The Puppetmaster

Writer: Tim Herdrick

Director: Joaquim Dos Santos

Guest Stars: Tress Macneille (Hama), Stu Levin (Old Man Ding)

Overview
''The gang discover there have been strange disappearances in a spooky town. They befriend an old innkeeper named Hama, who reveals she is a Waterbender from the Southern Tribe. She becomes Katara's mentor and shares with her the tragic story of her life as a prisoner of the Fire Nation. Katara discovers Hama is kidnapping civilians with a dark ability, Bloodbending, to enact her revenge. The resulting battle forces Katara to use the technique against Hama to save her friends.''

Synopsis
The group has camped out in the woods for the night and sit around a fire. Sokka tells a horror story about a haunted sword, which completely fails to scare the others. Katara tells a frightening story about a little girl named Nini, a friend of her mother's who disappeared during a harsh winter in the Southern Water Tribe.

The story leaves the entire group jumpy. Toph suddenly says very seriously that she can hear people screaming from under the mountain, freaking everyone out. An old woman named Hama suddenly appears behind them and terrifies everyone, but she warmly offers them a safe place to stay for the night, which they accept. At her inn, they enjoy spiced tea. Hama warns them that people in the woods had been mysteriously disappearing on full moons recently, but says they'll be safe with her.



The next day they all go out shopping for food with Hama, who gets along with Katara very well. Sokka overhears some of the locals talking about the strange disappearances of villagers during the full moon. Sokka remarks to Hama how mysterious her town is, causing her to grin oddly and tell him "Mysterious town for mysterious children."

Hama sends her guests ahead of her back to the inn, Sokka investigates the house for anything suspicious, finding a cupboard filled with wooden puppets in a hallway and a locked door in the attic. Peering through the keyhole, he sees a box lying in the room beyond it, and decides the pick the lock with his sword. After breaking into the room, Toph Earthbends her meteor bracelet into a key for the box. Just before they manage to open it, Hama walks in and catches them in the act. However, she opens the box for them and pulls out a Whale Tooth Comb, revealing she is from the Southern Water Tribe.



Hama prepares a traditional Water Tribe dinner for them, explaining she knows they are from the Southern Water Tribe too as she heard them talking in the woods. Hama reveals she is also a Waterbender, bending their soup into their bowls, and begins to tell them the story of how she was taken from the south pole into the Fire Nation.

When Hama was young, the Fire Nation captured all of the Waterbenders during raids of their tribe, over time whittling down their numbers until Hama was the last remaining. She, too, was then captured sixty years ago, and among those taken was the only one who managed to escape alive. Katara is deeply moved by her tragic story, and Hama offers to teach Katara what she knows in order to carry on the tradition of the Southern Waterbenders. Katara is overjoyed to learn, wanting to know more about her tribe's cultural heritage.



The next day Hama shows Katara water can be pulled from the moisture of air, and leads her to a field filled with Fire Lillies. She demonstrates that water can also be drawn from anything that's alive as well. With a swift motion, Hama pulls water from the flowers, leaving them dried and dead. Katara is amazed, but becomes sad upon realizing the lilies were killed. Hama dismisses her concerns quickly, reminding her that they were simply flowers. She then tells Katara she has one more technique to teach: one that can only be used during the full moon when their bending is at its peak. When Katara expresses hesitance due to the rumors of disappearances, Hama reassures her, stating that two master Waterbenders under a full moon should be able to handle anything.

Meanwhile, Aang, Sokka, and Toph, believing the disappearances to be the work of an angry spirit, carry out an investigation. After briefly exploring the area, Aang concludes that the town is surrounded by natural beauty--the townsfolk have done nothing to disrupt the environment or anger the spirits. Questioning one of the locals leads the group to Old Man Ding, an elderly man who supposedly saw the spirit. That night, Ding tells the three that he never actually saw a spirit, but rather felt possessed and compelled to walk to the mountain. Unable to control his own movements, Ding almost walked into a cave. But then, the sun rose, and he regained control of his body. Toph realizes that she really had heard screaming coming from under the mountain, and that the captured villagers must be imprisoned there.



