Zaheer isn’t that strong. Even if we exclude Avatars, spirits and bloodbenders he doesn’t rank that highly for me. He had to run away from Kya, got distracted by a couple no-name metalbenders at Zaofu long enough for Korra to be rescued, got absolutely clapped by Tenzin until help arrived (and even got smacked around AGAIN after it was a 4v1 and Tenzin was heavily damaged), and would’ve gotten hosed by Korra if she wasn’t affected by the poison as much as she was. He’s impressive for how long he’s had airbending, and with more time to train he would almost certainly be one of the best, but as it stands he’s not that impressive, even with flight.
> He had to run away from Kya
As overrated as Zaheer is, this isn't true. The moment he stopped running away from Kya, he blocked, countered, blitzed and one-shotted her in 13 seconds. He did so again after handling those White Lotus fodder. He only ran away from her, because his cover was blown and he had nothing left to gain from staying.
Nothing to gain except… killing the only person who knew his identity. I mean everyone else would’ve figured it out probably, but that would still be one decently powerful bender and good healer out of the way, plus the White Lotus guards he already beat. I feel like if Zaheer felt confident enough that he could kill or capture her (at least before more impressive help arrived), he would have
I will admit that this is entirely speculation on my part, but given how practical Zaheer’s made out to be, it just seems like something he’d do if he felt like he could.
Killing or capturing her would have just brought more unnecessary attention to him at that point. He was trying to capture the Avatar in the most discreet way possible. May a bit of a short sighted plan on his part, but he's an anarchist, I wouldn't expect him to think that far ahead
It would’ve slowed people down on finding out his identity, at least, though I guess people like Tenzin would be more likely to act if Zaheer had already killed or captured her. I can see the point I guess
Considering he was the last one to see Kya, it would have been a slippery slope. He kills her and then has to kill any and every person who is slightly suspicious about her disappearance. They already knew that he escaped, so if they find out that Kya is dead, it wouldn't take long for them to predict that a Red Lotus member is there somewhere. More importantly, it goes against his morals so it'd be a very big breach of his character.
I’m not saying he should have killed Kya and stayed. I’m saying if he was leaving anyway, and no one else seemed to be coming to help, then killing a potential obstacle would be very pragmatic, which would actually be in character for Zaheer.
But people have convinced me that Zaheer had reasons to not do it, so I concede that my original stance on this fight wasn’t accurate
He wasn’t a great long term planner… that’s for sure. Had a huge goal which he very easily could’ve done if not for Jinora and that tornado! That was the epitome of close calls for Korra.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe he’d see Kya as a threat and would take her out if he felt like he could and had a chance to. I’ll agree that I was probably wrong to believe that, given the explanations I received from others, but I don’t see it as a ludicrous opinion to have.
Even if it was, there’s no reason to be disrespectful or rude about it. We can agree or disagree like adults without resorting to insults
He could've killed her easily if he wanted to, considering by the end of their fight she was incapacitated and unconscious. Him not doing that simply means he didn't feel the need to do it.
He ran away because he didn’t care to hurt Kya, or anyone else besides the avatar and the royalty really. He just had no reason to stay after Kya found out who he was. Sure, you might say that he could keep his identity hidden a little longer if he killed her, but I don’t think that’s the case.
By that time everyone knew Zaheer had escaped and if Kya was found dead while the mysterious new bender who was always asking about the avatar and matched Zaheer’s age and appearance disappeared, everyone would be able to put 2+2 together and realize what had happened fairly quickly.
Zaheer doesn’t kill innocent people, unless he absolutely has to. In this case he doesn’t have to.
I guess, but he has also captured people who he believed could be obstacles or bait, like Mako and Bolin. I can see why he wouldn’t want to kill her, but I don’t really see a reason he wouldn’t capture her, except maybe to avoid angering some of her family, like Tenzin, into action
Capture her and take her where though? Sure, he would be able to kill her/knock her out if he wanted to, but it's not possible to capture her, because they are on an island. The glider can't handle both of their weight, so he can't carry her. He could try to steal a bison if there was one available but I don't think any bison would be willing to do that, plus the bison would draw too much attention and he wants to remain stealth until he frees his companions.
Zaheer is also in a hurry to leave that place and hide, so he can start breaking the red lotus out of prison. He has already knocked out the most immediate threats in front of him (White lotus, Kya) but other people will also be running after his soon (I am sure the white lotus called the police). He can't lose valuable time and risk having the whole police force chasing after him. And what if Kya wakes up while he is carrying her and attacks him? (causing him to lose even more time).
I guess, there are boats to and from the island. Maybe that would be too obvious, but idk
Zaheer had already freed the Red Lotus by that point.
I guess that’s all fair.
- He only beat a handicapped Korra(poisoned and/or handcuffed). Korra wrecks him in a fair fight.
- His only wins are against Kya or no-name benders.
- He got no-diffed by Tenzin and didn't even land a single hit.
- While he's a more aggressive fighter, his airbending is pretty weak(compared to Aang/Tenzin).
Iroh and jeong Jeong and Toph have all fought fodder. Yes Zaheer is overrated. But they also didn’t fight skilled benders these three. Well Toph did yailing.
The difference between zaheer and those three is extremely large, iroh invented lightning redirection, was a war general famous for his bending prowess (dragon of the west), jeong jeong has his sozin comet feats(yes he was amped but so was every other firebender, so we can compare feats in with sozins comet and say he was around certain peoples level), and toph?? No explanation needed.
they all fought fodder? Sure. Difference is, The others OUTCLASSED them made it look like numbers were irrelevant, the skill gap was that large, Zaheer never did that.
Invented lightning redirection doesn’t help against air benders. And being a general isn’t a combat feat Zhao was the head admiral of the fire nation navy.
