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human
[TLoK] What made Zaheer so dangerous?

I get that he’s a terrorist that can fly, but he only recently gained air bending. Before, he was only a peak athlete locked up for more than a decade. Why and how is he so strong?
gpt
1. Zaheer was a master combatant, considered deadly enough by people like Zuko and Tenzin to be a massive threat to even powerful benders like them and could keep up with the other RL members; part of his character design includes the boxed ears that martial artists get from fighting constantly, and the creators have said that he can use anything as a lethal weapon. His prison allowed him to keep hi,self in excellent shape and practice. 

2. He had a deep knowledge of the Air Nomad philosophy, Guru Laghima in particular. This allowed him to maintain a deep spirituality, one of the key components to airbending. When the Harmonic Convergence occurred, he now could put his decades of theory into practice. Notice how his fighting style doesn’t quite match any of the other airbenders we see-he’s using his own, but his innate spirituality and knowledge of the philosophy allowed him to be advanced enough to utilize airbending with it. 

3. Nobody has seen, much less fought, airbenders for almost 200 years now. They have no idea how to react or what strategies there are to go up against someone who’s bending source is literally all around them. This gives Zaheer an edge in unpredictability that he capitalizes on. 

That said, his fight against Tenzin proves that for all his prodigious talent, he gets his ass whopped by a legitimate airbending master. Even then it speaks in his favor; the fact he managed to last as long as he did speaks volumes to his talent.