It probably would have also helped to not have had such poor mentors. Tenzin was a bad teacher for her and unfortunately didnt get properly called on it.
Tenzin was a poor teacher because he wasnt trying to teach her air bending, he was tryimg to make her into an air nomad. This is repeated in the third season, when he talks to the new air benders he iant trying to help them iniitally, all he can see them as are a nee air nation. Most of his comments show that he wants them to embrace the air nations culture, values, etc regardless of where they once came from
And yet the moment they embrace the culture, they start to get better at air bending, Case in point, the man who got his head shaved was to predict this opponent's attack pattern.
The shaved head example was the only one and even then that was utilitarian and not actually universal (not that tenzin didn't shave his daughters heads). And the fact was that these people were from other nations with histories and cultures that may have also faced destruction from the fire nation in the last war. Tenzins desire to get them abandon what they were in favor of his culture might have been less malicious but it was still not appropriate. There are other issues with Tenzin and his ego but those aren't directly tied to his issues as a teacher for Korra.
You do know the war with the Fire Nation was like decades ago at this point in time. None of the people alive in the Korra era besides what's left of team avatar were affected by the fire nation. If anything, most of the cultural stuff has been forgotten in the Korra era anyway, so that's a moot point. And it's not like they were forced to become the new air nation anyway.
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u/DirtySilicon Mar 01 '25
Yeah, IMO Korea's biggest vices during LoK were not listening and thinking she knew best without the experience to back it up.