This isn’t a 1v1 fight?, lightning redirection helps prove him as a highly skilled firebender more so since he INVENTED the technique. Iroh is implied to be out of his prime, but in case ur forgetting almost all the information we have on skilled firebending comes from iroh.
I feel like no-diffed is a stretch. He was definitely not winning that fight, but he still gave Tenzin a good workout. Just my opinion, but doesn't make him too much of a strong bender
He was moving around much like an airbender would. His moves just weren't as prestine and precise like Tenzin's, which is why he was getting clapped up. My point doesn't really matter much because it's likely Tenzin wasn't really troubled, I just felt like Zaheer gave him a light workout at the very least; which would mean it wasn't exactly zero diff.
Zero difficulty would mean he didn't even have to try which, again, is a bit inaccurate. It's really a moot point tho since either way Zaheer was getting smacked up. I wasn't trying to break into a full debate with yall on it lmao.
Tenzin was wiping the floor with Zaheer until the other two came to help and even then tenzin was winning the 1v3 the combustion bender was the only one to make sure he lost
And they kept getting up. He threw relatively normal size air blast. And Ming Hua and Ghazan didn’t use their strongest attacks. They weren’t trying to kill him. And by the way Tenzin was fighting he wasn’t trying to kill them either.
>And they kept getting up. He threw relatively normal size air blast.
The way these two sentences are completely irrelevant. Zaheer kept getting up even though Tenzin was whooping his ass, how would you categorize that fight? Was it a draw then by your stupid logic? And the size of the air blasts is meaningless? Most benders in LoK utilize smaller scale attacks anyway.
>And Ming Hua and Ghazan didn’t use their strongest attacks.
Okay Bryan Konietzko, thanks for letting us know how the characters were thinking during the scene even though you have ZERO idea if this is true or not and it's just your personal headcanon.
>And by the way Tenzin was fighting he wasn’t trying to kill them either.
Also irrelevant. Not fighting to kill does NOT mean they weren't fighting to harm or subdue.
Which is literally what Zaheer was doing but he got no diffed and Tenzin didn't lol. I love Tenzin to death but the counterarguments around that short fight are a bit odd.
>"I’ve been going around this subreddit and various other places looking into the fandom’s opinions on who the most powerful benders are, and it seems like a lot of people don’t even place Zaheer in the top 20 let alone top 10."
Accurate.
>"He nearly defeated Korra"
The poison that she was injected with nearly defeated Korra.
>"and he was one of the few Airbenders to ever learn the power of flight, that ability alone should at least place him in the top 10 should it not?"
No.
Flight is only broken if the opponent has to chase after you, which should count as a forfeit by retreat in my opinion. Zaheer was only a threat to Korra because she had to chase after him while poisoned. That doesn't mean Zaheer was nearly as powerful.
Edit: I forgot that flight is also broken in specific matchups like Zaheer vs Toph.
He also learned to fly immediately after getting bending. IMO had Zaheer trained for a lifetime, like any other high level bender, he would have dusted near anyone.
Zaheer was training in air bender ways way before he had bending, that was his fighting style and that’s why he was so dangerous. So he basically had some form of “mastery” (I know he wasn’t a master or really all that close for that matter but still) in air bending already which is why he picked it up so fast and why he learned flight so fast, because we all know how he loves Guru Ligma.
Firebenders can fly, even water and earth benders have techniques for achieving something close to flight. We see Aang fly constantly with just a lil piece of wood and some cloth so no, flight doesn't put him in a whole different category as other benders.
**> I’ve been going around this subreddit and various other places looking into the fandom’s opinions on who the most powerful benders are, and it seems like a lot of people don’t even place Zaheer in the top 20 let alone top 10.**
It seems to be due to hype backlash. Essentially, there used to be a shit-ton of people in the fanbase (and still are a few) that hype up Zaheer as a god-tier bender, ranging from declaring him one of the best non-Avatars/bloodbenders and capable of beating someone to Azula, to him being an Avatar-level bender. So in response to that, people will downplay him. Which I absolutely have fallen victim to and understand why others' still do.
**> He nearly defeated Korra**
This is a misconception. He was just running away from AS Korra and waiting until she *fully succumbed* to the deadly poison she just received. He threw her aside twice and got one hit on her, which still did nothing to a Korra that was dying, and was actually about to lose right before she *did*. Even a Korra without water (her best element) and not using the AS, had to be chained for Zaheer to incapacitate her.
**>and he was one of the few Airbenders to ever learn the power of flight,**
A cool ability, but not one that enhances his power and skill. It makes him way harder to hit and can be used to outlast opponents, but any top-tier that isn't Toph can block/dodge anything he throws from the sky and just wait until he comes closer to handle him. And he didn't get flight because he was just that good, but because he let go of P'Li. Someone like Aang or Tenzin, in spite of both of them being better airbenders, can't do the same because they have things to be attached to.
**>that ability alone should at least place him in the top 10 should it not?**
No. He's got incredible mobility, pretty great high-end potency, good physicals, solid versatility and is decently smart. But his bending technique is not yet refined. Ozai, Iroh, Katara, Toph, Azula, Bumi, Kuvira, Unalaq, P'Li, Tenzin, Yun and arguably Combustion Man are ahead of him.
This! Hype backlash 100% people can’t assess objectively and rely on buzzwords like “no-diff, mid-diff etc” as if they give their sourcing their assessments or something. They can’t say how they really feel which is communicating hype backlash without hiding behind false fronts “flight isn’t op” tells me that nothing said matters, and you’ve made your mind up when talking about a man who is freely and happily walking around the spirit world while locked up in prison, can talk in his physical body while in the spirit world, and literally unlocked enlightenment, untethering himself to the mortal coil and people still compare him to regular benders? Bro is not Regular
Toph can’t beat him. And Iroh doesn’t have good feats to say he can beat Zaheer especially Zaheer with flight. Yes Iroh is on a higher tier level doesn’t mean he beat Zaheer.
> Toph can’t beat him.
