It makes sense. He might be a "sky" bison, but the creators based him on a bison crossed with a manatee. Honestly, the body type looks like it should be aquatic rather than aerodynamic anyway.
@@simpanzee1006 1. Katara can still bend mud especially small ones depends on her strength but mud aren't just water, she bend the water aspects of mud to push it including the earth aspects but those are too heavy or she's not strong enough which resulted in stalemate position until Toph came. 2. because mud is a mixed of multiple elements it takes corresponding benders to "perfectly separate" them. extra: if not easily separated then you just have to bend your own element while it also carries other element, example: you can either extract it or also bend the plants (optional).
@@user-en3fu4pj9d sorta like the premise of metal bending, yes I got that. What I ment is that waterbends (probably special benders) could bend water in place then separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen and light a spark separately to create fire or explosions. We have seen benders heating up water and creating steam, so some might be able to create enough energy to split water molecules. We have seen benders developing new ways to bend their elements, so it would be cool to see something new. Especially since in the world of avatar there is a clear sign of innovation. Just fun to imagine
I love avatar because 1) they did their homework and it shows 2) compelling characters with their own arcs 3) they dont rely on "its magic!" To explain stuff 4) the first explanation of bending was "its NOT magic!" 5) its art is beautiful! 6) they show that even if someone has a disability(with toph abd her blindness), they are still capable of just as much, if not more, than you 7) they show that not every family who is well off is truly happy(zuko was abused as a child, mind you, and one of his major arcs revolved around him wanting to please his father, something i healthily relate to) and 8) it has relateable characters with relateable problems that can be translated into our world(the zuko example again. I relate to him so much it hurts!)
Let's be real. They thought of that after the fact. The logic used in each instance is "create air bubble around characters, therefore they can breathe."
@@Lucci136 I think it is more like he manipulated the air molecule in his breath then he expands it. Since he's in the Avatar State. He might have controled the water around them to create space for air. As I have seen in the last Episode where Aang manipulated the size/mass of Earth by compressing it.
Love how this implies the horrific possibility of an avatar using air and water bending to give someone decompression sickness by turning their body fluid into air
Fish don't extract the oxygen out of water molecules, they breathe the oxygen that is dissolved in the water. That's one of the problems with climate change, that there can't dissolve as much oxygen in warm water as in cold water, so fish and other sea animals have less to breathe. (Warm water can also dissolve less carbon dioxide, i.e. as the oceans get warmer, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus increasing the green house effect.)
Fish don't actually breathe the oxygen in water molecules, but rather oxygen molecules that are aleady mixed in with the water. Gathering that oxygen wouldn't be impossible for an airbender, but they'd need to also gather other molecules so they'd actually be breathing air, and not pure oxygen.
I think it’s so cool when writers for movies and shows actually put in real world logic and research into fantasy or action shows, it makes everything even more believable.
I would assume that technically, he did it in the first episode. When Katara & Sokka find him in the ice its a similar sphere. And in the Avatar State, his past lives just protected him without him knowing. Which is why later in the series when he feels like he is in extreme danger/stress the Avatar State just happens without him having to "activate" it. Though by the end of the series he can fully control the Avatar State.
It's 100% correct. However, there is O2 dissolved in water, they don't need to take oxygen from water molecules, also making little tendrils in the surface of the water bubble will make oxygen move from the higher concentration to the lower concentration side of the membrane. Since waterbenders can only control water, the same is true for CO2, which dissolves easily in water, keeping the air in the bubble relatively breathable without even developing a special technique
Man, Appa is a very versatile adventure companion Appa can fly, can swim, can just walk and obviously can do airbending as well. I'd love to have one 🤣
@@Sophie-vw5ol Well most of the time that Katara does it that I can remember, she makes the bubble above ground first, and she doesn't have the gaang take their time.
@@Sophie-vw5ol and to add, air bubbles doesn't go up by itself but the water forcedly fill everything and pushing anything lighter than water above. Of course with water bending can control water physics into containing air below ocean but not making air out of nowhere.
I miss when techniques were used by mixing two elements which made for either great teamwork or an amazing feat by the avatar. But in LOK for example, lava bending, which was a mix of fire and earth, just became an earth bending style.
