r/ATLA • u/Kendeaux • 4d ago

Discussion Desalinate water?

Maybe this has been asked, but what do you think? Could a Waterbender desalinate water? Could an Earthbender desalinate water?

What about an Earthbender and a Waterbemder? Together, could they desalinate water?

9 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

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14

u/Jack_Wick25 4d ago

Like how Aang and Katara shaped the clouds, maybe an earthbender and a waterbender could together desalinate water

10

u/Quizlibet 4d ago

A water bender could easily desalinate water by acting as a one-person distillery: evaporate the salt water, move the steam somewhere, condense it back into water, boom.

6

u/Correct_Doctor_1502 4d ago

I think both can but it would be far easier for the waterbender. Very delicate earthbending requires a lot of mastery, and pulling almost invisible crystals from water wouldn't be something average

4

u/notthephonz 4d ago

I feel like pulling salt crystals out of water would be as easy for an earthbender as pulling humidity out of the air is for a waterbender.

1

u/XeronianCharmer 4d ago

But the principles behind those two are entirely different. A waterbender can condense the water in the air until sublimation occurs and water is formed fairly easily.

With earth/salt, you're asking them to locate and consolidate dissolved minerals into one mass to pull from the water, but the salt itself is almost entirely dissolved into the fabric of the water.

2

u/Serious_Cucumber_767 4d ago

The most we see was during the painted lady, cant say for sure that it included the salt when Katara and Toph separated the muck from the river water.

We do know crystals and minerals are bendable so salt might not be far off, id gander it be at the difficulty higher/next to sand bending being granular in size and malleability.

1

u/WanderingFlumph 2d ago

I dont think so. Pulling water out of wet sand is one thing but salts are dissolved down to individual atoms.

There exists a real world analog to pulling water from clouds physically but there are not real world ways to physically seperate salts and water that doesn't involve using materials with teenie tiny holes so small that salts can't pass through.

Bending is magical, its a physical discipline and I don't see a physical way to do it.