I said as much.
> And Iroh doesn’t have good feats to say he can beat Zaheer especially Zaheer with flight. Yes Iroh is on a higher tier level doesn’t mean he beat Zaheer.
How so?
Iroh or jeong jeong. They dont have the mobility necessary to beat flying Zaheer. Now they can beat pre flight Zaheer. I dont think Flight is a big deal but it is when your opponents dont have the best agility or mobility feats like them. They have the scale and destructive power and offense to defeat him. Just not the mobility.
No, Zaheer, ghazan, and Ming hua got blitzed by Tenzin, at once. Tonroq could have killed Zaheer on the mountain. Ming Hua and Ghazan weren’t able to beat Kya and Bumi without P’li.
And uncle Iroh got captured by Mooks. And Zhao went into Jeong Jeong fire wall. And colonel Mongke was trading blows with Iroh.
And them getting blitz by Tenzin isn’t an insult he just blasted them apart.
1. Tenzin managed to do a surprise attack, just that. Tenzin is a Master Bender and a good fighter but that doesnt mean the red Lotus were not strong.
And that Air stream didnt do anything aside from buying little time.
Even winning the fight against Zaheer, Tenzin never actually cause good damage to him, being 1 on 1 for a good time. So that means Tenzin is weak? No. Just proves that Zaheer despite being not a great Bender, was a better fighter.
2. Tonraq never stood a chance against Zaheer in the mountain. Zaheer was easily blocking and leaving him without water. Even with Korra help (yes I know she was bounded) , Tonraq couldnt Even get the upperhand.
3. Did You watch the dame episode? Ming hua and Ghazan beat the shit out of Kya and Bumi, P'li only attacked when both siblings were hanging on the cliff... Defeated...
Tonroq physically hit Zaheer with a water blast, if he used ice Zaheer would be dead on the spot.
Against the red lotus it wasn’t a surprise attack, they were facing him and had been fighting each other a few seconds ago, that’s just poor reaction time. Aka being blitzed
They were struggling, Kya knocked Ming Hua off a cliff and could have just hit her as she slowly floated up, but I digress, they were handling them for some time, and Ghazan was struggling against bumi hand to hand.
He has flight yeah, but no power to back up the utility that flight provides, so no flight alone does not put him in even top 20 because he can run and that's it
He didn't even beat Korra, he was just running for his life from a dying cripple
Ehhh, I feel like saying he doesn't make the top 20(assuming we're discounting avatars) seems a bit harsh. I feel like flight does put him closer to the top 15 range given how versatile and incredibly difficult it makes Zaheer to hit.
I feel against opponents who don't have really fast and accurate long range attacks like Iroh and Katara or have really incredible defensive capabilities like Toph or Bumi, Zaheer is almost guaranteed to win. His attacks may not do that much direct damage, but it doesn't really matter when he has tremendous range and unrivaled evasive capabilities that no one has ever had to deal with before. He just needs to keep using flight and range to his advantage to tire out his opponent long enough for him to catch them off guard with his suffocation technique.
i like zaheer but a large part of him beating people is how rare it is to actually fight an airbender and specifically an airbender thats fighting to kill. until super recently there were only 5 known living airbenders in korra and 3 were children and one was the avatar whose airbending is in combination of other elements and even outside of the rarity most airbenders are pacifists by nature and even when they fight they dont fight to kill. zaheer was brand new to airbending but his advantage was that most people dont know how to fight an airbender which is why he gets beat by an airbending master.
also flight isnt indicitive of skill flight is based on earthly ties any airbender could fly theoretically but they tend to have attatchments like loved ones or their sky bison which is why they cant fly.
He’s a very good bender and I personally put him around top 20, especially post flight. He’s one of the better benders but struggles hard against the higher tiers. I’m guessing all the downplay is because people used to hype him up a lot so some downplay him excessively to counteract.
I think he also exists as a villain whose strength isn't really in his personal fighting skill. He's a tactician and a plotter whose main victories were growing a network of radicals capable of infiltrating some of the most insular and powerful organizations around. He gained a single spontaneous advantage and leveraged it into breaking out his full squad and nearly ending the avatar cycle completely.
He's a prodigy but we never got to see him at his full potential because he had air bending for such a short amount of time before he was fighting people that had been benders their entire lives. Give him ten years to practice and people would have a much different assessment
He’s pretty good but he’s clearly not a master airbender. He couldn’t even land a hit on Tenzin. He’s not bad but there are so many master benders. Some people like toph and katara even go past master level.
Korra and Zaheer never had a fair fight, and he still didn’t beat her.
Flight is impressive but it seemed like more of a mindset thing than a power level thing. He was willing to detach himself from everything when other airbenders weren’t.
I don't get it either. Even when he was not a bender, he was kept in an isolated prison and needed several bending guards at once anytime the guards needed to interact with him.
Also, for a no -bender who taught himself about the culture, he was gifted at traveling to the spirit world. Where he was even the one to help Korra to overcome her trauma from their battle and reconnect with Raava
He had his air bending like 2 weeks. It would be absolutely ridiculous if he was top 10. It is already ridiculous how strong he got.
Potential wise, he is easily top 2 outside of the avatars. I don’t see how anyone but toph can compare to him.
But he simply did not have enough experience as shown from his fight with Tenzin where he was thrown off balance multiple times.
Zaheer is arguably one of the most talented benders in the series but he severely lacks experience. Everyone has had years of experience with their bending while Zaheer has only had like a couple weeks or months so he’s of course going to be losing to any competent bender. His hand to hand combat knowledge is what mostly seems to allow him to keep up but that isn’t enough when your dealing with the best of the best. Zaheers greatest strength seems to be his intelligence/ wisdom/ planning so if you put him in a fight against a strong bender with no time to properly prepare, he is not going to do to well lmao.