I recommend cutting the outro bit off the short to increase the retention percentage. Outros get people to swipe off before prematurely instead of watching the entire thing. That's why a lot of RUclipsrs loop their shorts so everyone sticks around for maximum watch time.
They also explained it in invasion cuz the mechanic explains how they are able to submerge but have a limited air supply so they have to resurface to get more air then resubmurge
I just love when scientist prove cartoons right. Remember when it was discovered that platypi give a blueish-green glow under ultraviolet light? That was a fun day
physics wise water is used to make breathable oxygen. It's mostly oxygen by weight. Some chemicals are so reactive that they can burn using the oxygen in water. But that's rather rare.
This is why airbending is op. Oxygen and hydrogen are both gas molecules normally, and water has air bubbles. Which an airbending could take advantage of. Most rocks have some porosity, meaning airbenders could bend air through the micro-holes in rocks to move them. Fire...air... its self explanatory.
Aside from Aang being frozen for 100 years, I always just assumed it worked like a diving bell: the supply’s not infinite but you can survive for a few minutes maybe 10-15 if the bubble’s big enough.
It's so cool how both airbenders and waterbenders can use this skill. It's actually harder for a waterbender to do this. If an Airbender loses hold on some air, the bubble gets smaller but stays in tact. The freed air escapes to the surface. A waterbender loses control of their perfect sphere? That bubble's GONE, baby.
When you know barely anything about physics yet still got an A+ on the final. Seriously tho, this just goes to show creative their minds are with problem solving.
They do realize that Aang now could do Broken things with this because they just confirmed that the Avatar COULD EXTRACT OXYGEN FROM WATER. What is stopping the Avatar from just Ripping the Human Body apart by extracting all the base Elements from it?
The better answer would be to just say air benders can generate air the same way fire benders generate flames. The more chemistry you use the more broken the bending system becomes.
Aang needs the avatar state to use different elements at one(this is unlike the usual of alternating between) but so far I've only seen kyoshi needing a shine of avatar state to use both earth(lava) and air at the same time when moving the island. Which is pretty normal considering how unnecessarily overpowered she is
This makes a lot of sense if you’ve seen One Piece. I can’t remember if waterbenders can do the same thing; but fishmen in OP can pull water out of the elements in air, and I see this as the inverse
Fun fact, fish actually breathe in the dissolved oxygen in the water as the oxygen atom in water is bonded chemically to water. Think air being dissolved into the water like other substances.
Some moths can do the bubble thing too, and I know that for a fact because we did the experiment ourselves with some friends when I was young (I know, it was kinda mean to the poor moth, but in our defense, we were like 11)
Theoretically the only benders who could not go underwater are fire benders. Air and water benders can create bubbles of air, and even an earth bender, walking on the surface could actually create an earth dome to move underwater, and contain a breathable amount of oxygen for a short period. Even then, a fire bender powerful enough could make a bubble under water, but the fire would consume the breathable oxygen very quickly.
Both air benders and water benders can do this but they both do it the opposite way. Air benders take the air out of the water and water benders take the liquid from the air
Because of this air bending fact i believe Airbenders can hold their breath for far longer than any other bender by using every oxygen molocule they inhale, thus if you take a airbender, earth bender, firebender and waterbender with identical diving skills and lung capacity and have them hild their breath and tume it the airbender would win
fun fact: fish dont actually breathe by breaking apart water molecules. That would require far too much energy, but thankfully they don't have to. There is enough dissolved oxygen in the water from the air to breathe just fine, all the gills do is filter the water from the oxygen. And this works even better with the whole bending thing, because there is literally air in the ocean water for aang to bend,
Basically what the video creator is trying to say is the avatar literally made air from tin air.. He was underneath water which has no oxygen what’s so ever.. He literally mad breathable air with his bare hands without having access to any air.. 💪🏾
Fun fact: fish do not extract oxygen out of water molecules. They just breathe oxygen that's been dissolved in the water just like we breathe oxygen that's been dissolved in the air
Brother fish don't extract oxygen from water molecules at all. Gills don't split water molecules, they literally breathe air that's dissolved in the water
To be honest That’s a perfectly reasonable explanation I’d assume that it’s just the avatar who can indefinitely stay underwater, however, because bending literal molecules out of the water would require tremendous amounts of concentration
Fish do not extract oxygen out of water molecules but rather extract oxygen molecules that are dissolved in the water. Taking oxygen out of water molecules is rather energy intensive due to the strong intra molecular bound between oxygen and hydrogen.