Katara and Hama arrive in the forest with the full moon in the night sky. Hama remarks sinisterly she's never felt so alive. Aang, Sokka, and Toph discover an underground prison in a cave. Toph Metalbends the door open and crafts her bracelet into a key to free the villagers from their shackles. The villagers tell them it was not a spirit that captured them, but the innkeeper Hama. Sokka and Aang go stop Hama while Toph leads the villagers out.

Hama reveals to Katara the story of how she escaped. While imprisoned, she and the other Waterbenders were completely separated from any and all water. The guards pumped in dry air into the cells and made sure their arms and legs were tied before feeding water to them. However, she eventually realized that water exists within all living things, and began to manipulate water in the bodies of rats that crawled into her cage. This technique, Bloodbending, could only be used with the influence of the full moon enhancing her abilities. After years mastering the technique, Hama took control of one of the guards, forcing him to unlock her cage, allowing her to walk free after decades of imprisonment.

Horrified by the idea of controlling another person's body, Katara isn't sure about learning Bloodbending. Hama declares they must get their vengeance on the Fire Nation for nearly wiping out their entire culture, saying Katara must avenge her mother's death. The outburst leads Katara to realize that Hama has been causing the villagers to disappear. Hama wickedly states the people of the Fire Nation deserve the same treatment that they gave to the Southern Waterbenders. Hearing this causes Katara to refuse to learn Bloodbending and to stop Hama from further terrorizing the town, and so Hama uses the technique to temporarily force Katara into submission.



Katara quickly regains control of her body and prepares to fight, reminding Hama that she too draws power from the moon. The two begin to battle, each drawing water from the grass and trees surrounding them, but it quickly becomes obvious that Katara is the superior combatant. When Katara appears on the cusp of victory, Aang and Sokka arrive to assist her--and succeed in doing little more than providing Hama with an advantage, as she uses Bloodbending to control them like puppets to attack Katara.

Katara evades their attacks and manages to freeze both Aang and Sokka to two separate trees to stop them, but this proves to be only a temporary solution. Hama frees them both and resorts to sending them flying at each other, with Sokka's sword pointing straight at Aang. At the last second, Katara uses Bloodbending to subdue Hama and protect Aang. Toph arrives with the other villagers, who handcuff Hama and take her away, vowing to imprison her forever. Hama remarks that her work is done, as Katara has already willfully used Bloodbending, and therefore learned the technique. She cackles as she is dragged off. Katara breaks down in tears, with Aang and Sokka's comfort.

Series Continuity

 * In Hama's flashback we see Katara and Sokka's grandmother, Kanna. She does look a lot like Katara.
 * We also learn from Hama's flashback that the Fire Nation Ship that Aang and Katara went into in The Boy in the Iceberg was trapped by the Southern Waterbenders.
 * Toph uses her bracelet, made from the meteor rock Sokka gave her in "Sokka's Master".
 * When Toph suggests that the moon spirit could be to blame for the disappearances, Sokka becomes rather upset and proclaims that the moon spirit is a "gentle lady who rules the sky with compassion and... lunar goodness!". This is a reference to Princess Yue.
 * This is the first time Katara bloodbended a person (Hama). The second time was when she bloodbended the guard she accused that he was the one who killed her mother in The Southern Raiders"

Trivia

 * When Katara returns from shopping with Hama, she started to unpack, and was holding a cabbage, when she remarked that Hama reminded her of her grandmother. Oddly enough, the cabbage she was holding looked like Kanna and even had clear lines to show her face.
 * This is considered to be one of the darkest episodes in the series, as this was a Halloween special released in October of 2007. It has many of the conventional elements of a horror film.
 * For some fans this episode called into question if the Avatar receives a boost to their power from the full moon like 'normal' Waterbenders, and by extension Firebenders with the Comet, as Aang could not break free from Hama's Bloodbending while Katara could.
 * Although it is possible Katara was able to break free because she was more skilled in Waterbending at the time, given her ability to focus on it exclusively while Aang could not.
 * It is also possible that Aang was unable to break free because he did not have as much forewarning as Katara did about the ability. Hama explained Bloodbending to Katara before performing it on her, whereas Aang was subjected to Bloodbending without prior explanation.
 * When Hama told the kids when she was captured over 60 years ago, Kanna would've been at the northern water tribe, not the southern water tribe.