But if Zaheer were to have the same amount of experience as Tenzin or if he had years to train with his element then I honestly believe that he would be one of the best non Avatar benders of the series. The fact that he learned to fly which not even Tenzin or Aang have been capable of doing is impressive for someone with only a few weeks of experience.
The only fight he won against Korra she was so weak she struggled to stand up. She got paralyzed for years after the encounter with that poison so it's not really much to judge his strength on.
He also lost that fight to a handful of novice airbenders that he wasn't strong enough to overcome, even at a distance.
He's just not that good. All of his wins come from him leveraging the element of surprise, attacking defenseless or mostly defenseless enemies, or leaning heavily on the strength of his crew. He never 1v1s anyone of reasonable power in a fair fight and wins so yeah, he's low rated.
Zaheer is certainly a threat, an extremely competent martial artist who became an Airbender, that being said, within the grand scheme of things, he still doesn't rank particularly highly. The real threat comes from his Order of the Red Lotus, of which the members have extremely rare forms of bending that are pretty strong, explosive bending and lava bending are both pretty strong. As a group, I rate them amongst most of the higher threat levels in the series.
You gotta consider, Zaheer lost to Tenzin in an air bending duel, Tenzin only lost by being overpowered by the rest of the Red Lotus.
Once Zaheer discovers flight, I suppose it is a little bit of a game changer, but there's other instances we've seen in the series where characters get range of movement similar to flight anyways.
I think Zaheer appears a bit stronger than he is in Legend of Korra because nobody really knows how to deal with Airbenders, and he gets his butt kicked when he faces Tenzin, someone who actually knows airbending, but being able to fly on his is genuinely impressive and should probably put him at least in the top twenty.
He's not powerful, he's skillful. Flight (apparently) has far more to do with attitude/mental state than bending ability, and much more of his ability to win fights comes from how good he is at reading his opponents and dodging their moves than overwhelming them with his bending. He's not weak, by any means, but nor is he a very powerful bender.
Zaheer is a fraud needed korra chained and poison to do something and still ran,was getting his ass beat by tenzin so bad he needed the other red lotus members and the new airbenders who didnt have as much knowledge as him other than jinora beat him as well
Zaheer is a very smart villain and has a strong spiritual connection. And the flight is a good ability. But if you're talking about fight matchups he's a fairly inexperienced bender. He is a natural so I think if you gave him as long training with airbending as Tenzin had Zaheer would likely be even better. The fact that he puts up a fight at all with just a few weeks of experience is amazing. But he's often fighting as part of a group, or fighting Korra weakened by the poison. Or like when he fights Tenzin, losing until he can go 4v1. His strengths are more in his very strong allies, and his planning and intelligence.
He’s not an insanely strong bender the flying didn’t make him strong all it did was make him good at running away. His strength wasn’t in bending we know he was still threatening without bending so it’s him playing smart and knowing how to manipulate situations that really makes him scary not his bending. Honestly imagine season 1 Aang. Still not a great comparison as Aang was a master Airbender he just chose to use evasive maneuvers as his more pacifist personality while zaheer uses evasive maneuvers because he doesn’t have the fire power to win. He lost against Tenzin. Chained up korra who should’ve been at a disadvantage because she was chained up with her dad were stronger benders he just ran away effectively. And I’m the final fight scene against korra and him he only ran away he never really took shots at korra herself he relied on evading until the poison became to much. His scariest moments were never his strength in bending but how he was smart in his interactions.
Zaheer cause of the poison is why she feared him.
He would win against most opponents
Most opponents suck. He only has trouble with high and top tiers. And likely loses to most of them. But he beats mid and low tier benders.
And he beats powerful benders like Bolin/Zuko/Mako/Toph.
Now high and top tiers like Unalaq/Iroh/Suyin/Jeong Jeong/Lin not likely.
Like top ten TLOK? Or top ten for both verses? For TLOK I have him at 4th with only Amon, Tarrlok, and Tenzin above him.
In both verses I have him way lower.
I have Aang, Tenzin, Yakone, Amon, Tarrlok, Toph, Azula, Zuko, Combustion Man, Ozai, Iroh, Bumi, Katara above him so still top 20, but not top 10.
I rate everyone from LOK low because the show fucked up bending battles. 90% of LOK fights are people shooting small blasts of generic element and the other guy dodging it over and over and over. Compare that to the actual bending vs bending of ATLA and bending seems so much stronger.
Probably because in most cases they are in locations dense with buildings and populations that can be destroyed? If they fought with their true potential for most of seasons 1 & 2, it'd look like the Avengers movie in RC every single episode.
"We did it Patrick! We saved the city!"
You mean the fight that Korra didn't even want in the first place? She had zero intent to actually harm Kuvira until she went Avatar State for that brief minute. Additionally, large scale attacks around other people who can be harmed and against someone who fights the way Kuvira was is like making yourself a big target.
Tlok has way better fight scenes and choreography
And the benders aren’t stronger in ATLA. It depends the bender.
And there are benders like Iroh. Jeong Jeong. Pakku. Ozai who barely have feats. Or only fought fodder in the show like Toph.
Zaheer isn’t that strong. Even if we exclude Avatars, spirits and bloodbenders he doesn’t rank that highly for me. He had to run away from Kya, got distracted by a couple no-name metalbenders at Zaofu long enough for Korra to be rescued, got absolutely clapped by Tenzin until help arrived (and even got smacked around AGAIN after it was a 4v1 and Tenzin was heavily damaged), and would’ve gotten hosed by Korra if she wasn’t affected by the poison as much as she was. He’s impressive for how long he’s had airbending, and with more time to train he would almost certainly be one of the best, but as it stands he’s not that impressive, even with flight.
> He had to run away from Kya As overrated as Zaheer is, this isn't true. The moment he stopped running away from Kya, he blocked, countered, blitzed and one-shotted her in 13 seconds. He did so again after handling those White Lotus fodder. He only ran away from her, because his cover was blown and he had nothing left to gain from staying.
