekinesis; it involves opening the chakras to allow chi to flow and enhance elemental control.
Psychic bloodbending is not entirely psychic; it involves directing the flow of someone else's blood with minimal movement, giving the appearance of telekinesis.

Psychic bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender is a rare, advanced bending art form that can theoretically be applied to any element. The franchise has so far only illustrated psychic bending through firebending, in the form of combustionbending, as well as bloodbending. However, one of these psychic bending art forms is not truly psychic.

Psychic bending is not what its name implies. This isn't the type of telekinesis that's seen in other superpower fantasies. In Avatar: The Last Airbender, benders extend their chi outside their body to manipulate an element. The more open their chakras are, the more chi that is able to flow and thus, the more powerful or wide-ranging the benders elemental control becomes. Blocked chakras or chi-points can prevent a bender from bending or diminish the force of their attacks. Though the explicit details of psychic bending are sparse in the series, the known forms work relatively similar.

Did The Legend Of Korra Retcon Avatar The Last Airbender’s Bending Origins?

While Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise bridges the gap through comics, there is an issue of the origin of bending for humans.

What Is Psychic Bending In Avatar: The Last Airbender?

Psychic bending is the ability to bend the elements telekinetically. Avatar: The Last Airbender introduced the first psychic firebender, Combustion Man. He could channel chi in his head at the third-eye chakra, marked by an eye tattoo, and firebend concentrated explosive beams. This made him a skilled assassin and bounty hunter once hired by Zuko to take out Avatar Aang. The downside is that combustionbenders seem to have to channel chi to a specific chakra point rather than have the ability to combustionbend from any chakra or chi-point on their body. The Legend of Korra not only introduced another psychic firebender who could manipulate the direction of her blasts, P'Li, but also a few psychic bloodbenders.

The fact that Amon, Tarrlock, and their father were powerful enough to bloodbend without a full moon is one thing. Being a psychic bloodbender puts them at an even higher level of Water Tribe waterbenders. True psychic bending, however, is telekinetic, meaning it does not require the use of the limbs or muscles of the body in any way to initiate or manipulate the element. It is solely mind-controlled bending. Psychic bloodbending, on the other hand, has not been shown to exhibit this same high-level of telekinesis.

Why Psychic Bloodbending Is Not Entirely Psychic

Waterbending, as well as bloodbending, involves controlling the ebb and flow of water. The movements of the arms are integral in directing that flow. The difference between psychic firebending and psychic bloodbending is that Combustion Man’s technique is adapted for telekinesis through a concentration of fire at a single point and then discharged as a streamlined blast. Psychic bloodbending involves directing the flow of someone else’s blood with minimal movement. Therefore, using one’s eyes or subtle movements of the fingers instead of broad arm movements is what makes it appear telekinetic even if there's no telekinesis involved.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is available to stream on Netflix and Paramount Plus

The Legend of Korra's sleight of hand aspect of psychic bloodbending is what made Amon appear to be a non-bender gifted with the ability to remove a bender’s bending ability via subtle bloodbending. That being said, this doesn’t mean bloodbending can’t necessarily be performed without muscle movement on a truly psychic level. It does, however, raise concern over classifying these bloodbenders' abilities as psychic. They are near-psychic at best to be more apt. It’s not clear whether they were powerful enough to simply control bloodbending with minimal movements, or if they were using a combination of telekinesis aided by subtle movements. If the former, then that would make other bending arts performed with minimal movements “psychic” by that definition.

Can Other Bending Arts Be Performed Psychically?

There’s no theoretical evidence that disqualifies other bending arts from being performed telekinetically. However, the application of the bending, if truly adapted for telekinesis, will likely be different from the traditional techniques. A psychic airbender should at least be capable of replicating the psychic firebenders' third-eye technique with an airstream blast. Likewise, though slightly different, an earthbender in rock armor could possibly hurl piercing pebble bullets from their armor with their mind. A similar devastating attack was performed by Avatar Aang in his fight against Fire Lord Ozai after triggering his Avatar State.

A rise in psychic benders across each major element could usher in the next wave of advanced bending techniques. It's another potential point of conflict in a spinoff if those same benders were criminals whose bending abilities make them difficult to arrest and incapacitate. The only visual downside of psychic bending is that the lack of artful movement to perform the techniques so far makes them visually boring to watch at times. Combustionbending, for example, is predictable, repetitive, and has no other techniques beyond the forehead blast. Part of the journey for viewers and characters is watching the Avatar, allies, and even enemies grow as fighters, mastering different techniques to use in battles. Even Sokka had his growing bag of tricks besides his trusty boomerang. As fans of Gaara from Naruto would know, the least utilized bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender, sandbending, would benefit most from being performed by a psychic or near-psychic bender.