To my lovely Chilian viewers: the Atacama Fault _is_ the world's most powerful, but it last ruptured in 1960. As such, the Californian Fault (which hasn't popped since 1906) has more energy stored up.

The thing about Toph inventing metal bending right next to a massive fault line is too perfect, I wouldn't be surprised is this was actually intentional.

I would imagine earthbenders near a fault line would also potentially make that fault line more likely to rupture

Its actually wild that all of the locations with high tectonic activity have powerful earthbending feats or cities there. It goes beyond coincidence, it makes me think the writers REALLY knew what they were doing when they built this world, down to the fault lines

Iroh being a double agent would have been painful

In an alternative world instead of Sozins comet we'd have Bumis earthquake

I think that earthbenders can sort of feel their strength increasing in those locations subconsciously. When she was at the fault line near her academy she must've just looked around and went "yep, this is the place" without necessarily knowing why at first.

Damn. That’s actually well thought out. It’s small stuff like this that keep my imagination running when it comes to magical systems like this.

As a Californian, I used to want to be a firebender. Now, I want to be a earthbender.

It looks like a lot of work went into this one, and I really appreciate it. This idea could make earthbenders OP inside of mountains or on fault lines the same way that waterbenders are more powerful when it's raining or during full moons. I like that it's much more specific than just "underground" or "near lots of rocks." Any ideas on some more specific times or places that firebenders might be more powerful? Comets are too infrequent and the sun rises everyday, so it's not exactly a buff (unless it's been raining or overcast, i suppose).

Every other Avatar youtuber should be directly threatened by this video lol

Tangent: it makes no sense that Azula was able to evade Toph in the caverns under the Fire Nation Palace.

I have another theory along this fault line theory: since the fault lines of California (along with Japan, Indonesia etc.) are very active, this would also be place of powerful firebenders because of the magma and tectonic plates being related. We have basically added real world geological logic to a fantasy concept that is amazing... based on that, we can determine where in the world certain benders would exist.

Imagine if Iroh actually wanted to teach zuko bad techniques. " No no no. Zuko you have to hold your breath when shooting fire. It comes from the muscles, not the air. That's why we're firebenders and not airbenders"

I wonder if they could use earth bending to keep the fault from snapping, while at the same time keeping it in a state of high stored up kinetic energy. Like they could literally farm earth bending energy by using fault lines. Maybe in extreme occasions with enough earth benders they could literally make fault lines on defensive positions against invaders.

One could also say Florida would have the best Waterbenders. The entire state used to be swamp; the reason Florida lacks basements is that if you dig down 5 feet you hit water. Waterbenders would never be separated from their element.

This was surprisingly educational. Genuinely appreciate the geology lesson disguised as an Avatar video. 🤔😁

Would you be able to post your colleague’s explanation on how he hypothesized where those tectonic plates were?

no exaggeration when I say that this is one of the best atla videos ive seen in recent memory. A take with good sources, good arguments, and good research and thought put into it, and its just really fun! I hope you had as good of a time making this video as I had watching it.

This video hit too close to home 1. Live in California 2. According to birthday I'm an earth bender 3. My name is ALEX when you said that I immediately freaked out the algorithm went crazy today idk

As a Californian, we'd also have the strongest Firebenders. Maybe tied with Australia.

