History Characters / AvatarTheLastAirbenderMentors

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The puppets Sokka finds in her home not only forewarns to her being the first bloodbender, but she also made them to ''resemble her prisoners.''

* MeaningfulName: Hama is Japanese for "beach" or "seashore", befitting a waterbender.

* PunnyName: A dramatic example; her name is a pun on "hema-", the Greek prefix referring to blood. It's quite appropriate for the modern creator of bloodbending.

* AllThereInTheManual: Kanna, Katara and Sokka's grandmother, is the other girl a young Hama is seen laughing with in the flashback. [[OneDegreeOfSeperation Which means she knew her future pupil's grandmother way before meeting her]].

* SlasherSmile: When she drops the CoolOldLady act, she showcases her deranged and barbarous side during her fight with Katara, when she uses her bloodbending against the latter, and later Aang and Sokka, all while grinning like a madwoman

* EvilLaugh: Breaks out one when she bloodbends Katara, and when she [[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame "congratulates her" for using the same skill to defeat her]].
* EvilMentor: Forces Katara to learn bloodbending.

* SheWhoFightsMonsters: Because she was kidnapped and imprisoned, she kidnaps and imprisons others. It doesn't matter if they had nothing to do with the Fire Nation army: coming from the Fire Nation is enough for Hama to consider you a problem.

* WiseOldFolkFacade: Provides the trope image: introduced as an innocent, frail old woman, but reveals herself to be a sadistic and bitter old hag who sequestrates innocent people who had nothing to do with her trauma. She even forces Katara to learn bloodbending by using her skill to turn Aang and Sokka against her, then ''eachother''.

* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: Years restrained in a POW camp made her into a bitter and hateful person.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: She acts like a MentorArchetype for Katara but is far more sinister.

* BrokenBird: See BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil. She believes she's acting out of self-defense.

* FallenHeroine: She used to be a NiceGirl defending her home. Then she was captured...

* NeverMessWithGranny: She invented bloodbending and can make you kill your best friends.

* OneDegreeOfSeparation: AllThereInTheManual identifies her best friend as Kanna, Katara and Sokka's grandmother.

* SheWhoFightsMonsters: Because she was kidnapped and imprisoned, she kidnaps and imprisons others.

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JamesGarrett (original), Andrew Caldwell (original, young), Sergio Schmied and Carlos Carvajal (Latin American Spanish), Ami Mendelman (Hebrew), Artur Pontek (Polish, young), Łukasz Lewandowski (Polish, adult), Stanisław Brudny (Polish, old)

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/SabShimono (original), Alexis Quiroz (Latin American Spanish)

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AndreSogliuzzo (original), Javier Ridríguez and Daniel Seisdedos (Latin American Spanish), Giura Kennet and Eli Lulai (Hebrew), Jarosław Domin (Polish)

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KeoneYoung (original), Sandro Larenas (Latin American Spanish)

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/VictorBrandt (original), Marco Antonio Espina (Latin American Spanish)

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/RobertPatrick (original), Ricardo Soto (Latin American Spanish)

[[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTeamAvatar Team Avatar]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAvatarAang Avatar Aang]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderZuko Prince Zuko]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderKatara Katara]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderSokka Sokka]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTophBeifong Toph Beifong]]) | '''Mentors''' | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAllies Allies]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderGeneralIroh General Iroh]]) | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNation Fire Nation]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily Fire Nation Royal Family]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderFireLordOzai Fire Lord Ozai]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderPrincessAzula Princess Azula]]) | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheEmberIslandPlayers The Ember Island Players]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderOtherCharacters Other]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderComicCharacters Comics]]]]]]-]

* TheCasanova: Kuruk's tenure was a peaceful one (he tells), so he was more interested in flirting than his duty.

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JamesGarrett (original), Andrew Caldwell (original, young), Sergio Schmied and Carlos Carvajal (Latin American Spanish), Ami Mendelman (Hebrew)

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JenniferHale (original), Maureen Herman (Latin American Spanish)

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AndreSogliuzzo (original), Javier Ridríguez and Daniel Seisdedos (Latin American Spanish), Giura Kennet and Eli Lulai (Hebrew)

* SatelliteFamilyMember: Gyatso was Aang's beloved [[ParentalSubstitute guardian]], who was killed by the Fire Nation while Aang was frozen in the iceberg. When Aang awakens, he initially doesn't believe that the other Air Nomads have all been wiped out. After discovering Gyatso's remains in the ruins of the Southern Air Temple, Aang has a HeroicBSOD and finally accepts that he's the last remaining airbender. Its later revealed that learning of Gyatso's death filled Aang with guilt over running away from home and not being there to protect his people.

