On Jul 23, 7:45 pm, Fish Eye no Miko cox.net> wrote:

What I am saying is that it is not out of the realm of
possibility...even given what the "creators" said. Sure they said the
title says it all, Aang is the LAST AIR BENDER. As far as we know the
Air Nomads should follow the same rules as every other nation. As in
not all members of that society could "bend". (example: not every
member of the Fire Nation could bend fire. Not every person in the
Earth Kingdon could bend Earth, & so on)...they even answer that very
question below. It's feesable to think that not every Air Nomad could
bend Air. So when the Fire Nation started to wipe the Air Nomads out,
it's feesable to see some of them escaping by turning to the other
Nations. Thus walking away from the Air Nomads and becoming part of
the different nations around them.

So in effect yes, Aang is very well the last air bender, but may not
be the last Air Nomad.

NTM, BK himself stated that he and Mike talked about what you see on
the map (the one from the opening sequence). "It wraps around to the
other side of a round globe. The map you see is one of those
distorted maps to make round appear flat. I think we had talked that
a lot of the other hemisphere is water...is ocean. What else might be
over there...who knows."

Which tells me there is a lot of interpretation that can be used here
as to where the Nomads could have gone, and not everything has been
nailed down to the floors with canon and continuity yet.

In the same interview they talk about how Katara's mom and dad were
not benders, and guessed that it may be a recessive gene. But leaves
it at seeing it as more spiritual connections.

BK goers on to talk about more of what they don't want it to be.
Bending "isn't a lineage...The only constant is change, variation,
that sorta thing. I'm sure it's a bunch of factors." "That it is more
of a talent. You have some genetic basis for potential, but you could
go your whole life without developing the talent into ability. Some
people have more inherent talent than others, while others with
minimal inherent talent can still develop it through hard work and
practice. He reiterated a connection to the spiritual energies is the
underlying basis. How it manifests is based on upbringing and
experience."

The interviewer then brought up Teo's people perhaps growing into the
airbenders of the future.

BK responded by saying "Teo's people are more refugees. They probably
came together because they're not benders and really had no way to
defend themselves. Then fell under this nutty guy who has his own
skill and aura of authority. I don't think it's an ethnic group of non-
benders, rather they were all just escaping the disasters of war."

Then it was asked, "I was just curious if the airbenders could just
come back from the general population rather than necessarily having
to come back through Aang or anyone else who came from the airbending
lineage."

MDD stated that "Aang is the last Airbender, so I don't think it's
possible for Airbending to spontaneously develop in the general
population."

Then the interviewer stated "It seems like all the Air Nomads were
benders. Did they exile everyone who didn't manifest the trait, or did
they really have such a high percentage of born benders?"

BK responded "We always have liked the idea of who will be a bender
and who won't be to be kind of an ambiguous mystery, even to the
people in the Avatar world. From early on we thought the Air Nomads
would be all benders. Again it's like Mike was saying, it's more of a
spiritual connection. But they have...they had...the smallest
population. Earth Kingdom has the biggest population but the smallest
percentage of benders. So yeah, there were these notions we kicked
around that is wasn't going to be regimented or ruled through specific
lineages. We liked the idea that each of the cultures have a different
spiritual vantage point...coming at it from a different angle."

---

It's not hard to think that some Air Nomads, the few who could not
bend, are all trying to escape the genocide being committed by the
Fire Nation 100 years ago. Now being refugees have assimiliated
themselves into other cultures to escape the war. Now that the war is
over, it's not hard to see the ones who survived come out of
hiding...or this generation of Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, and Water
Tribe children finding out about how Grandpa was once an Air Nomad in
hiding.

Grimm-RHD