i feel like one thing people don’t consider in all their arguments about aang’s culture, ironically people who don’t like him to begin with, and what culture means to him, is that:
all the air nomads were benders.
at least in aang’s era (and every era we see pre-war but i am throwing this caveat in because hey! maybe not)
to AANG, bringing back bending is not about bringing back ONE aspect of his culture, one subculture or whatever words you wanna use.
airbending IS his entire culture as he knows it.
there’s not a single aspect of his culture, untouched by bending. every single custom, tradition, ritual is dependent on bending.
cooking? we literally see gyatso bend cream to make a tart.
architecture? every important door in every temple requires airbending to open it. even the four temples designed as uniquely and differently from each other as they are, are designed in ways that only creatures that can fly can reach them.
even in the kyoshi books, we learn when one moves away from the temple and doesn’t practice their culture regularly, a born air nomad can LOSE their bending for good.
airbending is not what it is to air nomad culture the way other bending forms are to theirs. it is the entire foundation of the culture as he knows it.
and i’ll admit, when i heard the plot of the movie i thought, well, um, we know he’s not gonna bring the airbenders back because that happens in lok and he’s dead. so what’s the point?
in fact, speaking of lok, we see that just bringing back bending still isn’t enough to bring back air nomad culture as it used to be. how tf would aang in the movie know that 💀
you are all confusing the knowledge and foresight we have due to canon content with the knowledge and foresight aang is somehow supposed to know from a future he’s not alive for? right.
but back to the movie, typing this out, i actually get the point now. aang HAS to learn that his culture as he knew it would never be the same, because while airbending can be brought back, air nomads cannot. gyatso cannot, pasang and all the other monks, nuns and other cultural leaders who have the same outlook on air nomad culture like he does, cannot and won’t come back. and if that is difficult for you to grasp, then GOOD!
that should make you uncomfortable to know that no one aspect of a culture alone can bring back the entirety of a culture whose people have been systematically wiped out. what can keep a culture alive, however, is other people who are willing to embrace and learn all that they can from the survivors. that culture will never be what it was before, but at least the rest of us can keep it alive and not forgotten.