I have thoughts... The plates are not floating. While they do share many similarities with ice jams on a river, they do not properly float. The mantle is not liquid. It is in a state of plasticity; mostly solid-like, but not so much that it crystalizes (freezes). The lithosphere is the uppermost portion of the mantle plus the crust. Because of the mantle's plasticity, it's easier for the pieces of the lithosphere to glide across the lower mantle. But when they're not moving, they're simply sitting, much the same way you sit on a mattress or a bean bag chair. Transform boundaries are far from the most devastating. True, because they tend to produce very shallow earthquakes, the intensity of those quakes is much higher in proportion to their moment magnitude than deeper quakes of the same magnitude. But the moment magnitude scale represents a tenfold increase in the amount of energy released in an earthquake for every whole point increase on the scale. So an M6 is ten times more energetic--and arguably more powerful--than an M5. The San Andreas is capable of an earthquake of M8.3 or so; certainly not above M8.5. Earthquakes of that magnitude are called megaquakes, and they happen at one type of fault and one type only: Megathrust subduction boundaries. This is why the only inland megaquake on record happened in the Himalayas. It is the only active subduction zone between two continents, with the Indian plate sinking beneath the Eurasian plate; all other subduction processes are currently happening between oceanic crust and lighter (usually continental) crust. The largest earthquake ever was the 1960 Valdivia, Chile quake. It registered 9.5, and was caused by the subduction of the Nasca plate beneath the South American plate. Because the Nasca plate is subducting rather quickly compared to many other plates, the earth above it is much more dynamic, experiencing more earthquakes, orogeny and volcanism than anywhere else in the Americas. The Andes are so exemplary of earth's dynamic crust that their style of construction is routinely referenced by geologists when comparing all other mountain building events. Earthbenders in the Andes would be much stronger than earthbenders in California. Going by the logic of the show bible, earthbenders would be at their weakest far away from plate boundaries, such as out on the open ocean where there are no boundaries, or over the top of a continental craton. Cratons tend to form flat, low basins on continents, and these are often semi-arid to arid places. The Earth Kingdom is currently splitting into at least six different pieces, but it seems pretty clear to me that there is a craton beneath the southern portion of the Si Wong Desert, and another centered somewhere north of Ba Sing Se--likely the largest craton in that world. It is in these two places in the Earth Kingdom that an earthbender would be weakest. Similarly, earthbenders living around the southern shore of Hudson Bay would be weaker than any others in North America. This is the approximate center of one of the largest cratons in our world. Where it's exposed, it is called the Canadian shield. It covers most of Canada, over half the US, and nearly all of Greenland. While it is plausible--likely, even--that Kyoshi manipulated an existing divergent plate boundary, she still would have had to create an entirely new microplate in order to effectively push her new island out to sea without pushing whole continents and oceans apart. Something that she would never be able to do without ripping open a new spirit portal anyway. This also means that her new plate--the Kyoshi plate--is subducting on its southern end beneath the plate to its south. We know it's subducting because there is land there that is older than the Kyoshi plate. Continental sprint such as this would've generated massive tsunamis and a supereruption of a new volcano. So yeah, the ten years of cold and famine that certainly followed were 100% Kyoshi's fault. Pun fully intended. She is so lucky Chin committed suicide in the name of pride, or the avatar would've been the world's sworn enemy for the next four generations. While I admire the work put into the map you found, it's incorrect on multiple points. a) The elephant's trunk on the Fire Nation is SOUTH of a SUBDUCTION zone, not north of a rift zone. If you look at real world tectonic plate maps, overriding oceanic plates bow OUTWARD, not inward, and volcanic island arcs form purely as a result of this subduction, NEVER as a result of rifting. b) Andean style orogeny happens primarily due to offshore subduction zones, with Alaska being the only real exception in our own world, and even then it's only a partial exception. So the boundaries cutting beneath Andean style mountains are quite inaccurate. They need to all be offshore along at least 2/3 of their length. c) Since all sea-to-sea "rivers" represent straits where two continents are dividing, the divergent boundary separating the southern EK from the northwestern EK/URN needs to be directly beneath that strait, not beneath the mountains to the south. Those mountains are equivocal to the Ethiopian plateau. They are the result of rifting, but they do not sit directly on the rift. d) I will forgive the fact that there are so few plates, as the work is clearly only partway done, and minor and microplates are not shown. I am working on my own tectonic plate map, which will include microplates and speculative hotspots. But in the meantime, I am disappointed that the Kyoshi microplate was not shown, since that one is the center of your essay. e) Tectonic plates are named according to their most prominent geographical feature. For example, the Pacific plate is so named because it's beneath the Pacific Ocean. When Africa splits, the plate to its east will gain the name Somali plate, after Somalia, the tip of the Horn of Africa. So your plate names should likewise be named after their most prominent geographical features. The plate beneath the Mo Ce Sea would thus be named the Mo Ce plate. f) Oceanic triple junctions represent places where three plates are ALL diverging. Yet your plates show them converging at those points. Toph's metalbending academy is in Yu Dao, the oldest colony. That colony is on the coast, not far from the edge of the Fire Nation. So no, it's not on any inland transform boundary far north of Republic City. Now, according to MY map, there IS a triple junction near Yu Dao. But more importantly, there is subduction happening to the south and west of that junction, and rifting happening to its north--and rift zones nearly universally come with transform faults along their margins. Even the San Andreas itself is the result of rifting that is opening the Sea of Cortez. So Yu Dao features all three plate boundary types, making it a very geologically dynamic area. For more information on how to worldbuild from the cratons up, visit Artifexian's KZfaq page and watch his series of videos on how to map tectonic plates and use G-Plates to literally build your world.