I think it is more like he manipulated the air molecule in his breath then he expands it. Since he's in the Avatar State. He might have controled the water around them to create space for air. As I have seen in the last Episode where Aang manipulated the size/mass of Earth by compressing it. So its not impossible for him to expand a breath of air.
the thing is , Avatar isn't set on earth or in our universe, therefore no explanation is needed. Whatever the author says is possible, now is possible. it could be as crazy as water burns and fire cools, its the authors universe, what he says, goes.
Nobody needs to bend anything else than water for this to work. By a simple osmosis process, CO2 would be absorbed by the water around if there's a too big differencial, and O2 would flow from the water to the air by the same process. In the same way that our lungs work.
however just aang can create a waterpocket that has unlimited breathing capacity due to beeing the avatar, bending both water and air, sole water or air benders would just be able to create a pocket with finite amounts of air.
Can we just talk about how ginormous that wave was 😂
@@xristosmakris4477τι?
Fire 🔥
Water 🌊
you laugh but there are actually waves that size in the real world. look up biggest tsunamis in the world--some of them are as tall as skyscrapers.
@@pIayingwithmahwii That's a crazy nightmare 😳
Also we should give credit to appa being able to swim in such conditions the trust he had in his companions is amazing
He's like a submarine
It makes sense. He might be a "sky" bison, but the creators based him on a bison crossed with a manatee. Honestly, the body type looks like it should be aquatic rather than aerodynamic anyway.
Yes.
Man I'd love to see waterbenders figuring out to make fire by separating oxygen and hydrogen and lighting a spark
Yo! That is soo cool!
Yeah that's cool but they need to be able to control both separately to perfectly separate them,
hence why Katara need Toph help to push the mud.
@@user-en3fu4pj9d what? Have you not seen the episode where they both bend mud and fight eachother? Or when they separated water from mud to drink?
@@simpanzee1006
1. Katara can still bend mud especially small ones depends on her strength but mud aren't just water, she bend the water aspects of mud to push it including the earth aspects but those are too heavy or she's not strong enough which resulted in stalemate position until Toph came.
2. because mud is a mixed of multiple elements it takes corresponding benders to "perfectly separate" them.
extra: if not easily separated then you just have to bend your own element while it also carries other element,
example: you can either extract it or also bend the plants (optional).
@@user-en3fu4pj9d sorta like the premise of metal bending, yes I got that.
What I ment is that waterbends (probably special benders) could bend water in place then separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen and light a spark separately to create fire or explosions. We have seen benders heating up water and creating steam, so some might be able to create enough energy to split water molecules. We have seen benders developing new ways to bend their elements, so it would be cool to see something new. Especially since in the world of avatar there is a clear sign of innovation. Just fun to imagine
Gotta love how well-put everything in avatar universe is
Oxygen poisoning.
Not true
I’m not angry I’m disappointed
Can we talk about how aang could have ended up freezing them all for another 100 years
😮😂
Alternate ending
@@yannismorris4772more like the bad ending 😅
@@TheRibottoStudiosstill alternate
And thats all on repeat hahaha
>"scuba-diving lizard"
>shows a salamander
I noticed that too. Lol
Was looking for this comment lol
Yep
what kind of salamander is that!!
@@CyberGirl1234 it’s known as the fire salamander
This show keeps making more sense every now and then
Hard to believe it's made in Hollywood
this show is goated
The original creators got their own studio and are making like 3 movies and a new series.
@@OniContraverum what series? 😮😭
@@Swahili14 they're working on the next Earth Avatar that comes after Korra
@@OniContraverumWhere does this info come from? Did you come up with it yourself?
Seriously, how can someone NOT like Avatar The Last Airbender? It's a brilliant show!
Unless it’s the live adaptation then it’s a different story 😅
@@ThảoVyTrần-j4mSo true ((
@@ThảoVyTrần-j4m Does that mean netflix adaptation is bad too?
I said the same thing to my mother all she said me to grow up.
@@PS-bp4icthat's rough buddy
I love avatar because 1) they did their homework and it shows 2) compelling characters with their own arcs 3) they dont rely on "its magic!" To explain stuff 4) the first explanation of bending was "its NOT magic!" 5) its art is beautiful!
