It’s been over ten years since the last (and probably the best) episode of the iconic Avatar: The Last Airbender series aired, and nearly that long since that of its sequel - The Legend of Korra – did. That hasn’t meant the end of conversations around the sprawling and detailed Avatar universe, though, owing to dedicated fans and multiple comic books and graphic novels that now form the canon.
The first series gave the audience a lot of memorable characters and moments to cherish, and there is nothing fans like more than revisiting them, especially in the form of heated debates on anonymous fan forums. The second installment did, too, though it fell a bit short on the details and intricacy of world-building seen in A:TLA. Still, any fan debates about the Avatar universe aren’t complete without taking TLOK into account.
As fans await the Netflix adaptation of the series, some of those conversations have picked up steam again, like who is the most powerful bender. With every fan holding their own opinion and parameters on how to rank the benders, it's necessary to take a more objective approach to it. The technological shifts between the first and second series must be taken into account, i.e. what may have been a powerful ability in A:TLA may not have been as overpowered in TLOK, due to it being learned and honed by many by that time, though that shouldn't mean mastery of it should be excluded.
Just how powerful one ability is compared to another must be taken into consideration as well - even if the characters exhibiting those abilities have never met in combat. Composure and decision-making in battle as well as control over their abilities can also influence just how powerful a bender is. These are the most powerful.
Updated on May 30th, 2021 by Amanda Bruce: There is no end in sight to the popularity of the Avatar franchise. The original series is one of those rare lightning-in-bottle moments that even the best television series teams strive for. Fans can relive it as much as they want with the addition of the original and its sequel series to the Netflix lineup. Nickelodeon hasn't completely let go of the franchise either with podcasts giving fans behind-the-scenes details being released more than 15 years after the series debuted. With that in mind, it's always a good time for fans to revisit what they loved about the series and continue the debate of just who really is the most powerful of the benders.
Mako
Despite his Earth and Fire Nation heritage, Mako grew up in Republic City, coming of age while making a name for himself as a pro-bender. The times had changed a lot from the days of Aang being the Avatar.
Mako might have mostly used his skills for sport initially, but they were impressive skills. He was one of the best pro-benders in the world, along with his brother, which would have been enough for him to lead off the most powerful benders on its own. Add to that his unlocking the use of lightningbending after using his fire skills for so long, and the audience had one powerful character to watch. It's a shame he didn't use his lightning skills very often.
Bolin
Initially, it seemed like Mako might have been the more powerful of the two brothers in TLOK, but Bolin just edged him out in the power department. Mako's power comes from him being the more serious and composed of the two when the story began. As Bolin grew as a bender though, he also unlocked some skills he never thought he would have, like lavabending.
Bolin spent a lot of time honing his skills because it's metalbending he hoped to master. He never managed to find a way to manipulate metal, but that's okay since there were a lot more metalbenders in the series than lavabenders. Bolin's skill might actually be the more rare one.
Jinora
Jinora might be one of the most interesting benders of her generation. That's because, while the audience sees her initially best Korra in a lot of the airbending skills and rival her own father in certain areas of airbending, Jinora was also the first person to be heavily in touch with the Spirit World.
Being able to commune with spirits appears to be a pretty rare gift in the Avatar universe. While Air Nomads trained to do it, even some of the best, like Tenzin, had difficulty mastering the necessary skills to do it. It speaks to Jinora's composure that she was able to focus enough as a child to repeatedly find her way to the Spirit World when much more experienced adults couldn't.
Long Feng
Long Feng was the head of the infamous and secretive Dai Li; a shadow police force equivalent to many real-world police forces under dictatorships in history. As the audience discovers gradually through the second season of A:TLA, Long Feng was the one secretly controlling the government behind the scenes. Not only that, but he was also a powerful bender who rarely ever gets mentioned in that context.
While he rarely used his powers and instead lets his minions do the jobs, whenever the audience saw him use earthbending, he was especially good at it. He was innovative, had quick reflexes, and knew how to weigh odds in a battle. Yes, he was beaten by Appa after he was thoroughly defeated by Team Avatar, but, admittedly, Appa was a powerful bender in his own right.
P’Li
P’Li was one part of the anarchist group Red Lotus; the primary threat to Korra’s safety throughout the third season of TLOK.
As a unique type of firebender who had perfected combustion-bending - a variation of firebending where the bender could concentrate their firebending power into powerful bursts of line-of-sight explosions – P’Li would probably feature higher on this list if she was also a bit more innovative rather than relying on raw power. Still, her raw power was enough to almost single-handedly destroy the Northern Air Temple with her explosions and take down Tenzin, so she definitely deserves a spot.