OMG I love this. I wrote ATLA fanfic just to explore what earthbending would do to soil microbial activity. If you want to explore the biophysics of Firebending reply to this and I can walk you step by step through the real world physics, chemistry, and biochemistry from sunlight, photosynthesis, mitochondrial metabolism, and the fantasy leap to Firebending.

Wait if toph and katara were supposed to be in a love triangle with aang, then do u think that period after toph joined the group when her and katara would butt heads all the time was originally gonna be over aang? Im kinda glad they took that out because i cant see toph constantly butting heads with katara over a boy 😂 that definitely would have been out of character for the badass toph we know and love

Some clarifications for the tectonics bits (to the best of my knowledge). In subduction zones one plate generally doesn’t weigh that much less then the other but an oceanic plate will usually subduct as it is thinner and denser. Also at strike slip boundaries the pressure builds up as the rock locks together as you mentioned furthermore the spot in which the rocks shatters becomes the focus of the earthquake from which point all the energy is released this is interesting for the Californian fault line as these focuses tend to be very shallow relatively speaking making the energy released from these greater on the surface and thus the earthquakes become even more intense. Hope this was interesting (no other way for me to use my GCSE geo lmao) also I loved the vid keep it up

If it's true, than probably Netherlands, Poland and another mostly flat plains that are really far from any earthquakes can be place to prison earthbenders

Assuming all the types of benders are one word each (e.g. Earthbender, Waterbender), then Greatest Earthbender of All Time written as an acronym spells "GEOAT," which just so happens to have the letters Golf, Echo, and Oscar all written adjacently and in that order. Those letters form the English prefix "geo," which means "rock." It is of Greek origin.

Also interesting how Omashu which is Bumis home is also near the Zaofu fault line

Cali would also have strong waterbenders since they're on a coast and as another comment said, it'd also be a good firebender location. The east coast would trade the firebendering strength for airbending though (tornado alley, plenty of hurricanes) and maintain earthbending (appalacian mountain ranges) and waterbending (atlantic). Imagine the rivalry, the south complaining about about cali and they sprinkle in "and it's always on fire, those damn arsonists lovers" along with high taxes lol.

toph in modern Avatar would definitely be an LA nepo baby

Rather than saying the strongest earthbenders would be in California I'd say the earthbenders are at their strongest while in California. Also having grown up near a fault line and thus having greater bending output wouldn't necessarily make you a great bender IMO (17:01). But I imagine starting out learning how to bend anything at all would be way easier there, especially with metalbending or, actually, any sub-bending. But thanks for the GREAT video! I find it amazing that even after so many years there's still more to learn about the universe (I know you ended saying it's a theory but this is canon to me now 🙂)

I live in California. Before seeing this I wanted to be an earthbender now I REALLY want to be an earthbender! Also small earthquakes here are so common that I don’t even tell anyone anymore.

Best fan theory I think I've ever seen. It expands on the Canon story, makes complete sense, and only highlights one of the greatest characters/GREATEST Earthbender in the World (Don't you two dunderheads ever forget it).

i legit always have had an affinity for earthbending, i have a great explanation now. living in chile finally has it's advantages

This is so underrated, you taught me more about the avatar world, toph, and tectonic plates than my school did. You're the goat, dude.

California's geological and volcanic terrain is so abnormal that anthropologists and archaeologists often have to use arbitary layering rather than layering techniques. This doesnt neccsarily mean that the layers arent there, but to differentiate them for time releated reasons,it is much easier to go straight to arbitary layering

It's not uncommon for serious worldbenders to start their worldbuilding from tectonic plates actually, and given how serious the Avatar team was with their worldbuilding, it's not farfetched to say they probably actually knew where those faultlines are and chose those locations for that reason. The city, the metal bending academy, and the place Toph invented Metalbending all being basically right on top of fault lines, with the place Toph invented mental bending being just miles at most from the biggest faultline on the planet, are highly unlikely to be coincidences. Thrice is a pattern.

