Mark Watches ‘Avatar’: S03E08 – The Puppetmaster

In the eighth episode of the third season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Team Avatar meet a woman hiding a potentially deadly secret from the Fire Nation. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Avatar.

WELL THAT WAS UNEXPECTED.

The versatility of the storytelling on Avatar is what makes it so fun for me. We’ve seen recent experiments with in media res, or flashback-heavy episodes like “Zuko Alone,” or “Appa’s Lost Days,” or an episode made up of vignettes. (“Tales of Ba Sing Se”) Even within episodes that don’t have a different technique being used, the writers have always kept things interesting and varied. I don’t know if they had to prove that they could write a successful show before they could start experimenting, but season three is such a different beast than the first one. After having watched “The Puppetmaster,” I can see why the writers chose to avoid telling a story that is so pervasively creepy early on in the show’s run.

It’s great being able to watch this after the fact because I generally don’t have to concern myself with such ideas. While I have missed out on so much good television because of my strict upbringing, I do like that I can just sit down and watch a complete work in order and I don’t have to have the unbearable waiting that comes along with watching something in real time. I’ve been able to follow a few shows in the last few years, like LOST or Breaking Bad or Fringe. It’s fun. I enjoy the experience a lot. But Fringe is a good show to use as an example: I can enjoy the show, but I’m always concerned about who is watching it and what sort of interference can come from the network. I don’t know too much about the way that Nickelodeon interacted with the creators and writers of Avatar, and I can imagine that sometimes, it wasn’t an easy process. As the show started to show darker themes, more violence, and wrote an ending to a season that was bleak as hell, I always wondered how much the network let them do what they wanted or told them to hold things back.

(Yes, that is a request, and you’re welcome to share anything you know in the comments! I read ’em all every day and as long as you don’t spoil me, I would be totally in to learning more about the creation of this show.)

The reason I’m thinking of these sort of things is because a great deal of “The Puppetmaster” is CREEPY AS FUCK. I initially thought that the whole “scary story” vibe from the cold open was just meant to be a situational joke, an opportunity to poke fun at the idea of telling urban legends around a fire. And seriously, what could scare this group of kids after all the terrible things they’ve seen over the last six months?

Hama could.

The episode initially rests on the assumption that some creepy lady who pops out of the forest is meant to be feared, and it’s here that we start a rollercoaster of a ride with this character. Of course, you want to mistrust Hama: she’s a Fire Nation citizen who is a little too friendly to Team Avatar, taking a particular liking to Katara more than anyone else. It doesn’t help that, after taking the group back to her inn, she talks about the disappearance of a bunch of local children as if it’s just a thing that happens and is totally not a big deal! Have some tea!

In that sense, I get why Toph, Aang, and (especially) Sokka are suspicious of this woman and of the rest of town. Sokka’s the kind of person who can take an idea too far, and that’s his dilemma for the bulk of the episode. Is it wrong of him to assume that Hama has an ulterior motive? Is it wrong for him to associate someone, who has only show him and his friends kindness, with the kidnappings occurring in town? Where do you draw the line in terms of personal ethics if you feel so strongly that someone is up to no good? I can’t deny that I, too, felt that Hama was too good to these kids, so as Sokka led his mission through the woman’s house to discover what she was hiding, I did understand it at a base level. But I also have to admit how incredibly foolish this was: No one was keeping a watch out for Hama to return. They were just opening every door without preparation. They entered a room with only one exit and used Toph’s meteor bracelet to break into a lone box in that room. THIS IS ALL A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.

So of COURSE Hama surprises them all by sneaking up behind them. (How did Toph not “see” her?) She has nothing to hide at this point, and that made me stop abruptly. This is not the behavior of someone who is kidnapping children. Wouldn’t she try to conceal the truth until she won their trust? (Well….ok, SHE DOES, but I meant in terms of me being at this point in the episode.) So she tells the kids that she’ll show them what’s in the box.

A comb. From the Southern Water Tribe. WHERE SHE GREW UP.

In just an instant, this episode completely changes. Now I know why Hama was drawn towards Katara. I know why she was so nice to these kids. I know why she was so willing to take them in. They were just like her: OUTSIDERS LIVING AMONGST THE ENEMY. Oh my god, I love this show. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. If you think about it, it’s all one giant sleight of hand, using changes in tones to trick us into believing certain things about the characters, thinking that we’re being shown an opportunity for Katara to improve her mastering of water bending.

