I’m copping a bit from an e-mail listener Eric sent us, but the re-direction of lightning taught to Zuko by Uncle Iroh supposedly came from Iroh’s study of the water tribe’s bending techniques. 

It would make a sort of natural sense that as the four nations came together and started cohabiting, it was less of a rarity for a fire bender to know water bending technique and visa-versa. 

It seems like average bending skill level in LoK is much higher than A: TLA.

-Da7e-