* LadyOfWar: She's implied to be one [[WomenAreWiser from her demeanor]].

* WomenAreWiser: Going purely by what is shown in the show, at least. Yangchen has the most successful tenure of the four and Kyoshi ended hers without regrets because the Dai Li weren't corrupt under her watch.[[note]]As a spirit, she regretted their creation because they ultimately became corrupt.[[/note]] On the other hand, Kuruk is ''still'' making up for his mistakes three generations later and Roku is riddled with guilt. Later works would establish that both Yangchen and Kyoshi both still made their fair share of mistakes and had their own regrets, and that a lot of Kuruk's perceived shortcomings were a direct result of dealing with problems Yangchen left behind, but you wouldn't know that just by what's shown in the series.

** Finally, [[spoiler:he is shown being wiped from existence along with the other pre-Korra Avatars when Unalaq and Vaatu destroy Raava.]]

A Waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe, Hama was one of many benders who defended her home from the Fire Nation. Eventually imprisoned and kept from all liquids, Hama was left to rot. She eventually realized that water is part of all life, and used this to create a deadly subset of Waterbending: Bloodbending, a dark art of manipulating the bodies of others. After using this to escape, Hama kept to herself in the Fire Nation countryside, and used her powers once a month to torment Fire Nation civilians. But she's not getting younger, so she intends to pass the art of Bloodbending onto the next generation. And no, she doesn't care what Katara has to say about that. And she's not a member of the White Lotus.

* TheBadGuyWins: She succeeds in forcing Katara to use Bloodbending at the end of "The Puppetmaster". She was arrested immediately after, but she had accomplished what she wanted so she didn't care.

* CosmicMotifs: The Moon like many Waterbenders, though she shows [[{{Lunacy}} the negative aspects]] of it. Namely, it's association with madness, reflecting how [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil her capture and treatment at the Fire Nations hands caused her to snap]], and eventually started targeting civilians who had nothing to do with the war.

** To Katara and Pakku. For the former: the episode ''The Southern Raiders'' had Katara acting a lot like Hama - hateful, driven, and focused on revenge - while she was looking for the man who killed her mother. She even used ''bloodbending'' on the man she thought was him. Hama represents what Katara could've ended up like if she had let her anger and hatred control her. For the latter: Katara's reception to the two water benders changed as the episodes went on. Katara originally hated Pakku for his [[StayInTheKitchen sexist behavior towards female Water benders]], but grew to respect him as a master after his CharacterDevelopment and was pleased on finding out he was to wed her grandmother. But for Hama it's the exact opposite, with Katara initially appreciating her kind gestures and sorrowful backstory, but despising her after finding out what she did after.

* EvilMentor: Forces Katara to learn Bloodbending.

* FauxAffablyEvil: She poses as a kind and thoughtful old woman to the Gaang at first. It's until she begins to teach Katara the ways of Bloodbending that she reveals her true colors.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: From a simple Waterbender fighting for the Southern Water Tribe against the Fire Nation to the inventor of one of the most ''horrifying'' forms of Bending in the entire franchise.

* IcyGrayEyes: In addition to being a rare color amongst Waterbenders, her gray eyes also reflect her cold and dangerous personality.

* TheJailer: In vengeance on the Fire Nation for what they did to her, she uses Bloodbending to capture Fire Nation civilians and lock them away deep below a mountain, seemingly for the rest of their lives.

* NeverMessWithGranny: She invented Bloodbending and can make you kill your best friends.

** Under the full moon and the additional strength it gives Waterbenders, [[BodyHorror her fingernails become haggard claws and her veins prominently protrude from under her skin]] along with her hair becoming unkempt, making her look all the more like the WickedWitch she really is.

* SoleSurvivor: She was the last Southern Waterbender to be captured and the only one that escaped.

* TouchOfDeath: Her style of Waterbending involves pulling water out of plants and other living things; effectively killing them. However, as she points out, populated areas outside of the poles where the Water Tribes are don't always have large regular bodies of water, so it's mostly a case of adapting to her surroundings, though it's still pretty dark.

* MuggleBornOfMages: [[AllThereInTheManual According to the official website]], his parents were both talented Firebenders, [[ParentalAbandonment who abandoned him when he wasn't one]].

