History Recap / AvatarTheLastAirbenderThePuppetmaster

* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Hama was captured by the Fire Nation while trying to defend her home. She spent the next months locked in a prison cell and was bound during water breaks. One night, she had a startling revelation: all people and animals are mostly composed of water. She learned to waterbend the blood of the rats that crawled on her cell before moving onto the guards. After escaping from her cell, she stayed in the Fire Nation and rounded up citizens, Bloodbending them to the mountain and locking them up. While her reason behind this is understandable, she forced Katara to learn this ability in order to save Aang. While being dragged away and while Katara was crying, Hama laughed evilly at her success.

* CommonalityConnection: Sokka slowly starts to warm up to Hama when she reveals she's from the Southern Water Tribe and has made a traditional meal for him and the Gaang. Katara in the meantime is thrilled to meet a fellow waterbender who knows older techniques.

** Hama's dangerous true nature is foreshadowed with her normal Waterbending - she pulls the water from trees, instantly killing them (showing how little she cares for harming innocent life), and she at one point freezes water at the tips of her fingers to form deadly sharp icicles.

* CerebusRetcon: That humorous moment way back in Season One when Katara introduced Aang to "the whole village" - a tiny cluster of elderly, children and few adults? Becomes considerably less so as we now learn [[GenocideSurvivor why]] there's so little of them left now.

* CerebusRetcon: The humorous moment way back in Season One when Katara introduced Aang to "the whole village" - a tiny cluster of elderly, children and few adults - becomes less so when you realise [[GenocideSurvivor why]] there's so little of them left now.

* TheDollEpisode: Starting with those {{Creepy Doll}}s, and then Katara learns about how waterbending can be used to [[PeoplePuppets manipulate people like puppets]].

-->--'''Hama'''

''[[caption-width-right:333:Katara is introduced to bloodbending.]]''

* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: Hama claims that she must imprison the villagers to pay back the Fire Nation for imprisoning her in turn. The villagers for the most part don’t seem to realize what the soldiers do, but they are largely innocent of the more heinous crimes that Hama suffered.

* EvilOldFolks: Hama. She’s about the same age as Katara and Sokka’s grandmother and she is an evil old woman who invented a new type of bending, which allows the user to control another person against their will. She forces Katara to learn this technique in order to pass on some twisted legacy.

* GhostStory: The episode opens with Sokka and Katara telling these. Katara's story was based off a real event that happened to her mother when she was a child.

* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: Katara points her finger at Hama when telling her she won't let her terrorizing the town. Cue Hama using her bloodbending to twist Katara's arm.

* VictoryIsBoring: Implied. Hama has escaped from the Fire Nation cells but she spends her life taking out her pain on villagers who had nothing to do with her imprisonment. She looks much happier when she’s caught and returned to jail because she has passed on her legacy.

** To rally Katara to her side, Hama points out that the Fire Nation unjustly imprisoned her and killed Katara's mother. Both legitimate points, though Katara retorts that blood bending isn't the right way to go about it.

* DownerEnding: [[TheBadGuyWins Hama gets her way]] when Katara unwillingly learns bloodbending to save Sokka and Aang.

* AbsenteeActor: As with the previous episode, none of the Fire Nation main characters appear and the focus is solely on Team Avatar.

* AffablyEvil: Before she turns out to be dangerous, vengeful, and obsessed with [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing innocent Fire Nation villagers]], Hama is quite nice to the Gaang, giving them a place to stay and cooking them a large meal with traditional Water Tribe dishes.

* ApologeticAttacker: Katara, Sokka, and Aang, when Hama uses bloodbending to control the boys.

* BigNo: Katara when Sokka and Aang almost die at the hands of Hama.

* ContinuityNod: Quite a few!

* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Bloodbending.

* FauxAffablyEvil: Hama is nice at first, but reveals her true colors when Katara refuses to learn bloodbending.

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Hama falls prey to this, doing to innocent Fire Nation citizens what her Fire Nation jailers did to her.
* IWasQuiteALooker: Hama was quite a beautiful young woman in her pre-Fire Nation years.

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: Downplayed. After many, ''many'' years of terrorizing a village, Hana finally gets arrested at the very end--but not before unwittingly teaching Katara bloodbending.

* {{Lunacy}}: As an advanced form of Waterbending, Bloodbending is strongest during the full moon.

* ProperlyParanoid: Sokka of Hama. His instinct was that she was hiding something, though at first the Gaang is led to believe that she was hiding her Water Tribe roots.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Sorta with Hama. She was captured by the Fire Nation, trying to defend her home. Her companions were captured and so was she eventually. She spent the next few months locked in a prison cell and was bound during water breaks. One night, she had a startling revelation: all people and animals are mostly composed of water. She began perfecting her new technique on rats and then moved onto the guards. She managed to escape from her cell, but she stayed in the Fire Nation and rounded up citizens, Bloodbending them to the mountain and locking them up. While her reason behind this is understandable, she forced Katara to learn this ability in order to save Aang. While being dragged away and while Katara was crying, Hama laughed evilly at her success.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The fates of Hama's fellow captured water benders are unknown. It's possible that she might have also released them during her escape but there's no specific indication of this, and given the nature of they treatment, it's doubtful any of them still locked up would have survived until the end of the war.

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: After many, ''many'' years of terrorizing a village, Hana finally gets arrested at the very end.

-->'''Hama''': You would have me use my feminine charms to take advantage of that poor man? [{{Beat}}] I think you and I are going to get along swimmingly.

** To rally Katara to her side, Hama points out that the Fire Nation unjustly imprisoned her and killed Katara's mother. Both legitimate points, though Katara retorts that [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse blood bending isn't the right way to go about it]].

-->'''Hama''': It's my greatest treasure. It's the last thing I owned from growing up '''in the Southern water tribe'''.

--> '''Hama:''' Congratulations, Katara. You're a bloodbender.

-->"When the moon turns full, people walk in and they don't come out. ({{Beat}}) Who wants more tea?

* CassandraTruth: Subverted. When Toph says that she can hear people screaming under the Earth, no one has the opportunity to tell her it may be from hearing Katara's ghost story because Hama interrupts and introduces herself. Later at the inn, Hama confirms that people do disappear during the full moon, and Team Avatar investigates. Toph is vindicated when an old man Qing Du tells them he was nearly compelled to walk into a cave; the screams were coming from within the mountain.

* EvilCounterpart: Hama is this to Katara. They have been greatly affected by the Fire Nation attacking their home and losing people that they care about. Both sought revenge against the Fire Nation for what they did. However, Hama was consumed by her lust for revenge and became a twisted person who punished innocent civilians for what others had done. Katara never gave in to her desire for revenge against Yon Rah.

* InstantExpert: Katara learns Bloodbending overnight, albeit unwillingly.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Hama's first waterbending lesson is to teach Katara how to draw water from everywhere around her, and how she can gain a lot of power by using the plants around her. Katara laments that the plants die as a result, but Hama tells her that in battle you have to use all the resources you have. Guess what Katara uses in the climactic battle against Hama?

* NotSoDifferent: Sokka slowly starts to warm up to Hama when she reveals she's from the Southern Water Tribe and has made a traditional meal for him and the Gaang. Katara in the meantime is thrilled to meet a fellow waterbender who knows older techniques.

* {{Lunacy}}: Just like Waterbending, Bloodbending is strongest during the full moon.

-->'''Hama''': You would have me use my feminine charms to take advantage of that poor man? [[{{Beat}}!]] I think you and I are going to get along swimmingly.