Avatar S3E8: "The Puppetmaster"
A twisted tale | Grade: A
Thanks for tuning in to my fourty-eighth of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S3E7: The Runaway.
This episode, which originally aired as a Halloween special, follows Team Avatar to a creepy Fire Nation town where people have been mysteriously vanishing into the forest on the night of the full moon. They’re taken in by Hama, an old woman who runs the local inn. Sokka, suspicious of Hama’s eerie mannerisms, snoops through her possessions. But the innkeeper returns and catches them, revealing her secret: she knows they’re from the Southern Water Tribe, and so is she.
The episode drags a bit at first. But after Hama’s true origins are revealed, and she recounts her capture from the South Pole at the hands of the Fire Nation, The Puppetmaster quickly earns its place as one of the darkest and most memorable chapters in the series, especially for an episode that takes place outside of the main plot.
Hama offers to instruct Katara in the bending traditions of her tribe. The reverent Katara — who up to now thought she was the only waterbender left from the South Pole — gladly accepts. In their first lesson, the old woman explains that in unfamiliar and unfriendly territory, “you have to learn to control water wherever it exists.” To emphasize her point, she bends the moisture out of the air, and then pulls a tide of water from the field of lilies they’re standing in. The lilies wither and die, leaving behind a large black ring underfoot.
In the chilling final act, Hama reveals her most sinister technique to Katara as she recounts the story of her escape from the Fire Nation. Locked in her cell, she realized there was one grisly source of water that her captors could never take away: blood. She quietly practiced bending the blood within the rats that scurried across her cage, manipulating them to dance like marionettes. Once she had mastered the skill, she turned it on her guard, forcing his arm to unlock her door.
Katara is shocked shocked and demurs.
But... to reach inside someone and control them? I don't know if I want that kind of power.
But Hama does not relent, and Katara realizes she’s been the one disappearing the townspeople.
Katara, they tried to wipe us out, our entire culture, your mother! We have to fight these people whenever we can, wherever they are, with any means necessary! … They threw me in prison to rot, along with my brothers and sisters! They deserve the same.
When Katara refuses, Hama turns her twisted power on the young waterbender, throwing her from side to side and pushing the terrified, sobbing girl to her knees. But tapping into her deep reserves of strength, Katara draws on the power of the full moon for herself to resist, and slowly rises to her feet. “My bending is more powerful than yours, Hama!”
They begin to duel, and Katara is gaining the upper hand. But the tides turn with the arrival of Aang and Sokka, who have come running after discovering the missing villagers locked up deep within the mountain. Hama controls them both, forcing Sokka to pull out his sword, as Katara desperately tries to keep him from impaling Aang. Ultimately, she has no choice but to bloodbend Hama to save her friends. The episode ends with Katara sobbing as Hama is dragged away, cackling.
My work is done. Congratulations, Katara. You're a bloodbender.
This episode is the crowning achievement from Avatar’s flirtation with psychological horror, from the spirit Koh to the Dai Li’s brainwashing program. The show finds purchase in the dynamics of losing control of one’s own mind and body, acting according to another’s will. It’s the first time this uncanny powerlessness is actually inflicted on Team Avatar. The jerky, halting motions as Hama controls Katara draw from the grotesque aesthetic of body horror.
In constructing its antagonist, The Puppetmaster bears a lot of similarity to Jet. Both characters are Machiavellian renegades who covertly fight the Fire Nation, and both take revenge on civilians, using their past victimization at the hands of the Fire Nation to justify their actions. But despite Jet’s undeniable charisma, Hama is the superior villain. Not only is she more frightening, thanks to her unique and revolutionary power, but the moral questions around her are more compelling and more complex.
It’s easy to conclude that Hama is evil for bloodbending civilians, who are not responsible for the crimes against her. But that aside, it’s far more challenging to evaluate her invention and use of the dark style, which can be considered a form of torture (at least psychological, if not also physical). Was she justified in bending the blood of her prison guards in order to escape? Can that be considered self-defense? If she had only used the technique on soldiers, would that be morally acceptable?
Hama is also uniquely frighting for a one-off villain because, at least in her view, she succeeds. She forces Katara to bloodbend, implicating her and ensuring that the the technique will live on in the young waterbender’s mind. Hama is a foil to Katara, highlighting her morality even in the face of her struggle, but the old woman also illustrates how easily the distinction between them could collapse. The potential of bloodbending is astounding — if Katara faced Fire Lord Ozai, perhaps she could even win the war singlehandedly. Will she deny herself this power, or will she be tempted?
See you tomorrow for Episode 9: Nightmares and Daydreams! Share your own thoughts on this episode in the comments.
Spare observations
Hama literally keeps a closet of Fire Nation puppets, as a nod to the episode’s title.
In Hama’s flashback, her friend is Kanna, a.k.a. Sokka and Katara’s Gran-Gran.
We also see Hama’s first the flashback how the Southern waterbenders uprooted the booby-trapped Fire Nation ship that Aang and Katara entered in the very first episode of the series.
There’s a wild cat-owl in the trees. We saw one before in a pet shop in Ba Sing Se.
After his romance with Yue, Sokka gets at Toph’s suggestion that the Moon Spirit is responsible. “The Moon Spirit is a gentle, loving lady. She rules the sky with compassion and... lunar goodness!"
Hama practiced bloodbending on elephant rats. We saw one in Aang’s cell in Avatar Day.
Jet and Hama both invoke Katara’s mother when trying to convince her to follow them.
Friends of the White Lotus [SPOILERS]
Bloodbending plays a significant role in The Legend of Korra, which further explores its fearsome power.
Katara will indeed bloodbend once more, but only once, in The Southern Raiders.
Hama is the first true villain who gets a flashback from their point-of-view. The other will be Yon Rha in The Southern Raiders.