Avatar: 6 Times Earthbending Was The Worst Of All Bending Styles

When it comes to the Avatar franchise, fans are always up for the debate regarding which of the 4 elements was the best. Each of these elements has its own powers and strengths and when it comes to ranking every one of them, we need to consider many things.

Earthbending is appreciated too for being able to take hits, manipulate mental and even make structures. Most of the things humans make have some part of the Earth in them. This makes this ability a great one. But there have been some times when Earthbending proved to be disappointingly useless!

1. This Avatar Bending Style is not versatile

Earthbending can get a bit tricky. On one hand, it helps save the bender themselves by creating walls and even lifting rocks and using them. But on the other hand, when metal bending is added, it too proves to be complicated and benders can use it for wrapping metal into different weapons or use it to create armor.

Basically, there’s not much to it compared to other bending styles. But if one can successfully, use lava bending, their game would of course reach the next level. However, as fans know, lava bending is extremely complicated.

2. It’s Difficult To Use it in Air

Fans know earth bending is difficult to use on a metal airship. Back then, only Toph was the only earthbender who could bend metal. The Fire Nation soldiers were completely taken aback when they saw her using her ability. But this also took a toll on her and she almost was thrown out of the ship.

3. Toph Faced a Hard Time In Sand Desert

This bending style is often considered one of the most rigid ones for a reason. Toph had to struggle to keep up with the sandbenders when they stole Appa. The sand made it difficult for her and she couldn’t rely on vibrations to “See”. She was even struggling while trying to hold up the library.

4. They Were Useless in Metal Prisons

Now, this point is not applicable to Toph obviously. Apart from her, even earthbender in Avatar: The Last Airbender would end up being useless when captured in a metal trap. Since they didn’t have any access to earth, the benders couldn’t break through it. This was the very reason, most of the boats, airships, and tanks belonging to Fire Nation were made of that. King Bumi was too trapped in an iron coffin to prevent him from stopping Fire Nation.

But what was weird was that after Toph, metal bending suddenly became very easy to learn for everyone and this didn’t make much sense.

5. It’s easy to attack through their shields

Earthbending lovers would leave no stone untouched to hype this defense style. But we have seen many characters from Avatar easily break through these rock walls. Zuko was successful in blasting through these rock walls which the earthbenders would call up for their protection.

6. They Could Not Escape The Prison Ship

Earthbenders are usually limited to the environment they are present in so that they can use the materials to bend. Earthbenders can be prevented from bending when they do not have access to the earth. This is exactly what happened to Haru and the people of his villagers when the Fire Nation captured them and put them on a prison ship that was on the ocean.