Suyin Beifong
Suyin is the youngest daughter of Toph Beifong, who was one of Aang’s best friends and a central character in A:TLA. With a tumultuous childhood, the relationship of Suyin and Lin – Toph’s elder daughter – forms an important part of the Beifong storyline in TLOK. She was also the founder of Zaofu, apparently the safest city in the world that was made entirely out of metal, and was influential in the propagation of metal bending around the world.
She’s also objectively the most powerful metalbender after Kuvira at the time of TLOK, as was evident from every time she has entered combat. She comfortably overpowered Lin in the episode Old Wounds, and also held her own against Kuvira for quite some time before she was beaten.
Zuko
Zuko was by no means a particularly powerful bender at the time of his character introduction in the first episode of A:TLA, though he definitely picked up some skills through the years that earned him a place on this list. For one, Zuko was one of the only two firebenders the audience knows who directly learned from the dragons in the episode "The Firebending Masters," the other one being Iroh.
While he never truly learned the skill of producing lightning like the rest of his family, Zuko was able to redirect the lightning from his father at the end of the episode "The Day of Black Sun: Part 2", making him one of the only three people the audience knows to possess that ability, other than Aang and Iroh. He was also instrumental in defeating the Red Lotus before the events of TLOK, so he certainly was one of the most powerful benders in the world at that time.
Kuvira
Kuvira was a central character in the last season of TLOK, having formerly served as an important military leader under Suyin Beifong in Zaofu, who later usurped the throne of the Earth King. Kuvira has been compared by many to the real-life militaristic nations of Nazi Germany and Italy during WWII.
Having learned from Suyin Beifong - one of the best metalbenders in the world - Kuvira was an expert metalbender. Because of this, she could take most opponents with ease, including Suyin in the episode "Operation Beifong". Apart from being the best at her bending form, she was also a brilliant tactician who knew the strategic steps to turn the tide of a battle, as was shown in many of her conflicts with Team Avatar and other central characters in the fourth season of TLOK.
Yakone
Yakone hasn’t been shown to exist in the timeline of the shows, but he was an important – and powerful – crime lord in the newly formed Republic City after the Hundred Years’ War. Father to Noatak (aka Amon) and Tarrlok, Yakone was, at his time, the only bloodbender who could bloodbend without a full moon, on top of bloodbending being a powerful ability in its own right.
In the flashbacks seen in the first season of TLOK, Yakone was shown to have overpowered a room full of city councilors (who were also some of the most powerful benders in the world at the time) and Avatar Aang with his bloodbending, and it was only due to Aang entering Avatar state that he could chase Yakone and take away his bending for good.
Pakku
The audience was introduced to Pakku in the episode "The Waterbending Master", and looking at how skilled he was with his bending, it was certainly aptly named. Even though he was a bit misogynistic in his approach towards who he was willing to teach amongst Water Tribe members – he outright refused Katara before eventually changing his mind – Pakku may have been the most powerful waterbender in the world at his time.
It’s not only evident from his moves in that episode, but also in the finale of the series when he joins the other White Lotus members and successfully takes over Ba Sing Se with his skills. Provided that he had help from other powerful benders who were also some of the best in the world, Pakku certainly deserves a spot on this list.
Ming-Hua
As one of the members of the Red Lotus in TLOK – the same one that was trying to capture Korra and end the Avatar cycle – Ming Hua was a famously powerful bender, which is proven by the sheer size and security of her prison in the first episode.
One of the main points that put her above all of the rest of the others below her on this list is that she had no arms, which is an incredibly important part of waterbending from all the moves we have seen in both the shows so far. She didn’t just compensate for that with her skill but was often seen overpowering other skilled benders with her makeshift arms made with water she could find around her.
Zaheer
The leader of the Red Lotus group that featured throughout the third season of TLOK, Zaheer was clearly one of the best airbenders in the world at the time, even though that’s not saying much, as airbenders were only recently recovering from almost being wiped out before the Hundred Years’ War. Still, Zaheer wasn’t just a skilled bender – and a new one at that, too, as he was a non bender before the events of Season 2 – he was also well-versed in airbending theory and a skilled and agile fighter before that.
He was also the only known airbender in both series who figured out one of the most coveted airbending skills: flying. While firebenders like Azula and Ozai and airbenders like Aang were shown to have some maneuverability in air, Zaheer was the only one who could truly fly.
Jeong Jeong
Jeong Jeong was one of the firebenders Aang approached in his search to find a firebending teacher, but Jeong Jeong didn’t think that Aang was ready for that kind of control. He had some control issues of his own, but as seen in the takeover of Ba Sing Se in the final episodes of A:TLA by the White Lotus, Jeong Jeong was by far one of the most powerful firebenders we had seen and could really mess things up if his head was in the right place.