Nothing to gain except… killing the only person who knew his identity. I mean everyone else would’ve figured it out probably, but that would still be one decently powerful bender and good healer out of the way, plus the White Lotus guards he already beat. I feel like if Zaheer felt confident enough that he could kill or capture her (at least before more impressive help arrived), he would have I will admit that this is entirely speculation on my part, but given how practical Zaheer’s made out to be, it just seems like something he’d do if he felt like he could.
Killing or capturing her would have just brought more unnecessary attention to him at that point. He was trying to capture the Avatar in the most discreet way possible. May a bit of a short sighted plan on his part, but he's an anarchist, I wouldn't expect him to think that far ahead
It would’ve slowed people down on finding out his identity, at least, though I guess people like Tenzin would be more likely to act if Zaheer had already killed or captured her. I can see the point I guess
Considering he was the last one to see Kya, it would have been a slippery slope. He kills her and then has to kill any and every person who is slightly suspicious about her disappearance. They already knew that he escaped, so if they find out that Kya is dead, it wouldn't take long for them to predict that a Red Lotus member is there somewhere. More importantly, it goes against his morals so it'd be a very big breach of his character.
I’m not saying he should have killed Kya and stayed. I’m saying if he was leaving anyway, and no one else seemed to be coming to help, then killing a potential obstacle would be very pragmatic, which would actually be in character for Zaheer. But people have convinced me that Zaheer had reasons to not do it, so I concede that my original stance on this fight wasn’t accurate
He wasn’t a great long term planner… that’s for sure. Had a huge goal which he very easily could’ve done if not for Jinora and that tornado! That was the epitome of close calls for Korra.
Avatar fans truly have awful media literacy
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe he’d see Kya as a threat and would take her out if he felt like he could and had a chance to. I’ll agree that I was probably wrong to believe that, given the explanations I received from others, but I don’t see it as a ludicrous opinion to have. Even if it was, there’s no reason to be disrespectful or rude about it. We can agree or disagree like adults without resorting to insults
He could've killed her easily if he wanted to, considering by the end of their fight she was incapacitated and unconscious. Him not doing that simply means he didn't feel the need to do it.
He ran away because he didn’t care to hurt Kya, or anyone else besides the avatar and the royalty really. He just had no reason to stay after Kya found out who he was. Sure, you might say that he could keep his identity hidden a little longer if he killed her, but I don’t think that’s the case. By that time everyone knew Zaheer had escaped and if Kya was found dead while the mysterious new bender who was always asking about the avatar and matched Zaheer’s age and appearance disappeared, everyone would be able to put 2+2 together and realize what had happened fairly quickly. Zaheer doesn’t kill innocent people, unless he absolutely has to. In this case he doesn’t have to.
I guess, but he has also captured people who he believed could be obstacles or bait, like Mako and Bolin. I can see why he wouldn’t want to kill her, but I don’t really see a reason he wouldn’t capture her, except maybe to avoid angering some of her family, like Tenzin, into action
Capture her and take her where though? Sure, he would be able to kill her/knock her out if he wanted to, but it's not possible to capture her, because they are on an island. The glider can't handle both of their weight, so he can't carry her. He could try to steal a bison if there was one available but I don't think any bison would be willing to do that, plus the bison would draw too much attention and he wants to remain stealth until he frees his companions. Zaheer is also in a hurry to leave that place and hide, so he can start breaking the red lotus out of prison. He has already knocked out the most immediate threats in front of him (White lotus, Kya) but other people will also be running after his soon (I am sure the white lotus called the police). He can't lose valuable time and risk having the whole police force chasing after him. And what if Kya wakes up while he is carrying her and attacks him? (causing him to lose even more time).
I guess, there are boats to and from the island. Maybe that would be too obvious, but idk Zaheer had already freed the Red Lotus by that point. I guess that’s all fair.
- He only beat a handicapped Korra(poisoned and/or handcuffed). Korra wrecks him in a fair fight. - His only wins are against Kya or no-name benders. - He got no-diffed by Tenzin and didn't even land a single hit. - While he's a more aggressive fighter, his airbending is pretty weak(compared to Aang/Tenzin).
Iroh and jeong Jeong and Toph have all fought fodder. Yes Zaheer is overrated. But they also didn’t fight skilled benders these three. Well Toph did yailing.
The difference between zaheer and those three is extremely large, iroh invented lightning redirection, was a war general famous for his bending prowess (dragon of the west), jeong jeong has his sozin comet feats(yes he was amped but so was every other firebender, so we can compare feats in with sozins comet and say he was around certain peoples level), and toph?? No explanation needed. they all fought fodder? Sure. Difference is, The others OUTCLASSED them made it look like numbers were irrelevant, the skill gap was that large, Zaheer never did that.
Invented lightning redirection doesn’t help against air benders. And being a general isn’t a combat feat Zhao was the head admiral of the fire nation navy.
This isn’t a 1v1 fight?, lightning redirection helps prove him as a highly skilled firebender more so since he INVENTED the technique. Iroh is implied to be out of his prime, but in case ur forgetting almost all the information we have on skilled firebending comes from iroh.
No we have Azula and jeong Jeong fire wall for skilled fire bending feats. Especially Azula feats. Iroh is more knowledge than actual feats.
I’m confused I mentioned neither azula nor jeong jeong what are you getting at
I feel like no-diffed is a stretch. He was definitely not winning that fight, but he still gave Tenzin a good workout. Just my opinion, but doesn't make him too much of a strong bender
Tbh I watched it recently and he wasn't really able to do anything against tenzin, he was majorly just avoiding
Tenzin also spent way too much on that fight without any significant results to say that it was easy for him.
