re: Avatar: The Legend of Korra Books 3 and 4 Thread (Book 4 premieres in October)

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Recently saw an interview with the creators, and they said he'd been studying airbending techniques his entire life, and his movements were mostly based on parkour rather than the usual Ba Gua for airbenders. He was using completely different bending principles than Tenzin and the other airbenders.

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I get the fact that he's been studying his whole life, the thing is studying and doing to where you can master the skill are 2 different things. He wasn't a bender, which would be the equivalent of a water bender studying air bending techniques. You can study all you want but if you can't actually practice then how are you supposed to master something.

He couldn't even practice to get a feel for things he could run through the motions (though he wouldn't know if he was performing it correctly), but the actual bending part of it he could never feel that until Harmonic Convergence.

Tenzen has been airbending for 40 years and this guy is master level in entering the spirit world and in airbending in a minute fraction of that time.

Don't get me wrong, I like Zaheer, he's a great character but the show just did a crappy job with the "bam here's the villain and he's an airbending master thanks to harmonic convergence!" Probably the biggest gripe I have about the season which I still thought was the best so far for Korra's development.

They built up the fight between Aang and Ozai so much in the first series and Ozai stood absolutely no chance against Aang in the Avatar state and he was a fire bender of immense power (supercharged by the comet as well) with years upon years of training.

Then you have Amon who was a water bending prodigy that was so powerful he could blood bend without a full moon.

They follow that up with Unaloq who was a water bending master that gained the power of Vaatu whom was Rava's equal.

Finally they give us Zaheer who pretty much read books his whole life about air bending, couldn't practice it then all of the sudden was on par with the Tenzen. Just seemed a bit of "Batman" reasoning to me.

Maybe next season they can do some back story to possibly clear this up and whatnot but it will be tough to make it so it doesn't feel like a stretch in comparison to the other villains. Their level of power just seemed to be more reasonable to their training and backstory. Possibly referencing the bending principles Zaheeer was using to those of the original masters like when Aang and Zuko sought out the dragons and Toph learning from the badger-moles.