As a Californian of most of everyone who clicked this video, I can see myself as an earthbender. I live up in Northern CA which may also have airbenders since so many residents are connected with spirituality. Even as a Blue state we do have some red counties, and I can see Rupublican counties having the highest earthbender population while the blue counties have airbenders

I did not to expect to learn so much about tectonic plates and geography. School should show this video

As an Earthbending/Metalbending fan (my favorite element by far) who lives in CA, this gives me hope

13:55 There’s an Avatar Bermuda Triangle, just look at the Hinokoku plate, the Chutuktang plate, & the Southern section of the Dzagbo-Nuin Plate. Underwater fracture lines shall make a new island someday.

Phoenix Wright, Attorney of Japanafornia, has already been shown to be a powerful airbender through the anime adaptation. With this new information, we can understand why he could be an immensely powerful earthbender, as well as the rest of the attorneys. This begs the question: What would the bending rules be in the Ace Attorney world?

We know. Most Californian schools make it a point to let us know that we’re living on a sneeze waiting to happen.

Its crazy how well the lore fits this theory

The coincidences are insane… unless the series bible actually was that in-depth. Also as a Californian, we all await the day the big one hits, we are way overdue. Hopefully we are avidly prepared for it v:

I LOVE this kind of content. You are doing amazing work here!

Good to see my fun contribution here)

the writers some how made this geographic map work with toph getting her metal bending while connecting aang and saka trip back to save everyone and meeting back. Im just seeing this and think man this show is the best one of all time for a reason.

I thought you'd have like 10x the amount of subs you have. You're insanely good

Huh, this was pretty cool! I wonder where it'd be for the other elements? I vote Iceland for waterbending. Their land naturally features both liquid, solid, and gas forms of water through the geysers, (and it's an island nation, obviously.) And waterbending is a lot about flowing and changing states. Though they don't got much of a connection to the moon, I guess. Or maybe polynesia, though they also got a bunch of volcanoes and culture around them, so fire would probably fit well too. Idk

I really hope someone at avatar studios sees this and puts it in the new earth avatar's series, even if it's an off-hand comment from some academic type saying something akin to "They didn't know this at the time, but Toph inventing metal bending was likely assisted by her proximity to a major fault line"

Finally, one good thing to come from my state

This is really fascinating! Though i was actually hoping the strongest place for earthbending was at the Great Divide, for the comedy of it.

4:53 It has nothing to do with weight and everything to with density. The denser plate sinks beneath the less dense one.

The Swamp is also really close that fault line near Zaofu, and it's where Toph decided to go live out the rest of her retirement in. Perhaps that helped enhanced her ability to sense things going on in the world, along with the trees in the swamp themselves.

I really just like the imagery of what would West Coast style earth bending be

Would this also mean that America would have the strongest fire benders as well because of the Yosemite super volcano?

Imagine fighting an army of tophs and they all talk with valley girl accents and have dyed hair

Bro 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Man what kind of show is this?! I know there are some creative liberties taken here but it all works so well.The amount of nuance and understanding that can be extracted from this show is ridiculous. I can be in a therapy session one moment, to international relations and political science the next, then geography, or tech & innovation. It so easy to overlook the efforts in world building in this show but if you have a keen eye there is so much there. These guys came up with a gem, we are lucky to have all these brilliant minds mining the depths of this show, great job sir. It would be awesome if Mike and Bryan saw this.

This was a REALLY good video! Thank you for putting in the effort to research it!

This is actually nuts

Plate tectonics aside, the video glosses over a major aspect of bending as a whole. The mentality of each bending form and how it manifests in those that use it. Earth bending requires a hard, rigid way of focusing and dealing with issues head on; this is why an emotional person like Aang had so much trouble with it. Now, when you think of a group of people who are highly focused on tradition, uncompromising views, and a rigid social system, does California spring to mind. Yes, the geography "could" create strong earth benders, but the culture in the area would severely hamper the ability to utilize that power.

Glad to know my "hypothetical" earthbending would be insano style in comparison to other people. I'm putting this knowledge to good use.

I can't believe how good this video is. hats off! This is exactly why I'm subscribed!

i thought this video was gonna be cool until you reminded me that i could die from a devastating earthquake in california :)

Wow! Amazing breakdown! I'm officially mind-blown : )

"airbenders cannot fly like peter pan" baby lion turtle: *fake cough* zaheer me: *fake cough* guru laghima

As a fellow Californian I can say confidently that our ancestors were earth benders 🙏

Do you think sandbenders could bend salt into people and like dehydrate them kind of like reverse water bending where you would draw water out from someone

Toph being Californian somehow makes a lot of sense, it's also really badass, some of my most wild friends are Californians

This is a very well put together video. I could tell alot of work went into it, earned a sub!

such a cool video man! didn't think I would enjoy 20 minutes of this but I did every minute!