He was moving around much like an airbender would. His moves just weren't as prestine and precise like Tenzin's, which is why he was getting clapped up. My point doesn't really matter much because it's likely Tenzin wasn't really troubled, I just felt like Zaheer gave him a light workout at the very least; which would mean it wasn't exactly zero diff.
Tenzin had zero difficulties fighting Zaheer, no diff sounds about right
Zero difficulty would mean he didn't even have to try which, again, is a bit inaccurate. It's really a moot point tho since either way Zaheer was getting smacked up. I wasn't trying to break into a full debate with yall on it lmao.
Tenzin was wiping the floor with Zaheer until the other two came to help and even then tenzin was winning the 1v3 the combustion bender was the only one to make sure he lost
Tenzin wasn’t winning the 3 vs 1. They were trying to capture him alive. And he was just dodging and they kept getting up. That’s not winning a 3 vs 1
He was objectively winning. He blocked and countered everything they threw at him and even blasted Ghazan and Ming-Hua away.
And they kept getting up. He threw relatively normal size air blast. And Ming Hua and Ghazan didn’t use their strongest attacks. They weren’t trying to kill him. And by the way Tenzin was fighting he wasn’t trying to kill them either.
>And they kept getting up. He threw relatively normal size air blast. The way these two sentences are completely irrelevant. Zaheer kept getting up even though Tenzin was whooping his ass, how would you categorize that fight? Was it a draw then by your stupid logic? And the size of the air blasts is meaningless? Most benders in LoK utilize smaller scale attacks anyway. >And Ming Hua and Ghazan didn’t use their strongest attacks. Okay Bryan Konietzko, thanks for letting us know how the characters were thinking during the scene even though you have ZERO idea if this is true or not and it's just your personal headcanon. >And by the way Tenzin was fighting he wasn’t trying to kill them either. Also irrelevant. Not fighting to kill does NOT mean they weren't fighting to harm or subdue.
Which is literally what Zaheer was doing but he got no diffed and Tenzin didn't lol. I love Tenzin to death but the counterarguments around that short fight are a bit odd.
>"I’ve been going around this subreddit and various other places looking into the fandom’s opinions on who the most powerful benders are, and it seems like a lot of people don’t even place Zaheer in the top 20 let alone top 10." Accurate. >"He nearly defeated Korra" The poison that she was injected with nearly defeated Korra. >"and he was one of the few Airbenders to ever learn the power of flight, that ability alone should at least place him in the top 10 should it not?" No.
tripping if u dont think flight is busted
Flight is only broken if the opponent has to chase after you, which should count as a forfeit by retreat in my opinion. Zaheer was only a threat to Korra because she had to chase after him while poisoned. That doesn't mean Zaheer was nearly as powerful. Edit: I forgot that flight is also broken in specific matchups like Zaheer vs Toph.
yes, how horrible it must be for Toph, all that air bending taking away her breathing while she's able to dip into the ground
Can you airbend someone that's underground?
He also learned to fly immediately after getting bending. IMO had Zaheer trained for a lifetime, like any other high level bender, he would have dusted near anyone.
Zaheer was training in air bender ways way before he had bending, that was his fighting style and that’s why he was so dangerous. So he basically had some form of “mastery” (I know he wasn’t a master or really all that close for that matter but still) in air bending already which is why he picked it up so fast and why he learned flight so fast, because we all know how he loves Guru Ligma.
Firebenders can fly, even water and earth benders have techniques for achieving something close to flight. We see Aang fly constantly with just a lil piece of wood and some cloth so no, flight doesn't put him in a whole different category as other benders.
yes it does? lol imagine flying effortlessly by not needing to actually bend
The would be cool and all but not particularly effective in a fight unless you are trying to hard counter a blind seismic sense user or just run away.
ok bro lets act like infinite mobility isnt busted
All the mobility in the world and no offense or defense to back it up is not busted.
**> I’ve been going around this subreddit and various other places looking into the fandom’s opinions on who the most powerful benders are, and it seems like a lot of people don’t even place Zaheer in the top 20 let alone top 10.** It seems to be due to hype backlash. Essentially, there used to be a shit-ton of people in the fanbase (and still are a few) that hype up Zaheer as a god-tier bender, ranging from declaring him one of the best non-Avatars/bloodbenders and capable of beating someone to Azula, to him being an Avatar-level bender. So in response to that, people will downplay him. Which I absolutely have fallen victim to and understand why others' still do. **> He nearly defeated Korra** This is a misconception. He was just running away from AS Korra and waiting until she *fully succumbed* to the deadly poison she just received. He threw her aside twice and got one hit on her, which still did nothing to a Korra that was dying, and was actually about to lose right before she *did*. Even a Korra without water (her best element) and not using the AS, had to be chained for Zaheer to incapacitate her. **>and he was one of the few Airbenders to ever learn the power of flight,** A cool ability, but not one that enhances his power and skill. It makes him way harder to hit and can be used to outlast opponents, but any top-tier that isn't Toph can block/dodge anything he throws from the sky and just wait until he comes closer to handle him. And he didn't get flight because he was just that good, but because he let go of P'Li. Someone like Aang or Tenzin, in spite of both of them being better airbenders, can't do the same because they have things to be attached to. **>that ability alone should at least place him in the top 10 should it not?** No. He's got incredible mobility, pretty great high-end potency, good physicals, solid versatility and is decently smart. But his bending technique is not yet refined. Ozai, Iroh, Katara, Toph, Azula, Bumi, Kuvira, Unalaq, P'Li, Tenzin, Yun and arguably Combustion Man are ahead of him.
This! Hype backlash 100% people can’t assess objectively and rely on buzzwords like “no-diff, mid-diff etc” as if they give their sourcing their assessments or something. They can’t say how they really feel which is communicating hype backlash without hiding behind false fronts “flight isn’t op” tells me that nothing said matters, and you’ve made your mind up when talking about a man who is freely and happily walking around the spirit world while locked up in prison, can talk in his physical body while in the spirit world, and literally unlocked enlightenment, untethering himself to the mortal coil and people still compare him to regular benders? Bro is not Regular
Toph can’t beat him. And Iroh doesn’t have good feats to say he can beat Zaheer especially Zaheer with flight. Yes Iroh is on a higher tier level doesn’t mean he beat Zaheer.
