2014-08-21, 10:45 AM
Razmos Wrote:The whole thing with Zaheer being super competent kind of annoys me to be honest. I mean we know he follows all the airbending principles and he studied air nomads and their practices and all that, but it doesn't explain why is suddenly one of the best airbenders on the show, after what, 35-40 years of being a non-bender?
It's pretty cool having an Airbending villain and all, but it doesn't make much sense. Especially when he can go toe-to-toe with Tenzin, who was trained by the only living Airbender at the time and is the only Airbending master around.
Worthyness Wrote:I think the only reason Zaheer is considered competent is because literally no one except the avatar and their close friends have really "fought" against air bending before. So if you're fighting some completely new style that no one has ANY widespread information on, of course it's going to be difficult to fight against. Tenzin clearly had the upper hand until Cyclops lady went all campy sniper on him.
Well you have to think about the fact that he was in jail for a reason. A super secure hellish, "You can't do anything, or move outside of this 10 foot radius and you're on a giant earth pillar leaping into the sky so you can't get anywhere," jail. There has to be a reason for that. For the other three, they had prisons to secure against their bending abilities, but Zaheer had no bending abilities originally. So to require that kind of a prison, he had to been a bad ass fighter regardless.
I don't know if we really know his past all that much, but if we do feel free to correct me here: He's clearly trained to essentially be an Air Acolyte. Perhaps he was one of Aang's original Air Acolyte students. He may have learned Air Bending practices before he was a criminal, and as a result Airbending is second nature to him...except for the fact that he couldn't actually airbend. But now he can, so he already has all the training but just none of the experience. That's why he loses against Tenzin (he lost, the combustion chick saved him from a losing battle), because he might have the skill but he has very little experience, especially versus another airbender while Tenzin has both (because he trained under his father with the intent to resurrect the Air Nomads).