A criticism of both the Avatar and Harry Potter franchises is that teenagers and young adults regularly trounce opponents far older opponents who should have more experience wielding their magical powers. One half-joking for Harry Potter is that magic uses causes slow and gradual brain damage like alcohol so a young adult witch or wizard is at their prime because they learned all the basic techniques and have minimal brain damage. What if, element bending causes gradual loss of rationality and cognition though the process can be halted by drinking copious amounts of tea. That's my head canon anyway.