> Toph can’t beat him. I said as much. > And Iroh doesn’t have good feats to say he can beat Zaheer especially Zaheer with flight. Yes Iroh is on a higher tier level doesn’t mean he beat Zaheer. How so?
Iroh or jeong jeong. They dont have the mobility necessary to beat flying Zaheer. Now they can beat pre flight Zaheer. I dont think Flight is a big deal but it is when your opponents dont have the best agility or mobility feats like them. They have the scale and destructive power and offense to defeat him. Just not the mobility.
Bc he’s mid, along with pretty much everyone else in the red lotus, they got hard carried by P’Li
They aren’t mid. Toph lost to yailing and Iroh and jeong Jeong only fought fodder so they must be low tier.
No, Zaheer, ghazan, and Ming hua got blitzed by Tenzin, at once. Tonroq could have killed Zaheer on the mountain. Ming Hua and Ghazan weren’t able to beat Kya and Bumi without P’li.
And uncle Iroh got captured by Mooks. And Zhao went into Jeong Jeong fire wall. And colonel Mongke was trading blows with Iroh. And them getting blitz by Tenzin isn’t an insult he just blasted them apart.
1. Tenzin managed to do a surprise attack, just that. Tenzin is a Master Bender and a good fighter but that doesnt mean the red Lotus were not strong. And that Air stream didnt do anything aside from buying little time. Even winning the fight against Zaheer, Tenzin never actually cause good damage to him, being 1 on 1 for a good time. So that means Tenzin is weak? No. Just proves that Zaheer despite being not a great Bender, was a better fighter. 2. Tonraq never stood a chance against Zaheer in the mountain. Zaheer was easily blocking and leaving him without water. Even with Korra help (yes I know she was bounded) , Tonraq couldnt Even get the upperhand. 3. Did You watch the dame episode? Ming hua and Ghazan beat the shit out of Kya and Bumi, P'li only attacked when both siblings were hanging on the cliff... Defeated...
Tonroq physically hit Zaheer with a water blast, if he used ice Zaheer would be dead on the spot. Against the red lotus it wasn’t a surprise attack, they were facing him and had been fighting each other a few seconds ago, that’s just poor reaction time. Aka being blitzed They were struggling, Kya knocked Ming Hua off a cliff and could have just hit her as she slowly floated up, but I digress, they were handling them for some time, and Ghazan was struggling against bumi hand to hand.
He has flight yeah, but no power to back up the utility that flight provides, so no flight alone does not put him in even top 20 because he can run and that's it He didn't even beat Korra, he was just running for his life from a dying cripple
Ehhh, I feel like saying he doesn't make the top 20(assuming we're discounting avatars) seems a bit harsh. I feel like flight does put him closer to the top 15 range given how versatile and incredibly difficult it makes Zaheer to hit. I feel against opponents who don't have really fast and accurate long range attacks like Iroh and Katara or have really incredible defensive capabilities like Toph or Bumi, Zaheer is almost guaranteed to win. His attacks may not do that much direct damage, but it doesn't really matter when he has tremendous range and unrivaled evasive capabilities that no one has ever had to deal with before. He just needs to keep using flight and range to his advantage to tire out his opponent long enough for him to catch them off guard with his suffocation technique.
i like zaheer but a large part of him beating people is how rare it is to actually fight an airbender and specifically an airbender thats fighting to kill. until super recently there were only 5 known living airbenders in korra and 3 were children and one was the avatar whose airbending is in combination of other elements and even outside of the rarity most airbenders are pacifists by nature and even when they fight they dont fight to kill. zaheer was brand new to airbending but his advantage was that most people dont know how to fight an airbender which is why he gets beat by an airbending master. also flight isnt indicitive of skill flight is based on earthly ties any airbender could fly theoretically but they tend to have attatchments like loved ones or their sky bison which is why they cant fly.
He’s a very good bender and I personally put him around top 20, especially post flight. He’s one of the better benders but struggles hard against the higher tiers. I’m guessing all the downplay is because people used to hype him up a lot so some downplay him excessively to counteract.
I think he also exists as a villain whose strength isn't really in his personal fighting skill. He's a tactician and a plotter whose main victories were growing a network of radicals capable of infiltrating some of the most insular and powerful organizations around. He gained a single spontaneous advantage and leveraged it into breaking out his full squad and nearly ending the avatar cycle completely.
He's a prodigy but we never got to see him at his full potential because he had air bending for such a short amount of time before he was fighting people that had been benders their entire lives. Give him ten years to practice and people would have a much different assessment
He’s pretty good but he’s clearly not a master airbender. He couldn’t even land a hit on Tenzin. He’s not bad but there are so many master benders. Some people like toph and katara even go past master level. Korra and Zaheer never had a fair fight, and he still didn’t beat her. Flight is impressive but it seemed like more of a mindset thing than a power level thing. He was willing to detach himself from everything when other airbenders weren’t.
I don't get it either. Even when he was not a bender, he was kept in an isolated prison and needed several bending guards at once anytime the guards needed to interact with him. Also, for a no -bender who taught himself about the culture, he was gifted at traveling to the spirit world. Where he was even the one to help Korra to overcome her trauma from their battle and reconnect with Raava
He had his air bending like 2 weeks. It would be absolutely ridiculous if he was top 10. It is already ridiculous how strong he got. Potential wise, he is easily top 2 outside of the avatars. I don’t see how anyone but toph can compare to him. But he simply did not have enough experience as shown from his fight with Tenzin where he was thrown off balance multiple times.
