no they wouldn't be able to bend oil/fuel.

Everytime you see a water bender in the show bending, it's water, or a substance of water: ice, the water in vines, sludge water, rocky water. Unless water is a main source ingrediant in oil (which it isn't) then they wouldn't bend it. If there is only very little water in it, it would probably be very difficult.

To fallow up on the post made by karudo I believe they could. Because how ever you want to put it, water is the base of life on earth, everything has a % of water in it. Now what i think is that the more water in it the less bendable it is and it require a master to bend anything else then water, but it is definitely not something i would see as impossible if i was in the world of avatar, just very hard to do like to me breaking through 8 bricks is impossible, but better trained fighters slam through up to 20 bricks.

I think that it is impossible. There are some limitations to everything in reality. Some things are unlikely, like breaking 20 bricks if your a well trained fighter (I find hard to believe). Soem things are just immpossible. Like the human body moving at a speed so great the camera would be unable to catch it. Even in the avatar world there are rules. One of those I bet is you can't bend oil.

And what is Karudo's message. I can't understand science.

If we want to go scientific(as this thread's creator apparently wants us to) then here it is. Some of what I say might've already been mentioned, especially if there's a scientist in the house, but here's my views.

Water is a polar molecule. Oxygen is negative, hydrogen is positive. This gives the water a slight charge. I think that, from a purely scientific point of view, it is this particular magnetic field that waterbenders tap into and shape. They are attuned to the special unique magnetism of water. This allows them to bend ice and such too. Anything entrapped inside this water that can move with it(plants or the dirt in mud for example) will be carried by the water. They arent actually bending the plants or mud, only the water in them. The rest is getting carried along for the ride. The salt in seawater is the same way.

So, fuels and oils are a no-no, following my theory. They dont have the magnetic charge of water, since they aren't composed of exactly two hydrogens and one oxygen atom. So there.

Of course, I cannot stress enough that this is all hypothetical, and I'm basing my theories on what I learned in AP Physics.(lol)

I think might be mixing up "magnetism" with "polarity." H2O doesn't have a charge because if it did then H20 would be electrically conductive. H2O is in fact diamagnetic - it repels from magnetic fields.

I think...

I could be. -shrug- If it's polarity then I'm sorry. Science like this isnt my cup of tea, per se, so I undoubtedly got a few things wrong.

Honestly. I think water benders Could bend fuel and Oil. Well I mean if they were very very highly trained. Its kinda of like Earth bending metal is earth just its broken into tiny little peices and purafied. Now Toph being the best earth bender in the world could take that tiny ammount of rock and bend it to her will. Causing her to be a metal bender.

Now if a highy trained Waterbender consintrated enough on the water inside of the Oil then I'm sure with a little bit of luck they could bend some oil or fuel.

yeah

But is there water in this oil? I don't believe so. I doubt even a waterbending master could do it, otherwise they could bend the water in our bodies and either control us or (even worse) freeze or simply pull it out of us. All three fates are terrible, but they have not been done by neither Katara, Aang or Master Paku is it?

There is one simple reason why waterbenders are able to beind fuel/oil and it doesn't even have to do with science! Remember in Bato of the Water Tribe when Katara was able to waterbend the perfume to confuse the shirshu? That means that waterbenders are able to bend anything that is water-based. End of story. lol ;D

NO WATERBENDERS CAN'T BEND OIL BECAUSE OIL IS NOT WATER BASED! Those perfumes have some water in them, Oil does not. Perfum I believe is made up of many scented stuff, but it needs water otherwise its thick, at least thats what I think. I could be wrong but theres my two cents. ;D

Oil can not be dissolved into water. Therefore oil and water are simply seperate liquids. A liquid is simply a state of matter, not just a property of water. If a water bender could simply bend any liquid then that would mean that they would be able to bend anything heated or cooled to the liqiud state. Mercury is a liqiud metal with no water in it. Oil contains no water. fuel is simply processed oil.

Water can dissolve many substances like salt, but that probibly doesn't enable the waterbender to bend the actual salt, just the water it is dissolved in. Thus if the salt was not dissolved, the waterbender would not be able to affect it at all. However if you stir oil and water together they will eventually seperate leaving the oil floating on top because water can't dissolve oil.

*blink*

I think personally that it would be a better question to ask whether or not Earthbenders can bend Fuel/oil. Fuels and oil do come from the earth, and there fore might be considered Earthbendable. Personally, I see no connection from oil to water and if you do you are making things up. Now earthbenders can, or course, bend coal. Oil is not identical to coal, but it has many of the same properties. I quote sandbending as earth like air, and say earth like water could be oil because it, being liquid, would be similar to water in the style of bending, if not the ability itself. That is to say oil is the opposite of ice, or water like earth bending. *blink* Or Lightning redirection as fire like water.