Not only was he one of the few firebenders who could stay in the air by making a kind of a jetpack with his feet, but he was also able to single-handedly produce waves upon waves of massive fireballs on unsuspecting firebending soldiers defending the city like it was nothing. You could say that he was overpowered due to Sozin’s Comet, but that applied to the defending Fire Nation soldiers as well.
Amon
Amon was the main villain of the first season of TLOK, and the weird part about his inclusion on this list is that the audience didn’t even know that he was a bender until the final scenes of the final episode of the season. His real name was Noatak, and he is the elder son of the ex-crime boss Yakone.
Not only was Amon a skilled bloodbender and an expert at the art of Chi Blocking, but he was also the only bender other than Avatar Aang that could energybend - take away the bending powers of another bender, even Avatar Korra.
While many fans would argue that he wasn’t using the same kind of taking-away-someone’s bending as Aang at all and that his method involved more of blocking the chakras than true energybending (like Ty Lee), it still resulted in the same outcome for the bender on the receiving end.
Tenzin
Tenzin was the eldest son of Avatar Aang and is a central character throughout TLOK. He was the most skilled airbender in his time, taught by his father himself. He was also well-versed with airbending theory and the way of life of the air nomads, which propagated a strictly non-violent lifestyle. However, it's evident Tenzin was pretty strong in battle just by the way of one fight with Zaheer at the Northern Air Temple in the final episodes of the third season.
While first taken aback by Zaheer’s airbending skills, Tenzin was easily able to counter him and go on the offensive, before he overpowered him. If it wasn’t for P’Li’s explosion that incapacitated him out of the fight, he would have had zero problems successfully taking on Zaheer - a skilled bender on his own.
Azula
Azula featured as one of the main opposing characters to Team Avatar throughout the extent of A:TLA, and there are a few benders that could have taken her on one-on-one and lived to see the day. A part of the reason was her genetics; she was the granddaughter of Avatar Roku and Sozin, two of the most powerful firebenders. While Zuko had the same grandparents, his traumatic history could never allow him to become as overpowered as Azula.
Azula was one of the few benders able to produce lightning, and she used it often. She also never really made much effort into her attacks, and still managed to easily incapacitate people. If she didn’t become so unhinged, she would definitely have turned out to be equal to/more powerful than her father.
Bumi
Bumi isn’t as clear-cut an addition to this particular spot on this list, in the way that the audience doesn't know if he should absolutely be on the top or not, given the introduction to him at the final stages of his life. Even when he was 112 years old, Bhumi was verifiably one of the most powerful benders in the entire course of A:TLA as well as TLOK.
Even if the ease with which he took on Avatar Aang in the episode in which they first met isn't taken into account, his power can be estimated by just how easily he single-handedly took back Omashu when he felt the time was right. Unlike any other earthbender in both shows, he was the only one who could earthbend without using any of his limbs.
Katara
While many fans would object to Katara’s inclusion this high on the list, there are several factors that put her in the top section of any most powerful benders list. For one, she was able to best Azula simply by using her environment to her tactical advantage. When it comes to raw talent, Katara is arguably up there with the best.
In the episode "The Puppetmaster", she was introduced to bloodbending and immediately picked it up to use it back on Hama in a matter of minutes. She also held her own against multiple skilled benders in the final episode of the second season of A:TLA, and only gave up when she saw Aang collapse. She also knew healing, which is a pretty powerful ability on its own.
Toph
There is nothing about Toph to dislike. As a blind earthbender who taught herself just by exploring the underground caves and making friends with badgermoles, Toph was one of the most powerful benders in the two shows. Most earthbenders don't even come close to her in raw skill.
As demonstrated by the fact that she was completely ready to take on Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai all by herself while running away from them, and having seen her in other fights, she wasn’t the one to overestimate her powers. She was also one of the few benders who figured out a new way of bending, i.e. metalbending, just by concentrating on the pieces of metal in the Earth and bending them to her advantage.
Iroh
While the Iroh in A:TLA was a severely diminished version of his former self due to his son’s untimely demise before the events of the show, it's easy to tell just how powerful he was by references to the past as well as his prowess in the battlefield in the final episode. Once called the Dragon of the West, Iroh was known to have breached the Outer Wall of Ba Sing Se in his siege of the city, something no one had been able to do before.
He was never the "raw power" kind – demonstrated by the single flicker of fire he used to replace the Fire Nation in the finale with that of the Earth kingdom rather than a loud bang. Iroh, was, however, a master of his technique, and able to turn Zuko into a much better firebender with his patience and teaching.