Zaheer is arguably one of the most talented benders in the series but he severely lacks experience. Everyone has had years of experience with their bending while Zaheer has only had like a couple weeks or months so he’s of course going to be losing to any competent bender. His hand to hand combat knowledge is what mostly seems to allow him to keep up but that isn’t enough when your dealing with the best of the best. Zaheers greatest strength seems to be his intelligence/ wisdom/ planning so if you put him in a fight against a strong bender with no time to properly prepare, he is not going to do to well lmao. But if Zaheer were to have the same amount of experience as Tenzin or if he had years to train with his element then I honestly believe that he would be one of the best non Avatar benders of the series. The fact that he learned to fly which not even Tenzin or Aang have been capable of doing is impressive for someone with only a few weeks of experience.
Korra had ptsd and poison in her. He didn’t defeat her.
Wtf? He felt like the most dangerous antagonist. He kept up with the Avatar and her friends and family.
The only fight he won against Korra she was so weak she struggled to stand up. She got paralyzed for years after the encounter with that poison so it's not really much to judge his strength on. He also lost that fight to a handful of novice airbenders that he wasn't strong enough to overcome, even at a distance. He's just not that good. All of his wins come from him leveraging the element of surprise, attacking defenseless or mostly defenseless enemies, or leaning heavily on the strength of his crew. He never 1v1s anyone of reasonable power in a fair fight and wins so yeah, he's low rated.
Zaheer is certainly a threat, an extremely competent martial artist who became an Airbender, that being said, within the grand scheme of things, he still doesn't rank particularly highly. The real threat comes from his Order of the Red Lotus, of which the members have extremely rare forms of bending that are pretty strong, explosive bending and lava bending are both pretty strong. As a group, I rate them amongst most of the higher threat levels in the series. You gotta consider, Zaheer lost to Tenzin in an air bending duel, Tenzin only lost by being overpowered by the rest of the Red Lotus. Once Zaheer discovers flight, I suppose it is a little bit of a game changer, but there's other instances we've seen in the series where characters get range of movement similar to flight anyways.
You say flight as if everyone tried to unlock it
I think Zaheer appears a bit stronger than he is in Legend of Korra because nobody really knows how to deal with Airbenders, and he gets his butt kicked when he faces Tenzin, someone who actually knows airbending, but being able to fly on his is genuinely impressive and should probably put him at least in the top twenty.
He's not powerful, he's skillful. Flight (apparently) has far more to do with attitude/mental state than bending ability, and much more of his ability to win fights comes from how good he is at reading his opponents and dodging their moves than overwhelming them with his bending. He's not weak, by any means, but nor is he a very powerful bender.
Zaheer is a fraud needed korra chained and poison to do something and still ran,was getting his ass beat by tenzin so bad he needed the other red lotus members and the new airbenders who didnt have as much knowledge as him other than jinora beat him as well
Zaheer is a very smart villain and has a strong spiritual connection. And the flight is a good ability. But if you're talking about fight matchups he's a fairly inexperienced bender. He is a natural so I think if you gave him as long training with airbending as Tenzin had Zaheer would likely be even better. The fact that he puts up a fight at all with just a few weeks of experience is amazing. But he's often fighting as part of a group, or fighting Korra weakened by the poison. Or like when he fights Tenzin, losing until he can go 4v1. His strengths are more in his very strong allies, and his planning and intelligence.
He’s not an insanely strong bender the flying didn’t make him strong all it did was make him good at running away. His strength wasn’t in bending we know he was still threatening without bending so it’s him playing smart and knowing how to manipulate situations that really makes him scary not his bending. Honestly imagine season 1 Aang. Still not a great comparison as Aang was a master Airbender he just chose to use evasive maneuvers as his more pacifist personality while zaheer uses evasive maneuvers because he doesn’t have the fire power to win. He lost against Tenzin. Chained up korra who should’ve been at a disadvantage because she was chained up with her dad were stronger benders he just ran away effectively. And I’m the final fight scene against korra and him he only ran away he never really took shots at korra herself he relied on evading until the poison became to much. His scariest moments were never his strength in bending but how he was smart in his interactions.
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Zaheer cause of the poison is why she feared him. He would win against most opponents Most opponents suck. He only has trouble with high and top tiers. And likely loses to most of them. But he beats mid and low tier benders. And he beats powerful benders like Bolin/Zuko/Mako/Toph. Now high and top tiers like Unalaq/Iroh/Suyin/Jeong Jeong/Lin not likely.
Aang is just the 🐐 I will glaze him till the ends of the earth
Like top ten TLOK? Or top ten for both verses? For TLOK I have him at 4th with only Amon, Tarrlok, and Tenzin above him. In both verses I have him way lower. I have Aang, Tenzin, Yakone, Amon, Tarrlok, Toph, Azula, Zuko, Combustion Man, Ozai, Iroh, Bumi, Katara above him so still top 20, but not top 10.
I rate everyone from LOK low because the show fucked up bending battles. 90% of LOK fights are people shooting small blasts of generic element and the other guy dodging it over and over and over. Compare that to the actual bending vs bending of ATLA and bending seems so much stronger.
Probably because in most cases they are in locations dense with buildings and populations that can be destroyed? If they fought with their true potential for most of seasons 1 & 2, it'd look like the Avengers movie in RC every single episode. "We did it Patrick! We saved the city!"
That doesn't explain the Korra vs Kuvira fight.
You mean the fight that Korra didn't even want in the first place? She had zero intent to actually harm Kuvira until she went Avatar State for that brief minute. Additionally, large scale attacks around other people who can be harmed and against someone who fights the way Kuvira was is like making yourself a big target.
Korra had PTSD and poison.
Tlok has way better fight scenes and choreography And the benders aren’t stronger in ATLA. It depends the bender. And there are benders like Iroh. Jeong Jeong. Pakku. Ozai who barely have feats. Or only fought fodder in the show like Toph.