Actually, that’s a great thing that this episode does very well: show us water bending in a new light, both in terms of training and execution. Hama’s backstory provides us with a context we’ve seen before: the Fire Nation stole the water benders from the Southern Water Tribe, leaving only Hama behind at one point, before she was eventually kidnapped, too. It gives Katara something to latch on to. Both women have experienced tragedy at the hands of the Fire Nation. It’s a chance for Katara to feel a kinship with someone in way she never has before, and you can see the joy and satisfaction in her face as she lovingly expresses how excited she is to have found another Southern Water Tribe bender.

It’s precisely because of this that everything from here on out is so difficult and disturbing. Katara is in the right place–by design, which makes this all the more unsettling–to listen to Hama about what she has to teach her about her tribe’s culture. Drawing on top of sweat bending from the last episode, the writers finally show us just how technical water bending can be. I suppose it’s something I’ve always wondered about, and it was nice to have it confirmed here. Hama shows Katara that there is water in almost everything around her, and, using a field of fire lilies, she bends water out of the flowers surrounding her. It’s a haunting image, watching the life be sucked out of the flowers, and even Katara can’t ignore that. Yet it’s becoming clear that Hama has developed her own philosophy about water bending over the years. She has had to live amongst the very people who stole her life away. Was it to be expected that she would assimilate entirely and shed away her previous culture? Was it reasonable to assume she’d moved past the anger and resentment caused by the actions of an imperialistic nation?

As Toph, Aang, and Sokka begin to rapidly put the pieces together on the missing Fire Nation citizens, “The Puppetmaster” takes a turn for the downright horrifying, bringing back the tone from the beginning of the episode. But this is not just a story around a campfire. We learn that through years of concentration and practice, Hama is ABLE TO BEND BLOOD.

NO, SERIOUSLY, THINK ABOUT THAT. SHE IS A BLOOD BENDER. I think I may have wondered that out loud in a past review, but I never expected the show to deal with it. Not only do they manage to do that without making it a gruesome exercise, but it’s still just as terrifying as it seems. Even worse, Hama is not just a simple villain by any stretch. This is a woman who has been oppressed by the Fire Nation for most of her life, and she developed a method to bend blood in order to not only escape, but to enact some sort of vengeance for having her life stolen and her culture erased. I seriously cannot hate on that. It’s a powerful statement, and it makes this all the more confusing for Katara. She knows that Hama is right, that the Fire Nation has destroyed her culture and that they must do what they can to defend themselves. But she’s uncomfortable with the idea of controlling another person’s body!

SO HAMA USES THAT AGAINST HER. Watchers, the final “battle” between Hama, Katara, Aang, and Sokka is just RUTHLESS in its brutality. We don’t even realize what she is doing until the final minute, but she controls Katara, then pits Aang and Sokka against her, then forces the two boys to nearly kill one another. This entire time, we see the sheer power that Katara possesses and how much her water bending continues to grow. But when Hama goes after Aang and Sokka, flinging Sokka sword-first toward Aang, the full trick is revealed: In a moment of utter desperation, Katara, aided by the power of the full moon, finds the ability to blood bend Hama and control her, stopping her from killing Aang. Even when Toph frees the villagers and Hama is taken away in cuffs, she turns to stare directly at Katara, a look of malicious glee on her face.

She got Katara to blood bend anyway.

What a chilling, bleak moment. Could you imagine something like this early in the first season? It seems that Nickelodeon has let the show do whatever it wants, but I think that if they were handed this script, it would have been turned down in a heartbeat. I’m glad it exists here in season three; tonally, it fits in with the message that people from different nations are not monolithic robots, that there is more than just one side to everyone. It also shows us that the battle ahead will not be cut and dry and the themes of moral ambiguity will only get stronger from here on out.

Oh, yeah. THIS SHIT IS CREEPY.

THOUGHTS

• I generally sleep like Sokka does. True story.
• “The Moon Spirit is a gentle, loving lady! She rules the sky with compassion and….LUNAR GOODNESS!” Defensive much, Sokka? Oh, I love you.
• “It’s like my brain has a mind of its own!” I can’t ignore how hilarious this is.
• SOKKA IS A THEREMIN. Amazing.
• omg omg omg NORTH BY NORTHWEST REFERENCE! I love that movie!