As a Californian and a student who got a decent grade ( B) on geo course I agree this is true

I'm sure they didn't think this through that much when designing the world but these coincidences are amazing, and this video was really fun to watch

I hope you make more of these! I would love to see which countries can be waterbenders, airbenders, and firebenders too!

I was 6 minutes into the video and i almost forgot this was an avatar video, your explanation on tectonic plates is very well researched as i see, i like it

Philippines, Indonesia, IndoChina, China, Japan and Korea will be more of Fire Nation since there's tons of Volcanoes here especially in Indonesia and Philippines.

Does that means that Indonesia would have an insane amount of strong benders and most likely where the first Avatar will be born since Indonesia have all the things that makes any bender strong? Earth Bender = Indonesia is in one Huge Fault Line Fire Bender = Indonesia is in the Equator Water Bending = Indonesia is a Rainforest Archipelago

Nice! I love how it all lined up well at the end.

Absolutely excellent video. Loved the methodical breakdown of your thought process and research you did. Top quality video essay.

the part where he said "Or maybe Toph just reads the bible" I was like . . . SHE CANT READ! its funny because of how many blind jokes Toph makes at her own expense and others stupidity is played off of by Toph by constantly having to remind them that she is infact blind.

Iroh as a bad guy is just a weird concept to me, I mean he technically was a bad guy when he was younger but only in the same way Zuko was in the sense that he was indoctrinated but you know what I mean. Besides being a double agent like that is more like Azula levels of evil. Also wow, what a scientific breakdown of this fictional world and system

Okay this is one of my favourite videos, this is amazing

I love the attention to detail and research that you put into this! It had to have been a lot of work. Even if it coincidentally worked out the amount of thought that went into this series when creating this world is astounding.

Would airbenders be more powerful in things like windstorms and tornados? Where would the most powerful airbenders be created at? Pls do another one this style for air bending c: subbed and liked

Next up, why Hawai would make the best fire bender. Why Colorado will make the best air benders, why Florida will make live under water

Liked this video! Since we're talking about potential energy.... Some geologically active areas that come to mind are Iceland - for its active spreading, the Himalayas... continental plate compression, and the Yellowstone Caldera - lots of potential energy there!!!

"You've never seen a Texas Bender" - Avatar Kyoshi probably

If California has the best Earth Benders, Does that make Florida the best crackbenders?

The science mixed with worldbuilding stuff was all great, but I think your most compelling point is that Toph would be a trust fund nepo baby from LA. And she'd definitely develop a coke addiction in her twenties.

this video blew my mind, well done!

As a Californian with the earth nation Symbol tattooed on me, just the title of this vid is enough for me

BLT is back babyyyy

Fire Nation = America/Europe Air nomads = Asia Water tribes = Africa/Antarctica Earth kingdoms = Australia

Ive actually thought about this idea of benders in the real world and where they would most likely reside. For water benders that choose not to be in the Artic or Antarctic regions or an island in the middle of the ocean. They'd stick close to either ocean coastlines or living in lake or river towns. Firebenders would stick to hot dry climates like desert regions. Earthbenders would most likely live in places that are prone to earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. And airbenders would choose mountain regions since they can live in the high altitudes without much issue. I can imagine cities like Denver or villages in the Himalayas being full of airbenders since they are high altitude settlements.

Kinda interesting that both avatar and FMA has some form of tectonic plates thing where these powered folks draw their power from there.

Californians boutta overthrow the firelord

Earth bending is also about mindset; your mindset and how you fight effects how effective you are at bending, as thus why Ang had to change his approach and change how he took on challenges. California wouldn't have strong earth benders unless you had more stoic tough and rough take head on challenges and be stubborn and not avocado toast. You can imagine that someone like Toph wouldn't be someone you'd see from Cali and none of the other benders as well.

Your video made me realise how happy I am that I took geography this year. Would have loved to have watched your video before my paper 1 exam that included tectonic hazards. Finally have a reason to have chosen geography.

What a great video! I love that you did a lot of research for it which doesn't go unnoticed. I enjoyed the creativity behind this as well as the artwork from the amazing artists featured within! Awesome job! Because of its unique location, under the side of a cliff, do you think the Western Air Nuns or Air Nomad Council commissioned or enlisted Earth benders to help build the Western Air Temple?