6) they show that even if someone has a disability(with toph abd her blindness), they are still capable of just as much, if not more, than you 7) they show that not every family who is well off is truly happy(zuko was abused as a child, mind you, and one of his major arcs revolved around him wanting to please his father, something i healthily relate to) and 8) it has relateable characters with relateable problems that can be translated into our world(the zuko example again. I relate to him so much it hurts!)
Let's be real. They thought of that after the fact. The logic used in each instance is "create air bubble around characters, therefore they can breathe."
I mean they explain that waterbenders can waterbend water from air or plants. Why is it so crazy that an airbender is extracting the oxygen from water
@@Loneadminbecause they don't control oxygen but air.
@@Lucci136You know there is oxygen in air, right... right?
@@AllKnowingNick yes but they don't control oxygen but air. Air is only 20 percent oxygen or something like that.
@@Lucci136 I think it is more like he manipulated the air molecule in his breath then he expands it. Since he's in the Avatar State. He might have controled the water around them to create space for air. As I have seen in the last Episode where Aang manipulated the size/mass of Earth by compressing it.
Love how this implies the horrific possibility of an avatar using air and water bending to give someone decompression sickness by turning their body fluid into air
This idea is worse than bloodbending.
@@kingace6186 Personally, both are bad
I never get tired of avatar, everytime i see something about it im always amazed just because of how much it makes sense on a crazed level
Fish don't extract the oxygen out of water molecules, they breathe the oxygen that is dissolved in the water. That's one of the problems with climate change, that there can't dissolve as much oxygen in warm water as in cold water, so fish and other sea animals have less to breathe. (Warm water can also dissolve less carbon dioxide, i.e. as the oceans get warmer, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus increasing the green house effect.)
✅
Don't tropical waters exist. Tropical fish don't thrive in cold water.
Someone else knows too
Fish don't actually breathe the oxygen in water molecules, but rather oxygen molecules that are aleady mixed in with the water.
Gathering that oxygen wouldn't be impossible for an airbender, but they'd need to also gather other molecules so they'd actually be breathing air, and not pure oxygen.
I think it’s so cool when writers for movies and shows actually put in real world logic and research into fantasy or action shows, it makes everything even more believable.
I would assume that technically, he did it in the first episode. When Katara & Sokka find him in the ice its a similar sphere. And in the Avatar State, his past lives just protected him without him knowing. Which is why later in the series when he feels like he is in extreme danger/stress the Avatar State just happens without him having to "activate" it. Though by the end of the series he can fully control the Avatar State.
The creators are so amazingly talented!
I've begun watching Avatar for the 7th time today 🔥
It's 100% correct. However, there is O2 dissolved in water, they don't need to take oxygen from water molecules, also making little tendrils in the surface of the water bubble will make oxygen move from the higher concentration to the lower concentration side of the membrane. Since waterbenders can only control water, the same is true for CO2, which dissolves easily in water, keeping the air in the bubble relatively breathable without even developing a special technique
Seeing this makes me wanna re-watch all of atla for the 11th time ❤😊
Who's hyped for new avatar 2024,
🙋🏿♂️✌🏿
WAIT FOR REAL
@SphaxTTL yeah man they revealed it a long time ago there will be a new one 2024
HYPE
Is this the live action one that’s coming out?
Imagine he accidentally froze himself again but this time everyone else is trapped and they stay there for 100 more years 🫠
boom yet another nation gone. maybe 2 for 1 special since zhou did attack water nation before the meteor event
Watching Appa swim makes me cry, he's so cute😩
Man, Appa is a very versatile adventure companion
Appa can fly, can swim, can just walk and obviously can do airbending as well. I'd love to have one 🤣
I’m guessing with the constant motion of the water around them, it helps oxygenate the bubble.
Exactly, it's just like a non organic lung structure.
Don’t forget the spider as well
Some form a bubble to breath under water as well
Essentially he’s releasing a lot of hydrogen
I really love this series since 2006 😍❤❤
Aang just casually ripping the O out of H20
It’s amazing how something that seems completely magical is actually pretty close to real science
Scuba Diving Lizard! 🤿 🦎
That's a Salamander!
So that was thinking
Bilubbpe technique my fav in 🌊 bending
"Scubadiving lizard"
*shows salamander*
That only works for the Avatar, not "benders."