I don't believe so. Just because its from the earth doesn't mean it can be bended from the earth. I mean, it could be possible, I haven't looked at the properties of oil or coal but I am pretty skeptical on it. But the rest you said made my head go in different directions, what are you talking about?

I might go ahead with the opinion that it's an unbendable substance.

Who are the woodbenders atm? Waterbenders can bend living plants... but dead wood?

XD Katara almost does in one episode (return to Omashu) but she really just lifed it.

Coal is carbon, oil is hydrocarbon, and if earthbenders can bend coal, they can probably bend oil. Note: Hydrogen is in oil, but not oxygen. Not that oil and water cannot mix, ever.

Alright, Wikipedia says that crude oils are hydrocarbons, and they're chemical formulas range from C₅H₁₂ to C₁₈H₃₈. More hydrogen than carbon, but they are mostly carbon, so I'd assume that, like coal, they may be bended.

REMINDER TO EVERYONE THE POST MINIMUM ON NON RP BOARDS IS NOW MAXED AT 300 CHARACTERS! ANYONE CAUGHT POSTING LESS WILL HAVE THEIR POSTS EDITED OR REMOVED[/size]

Now that my staff duties are taken care of… on to the topic! ^_^

While Kochi makes a good point about the structure of crude oil… but any fool with a thesaurus can go online and post anything he likes and could sound like a professor…. From what we have seen in the show.. benders can only bend pure elements.. or mixtures of elements… Examples of this are the water based perfumes that Katara bended and the slurry that Katara and Toph bended.. Those substances were mixtures of different pure elements…
WE can prove this scientifically by being able to separate them.. we could (given time) separate the dirt from the water via evaporation, and same things with the perfumes… different extracts have different specific heats and heats of evaporation (Chemistry: The molecular Science by Moore et. All).

Without going to big into the science of it… if the substance is a mixture of two individual elements ( water/ earth or water/ alcohols) they can be bent by their respective element. The other part is basically along for the ride… but as for oil….

The main thing here is keeping your definitions in order… water is considered an element as is Earth.. Oil is considered a neutral compound (Organic Chemistry by Mc. Murry et. All). As any first year Organic chemistry Student could tell you… YOU CAN NOT PREDICT A COMPOUND BY OBSERVING EACH INDIVIDUAL ATOM ON ITS OWN!

This is because the hydrogens change the chemical makeup of the carbons, altering its physical properties no longer making it carbon.. it makes it into a saturated poly carbon chain. It is not a pure substance but rather a compound.. a compound is completely different from an element if you mix elements together you can separate.. you can’t breakdown compounds because they have either physically or chemically changed.

So the conclusion to my verbose explanation is that Oil cannot be bent by waterbenders or Earthbenders… the short and dirty explination is this:

Waterbender: Water and oil don’t mix... period the end

Earthbender: The carbon in oil is no longer carbon... so bending it is out of the question…

So basically... until we see it happen in the TV Show.. we must assume that all bending follows basic science facts…

I am more of the opinion that bending is much more mystical or spiritual than scientific. I mean, given that Firebenders exist.... what is fire? Fire is not an element. It is a chemical reaction of heat and light, not an element unto itself. Plausibly i suppose the firebenders could be taken to be controlling, say, the hydrogen in the air around them (Roy Mustang, lol!), but they are generating the heat internally... so.

Anyway, as I've said before, I'm going to go out on a limb and place it as an unbendable substance, because oil is not 'spiritually' either (IMHO). Gemstones, metals are earth, yes.... lightning = sky fire... but oil does not exactly make me think of either the earth or water. Spiritually it's in a gray zone.

Ack, Ling, Mustang alters oxygen, not Hydrogen!

And as for that, Oil does seem earthy to me. Giant pumps go into the earth, and draw out what, for all purposes, seems like an overly flammable version of liquified coal. Water benders cannot, and anyone who still thinks it can is overly obstinate and should see about this whole "I'm always right" complex they must have.

I also wish to say that, physically speaking, I wasn't saying that carbon is what is bendable, but that the remarkable similarities between oil in coal would seem to me to be proof of oils earthbendability. Also, it is true that you cannot judge somethings properties by the elements that make them, but oil and coal are more similar than, say, Hydrogen Peroxide and Water. it I was saying that hydrogen peroxide is water bendable, then...