Still air bubbles
Yeah I always thought about how Katara can do it with water bending. We need an answer for that!
@@Sophie-vw5ol still a big air bubble
@@Sophie-vw5ol Well most of the time that Katara does it that I can remember, she makes the bubble above ground first, and she doesn't have the gaang take their time.
@@Sophie-vw5ol and to add, air bubbles doesn't go up by itself but the water forcedly fill everything and pushing anything lighter than water above.
Of course with water bending can control water physics into containing air below ocean but not making air out of nowhere.
If this were feasibly possible, it could somehow make ocean travel far more advanced.
firebender:
OKAY YALL IMA VAPORIZE THE OCEAN FOR US STAY CLOSE
I miss when techniques were used by mixing two elements which made for either great teamwork or an amazing feat by the avatar. But in LOK for example, lava bending, which was a mix of fire and earth, just became an earth bending style.
I bet this is also possible for non-Avatar waterbenders and airbenders
I recommend cutting the outro bit off the short to increase the retention percentage. Outros get people to swipe off before prematurely instead of watching the entire thing. That's why a lot of RUclipsrs loop their shorts so everyone sticks around for maximum watch time.
They also explained it in invasion cuz the mechanic explains how they are able to submerge but have a limited air supply so they have to resurface to get more air then resubmurge
Avatar is like an animated natural teaching and science explaination
"Did you know how do benders breathe underwater"
I just love when scientist prove cartoons right. Remember when it was discovered that platypi give a blueish-green glow under ultraviolet light? That was a fun day
Thats... Actually a valid explanation
Aangjust casually splits hydrogen and oxygen
If benders can just casually manipulate molecules, how long until they split the atom?
zuko is my favorite❤
Also, just to mention that diving bell spiders can also do this!
physics wise water is used to make breathable oxygen. It's mostly oxygen by weight. Some chemicals are so reactive that they can burn using the oxygen in water. But that's rather rare.
This is why airbending is op. Oxygen and hydrogen are both gas molecules normally, and water has air bubbles. Which an airbending could take advantage of.
Most rocks have some porosity, meaning airbenders could bend air through the micro-holes in rocks to move them.
Fire...air... its self explanatory.
The last avatar not far from our reality✌️
This would be an awesome ability
Aside from Aang being frozen for 100 years, I always just assumed it worked like a diving bell: the supply’s not infinite but you can survive for a few minutes maybe 10-15 if the bubble’s big enough.
It's so cool how both airbenders and waterbenders can use this skill. It's actually harder for a waterbender to do this. If an Airbender loses hold on some air, the bubble gets smaller but stays in tact. The freed air escapes to the surface. A waterbender loses control of their perfect sphere? That bubble's GONE, baby.
When you know barely anything about physics yet still got an A+ on the final. Seriously tho, this just goes to show creative their minds are with problem solving.
This has so many implications for what can be done down to the MOLECULE in bending
I wanna know why momo is so awesome, definitely needed more screen time
I actually think Appa airbended to keep as much air as possible while Korra waterbended to form the airbubble. That somehow makes it even better.
I like how Anng learned his lesson and created an air bubble instead of freezing them all for 100 years😂
Gotta remember that fish do not breathe the oxygen from the H2O. They breathe air, which has dissolved in the water.
There’s a fishing/diving spider that does that too. They make air bubbles to breathe from.
So as someone who nevered was this and my only for of avatar is the movie. It makes me wanna watch this show
They do realize that Aang now could do Broken things with this because they just confirmed that the Avatar COULD EXTRACT OXYGEN FROM WATER.
What is stopping the Avatar from just Ripping the Human Body apart by extracting all the base Elements from it?
The better answer would be to just say air benders can generate air the same way fire benders generate flames.
The more chemistry you use the more broken the bending system becomes.
Aang needs the avatar state to use different elements at one(this is unlike the usual of alternating between) but so far I've only seen kyoshi needing a shine of avatar state to use both earth(lava) and air at the same time when moving the island. Which is pretty normal considering how unnecessarily overpowered she is
This makes a lot of sense if you’ve seen One Piece. I can’t remember if waterbenders can do the same thing; but fishmen in OP can pull water out of the elements in air, and I see this as the inverse
Fun fact, fish actually breathe in the dissolved oxygen in the water as the oxygen atom in water is bonded chemically to water. Think air being dissolved into the water like other substances.
Some moths can do the bubble thing too, and I know that for a fact because we did the experiment ourselves with some friends when I was young
(I know, it was kinda mean to the poor moth, but in our defense, we were like 11)
Theoretically the only benders who could not go underwater are fire benders. Air and water benders can create bubbles of air, and even an earth bender, walking on the surface could actually create an earth dome to move underwater, and contain a breathable amount of oxygen for a short period. Even then, a fire bender powerful enough could make a bubble under water, but the fire would consume the breathable oxygen very quickly.
One thing that most writers always forgot, "don't ever explain magic"
It’s not magic!
It’s bending.
-Katara
Both air benders and water benders can do this but they both do it the opposite way. Air benders take the air out of the water and water benders take the liquid from the air
appa is cute periodt !
Aang was never a blxxd bender, but now no one can say he didn't do something far more complex than controlling the water in blxxd.
Video like: they made it up on the spot, but they also did their research
Because of this air bending fact i believe Airbenders can hold their breath for far longer than any other bender by using every oxygen molocule they inhale, thus if you take a airbender, earth bender, firebender and waterbender with identical diving skills and lung capacity and have them hild their breath and tume it the airbender would win
Midichlorian, the powerhouse of the cell
fun fact: fish dont actually breathe by breaking apart water molecules. That would require far too much energy, but thankfully they don't have to. There is enough dissolved oxygen in the water from the air to breathe just fine, all the gills do is filter the water from the oxygen. And this works even better with the whole bending thing, because there is literally air in the ocean water for aang to bend,
They took a guess and got it right.
That's some jack sparrow underwater adventures
Basically what the video creator is trying to say is the avatar literally made air from tin air.. He was underneath water which has no oxygen what’s so ever.. He literally mad breathable air with his bare hands without having access to any air.. 💪🏾
Incredible.
How hard is it to imagine bending water into a bubble as you capture the breathable air around you?? 🫤
Fun fact: fish do not extract oxygen out of water molecules. They just breathe oxygen that's been dissolved in the water just like we breathe oxygen that's been dissolved in the air
Brother fish don't extract oxygen from water molecules at all. Gills don't split water molecules, they literally breathe air that's dissolved in the water
Diving spiders carry oxygen bubbles with them too
If you go by this logic an avatar can control literally everything
To be honest
That’s a perfectly reasonable explanation
I’d assume that it’s just the avatar who can indefinitely stay underwater, however, because bending literal molecules out of the water would require tremendous amounts of concentration
The lizard in the video light be a "eastern Tiger salamander"
The lizard that van breath under water is called "Anolis Aquaticus"
Fish do not extract oxygen out of water molecules but rather extract oxygen molecules that are dissolved in the water. Taking oxygen out of water molecules is rather energy intensive due to the strong intra molecular bound between oxygen and hydrogen.
I think it is more like he manipulated the air molecule in his breath then he expands it. Since he's in the Avatar State. He might have controled the water around them to create space for air. As I have seen in the last Episode where Aang manipulated the size/mass of Earth by compressing it. So its not impossible for him to expand a breath of air.
I like the idea of waterbenders freezing water on a molecular level rather than them lowering the temperature lime with katara and her freezing breath
Now it makes sense why Aang was enclosed in an ice ball for a hundred years with appa
the thing is , Avatar isn't set on earth or in our universe, therefore no explanation is needed. Whatever the author says is possible, now is possible. it could be as crazy as water burns and fire cools, its the authors universe, what he says, goes.
I would just like to add that the oxygen doesn’t come from water molecules, but it comes from oxygen molecules dissolved in the water
ah yes, the bubblehead charm, known to every Harry Potter character except the golden trio and Neville
Nobody needs to bend anything else than water for this to work.
By a simple osmosis process, CO2 would be absorbed by the water around if there's a too big differencial, and O2 would flow from the water to the air by the same process.
In the same way that our lungs work.
Interesting.
Element bending is so confusing that I get a stroke
It depends on what you are referring to.
You're not extracting it from the molecules, the oxygen is simply diffused through the water.
however just aang can create a waterpocket that has unlimited breathing capacity due to beeing the avatar, bending both water and air, sole water or air benders would just be able to create a pocket with finite amounts of air.
it's almost the same principle of water benders extracting water from plants and air