* ParentalAbandonment: [[AllThereInTheManual According to the official website]], his parents were both talented Firebenders who left him on the step of an orphanage when he turned out to be a nonbender.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Ultimately, most of the [[spoiler:tragedy]] her next two successors went through land on her shoulders. [[spoiler:Her inability to properly bridge the human world and the spirit world leads to Kuruk sinking into hedonism in order to cope with the constant dark spirit attacks that came about because of her choices, and those same attacks eventually cause him to die at a young age. More than that, because he is so focused on stopping these attacks, he is forced to neglect the more mundane problems of the human world, eventually leading to Kyoshi being stuck with multiple international crises when she finally takes on her duties as his successor. Yangchen openly acknowledges what happened is her fault, and uses it as a lesson to Kyoshi that there is no 'correct' way to be an Avatar, and that she's going to make mistakes like all her predecessors did. All she can do is find a way that works for her, do her best using that way, and hope that it's enough]].

** Roku is Phlegmatic; best shown by [[WideEyedIdealist his dealings]] with [[AxeCrazy Sozin]], he was kind, forgiving, and placed great stock in peace and harmony. Blames himself for the Hundred Year War.

* MenActWomenAre: Gender Inverted. It's the two female Avatars, Kyoshi and Yangchen, who unambiguously endorse the option of Aang killing Fire Lord Ozai, while the two male Avatars, Roku and Kuruk, only give him vague suggestions about "being decisive" and "shaping your own destiny," respectively. Likewise, Roku allowed Sozin to live, and openly regrets [[spoiler:not killing him when he had the chance,]] and Kuruk admits he was a "go with the flow" Avatar, which worked against him. Kyoshi, on the other hand, openly defies Chin the Conqueror and lets him fall to his death [[spoiler:(and bluntly admits to it),]] as well dictating terms to the Earth King himself; Yangchen, implied both through the show and the comics before being displayed in [[Literature/TheDawnOfYangchen her own book]], was very pro-active and unrestrained in dealing with threats to the world's balance and peace.

* WizardsLiveLonger: Avatars normally enjoy an extended lifespan, such as Kyoshi (who lived to be the oldest Avatar, at 230). However, they are still vulnerable to violent deaths, such as Roku who died in a volcanic eruption at age 70. Aang is a more complicated case; chronologically he's 112 but biologically 12 [[spoiler:and dies when he is biologically 66 because of the time he spent frozen in the iceberg,]] Averted with Kuruk, who only lived to be 33. It's unclear to the world whether or not he died of natural causes, [[spoiler:although in ''The Shadow of Kyoshi'' it's revealed that Kuruk spent much of his time as Avatar fighting corrupted spirits caused by Yangchen's decisions regarding the spirit world, and each battle drained his life force.]]
* WomenAreWiser: Going purely by what is shown in the show, at least. Yangchen has the most successful tenure of the four and Kyoshi ended hers without regrets because the Dai Li weren't corrupt under her watch. [[note]] As a spirit, she regretted their creation because they ultimately became corrupt. [[/note]] On the other hand, Kuruk is ''still'' making up for his mistakes three generations later and Roku is riddled with guilt. Later works would establish that both Yangchen and Kyoshi both still made their fair share of mistakes and had their own regrets, and that a lot of Kuruk's perceived shortcomings were a direct result of dealing with problems Yangchen left behind, but you wouldn't know that just by what's shown in the series.

-->'''To Jeong-Jeong:''' "You think I am weak? I have mastered the elements a thousand times across a thousand lifetimes! Now I must do so again."

* LukeIAmYourFather: Roku is the maternal great-grandfather of [[spoiler:Prince Zuko and Princess Azula]]. He confirms in ''The Promise'' that he is aware of this, by being the one to reveal it to Aang. It was possibly {{Foreshadowed}} earlier, when he freed Zuko in addition to Katara and Sokka during the Solstice.
* ManlYFacialHair: Has a long beard and all the power that comes with being a fully realized Avatar.

* NiceGuy: Spared [[spoiler: Sozin]] because they were friends and is consistently kind to Aang.

* NobleBigot: DeconstructedTrope in ''The Promise''; his insistence on removing Fire Nation colonies even if it meant separating mixed-race families came off as villainous even for a well-meaning attempt to bring peace while ignoring that they could become independent culture.

** To Aang, to an extent, weird as that may seem. He's kindly and patient with his successor when advising him, though also willing to be firm, and he and Aang seem to care for each other very much, something elaborated upon in the comics when Aang tearfully [[spoiler: cuts himself off from Roku after strongly disagreeing with Roku's advised course of action, on the grounds that he thinks that Roku's views are stuck in the past and only holding him back. It is followed then by the emotional reunion after he reconnects with him, something that has all the vibes of estranged family members reuniting]]. Going by the other past Avatars shown and Aang's relationship with his successor, Korra, they're unusually close, with the former being cryptic and unhelpful, and the latter being kind enough, but distant.

* PersonOfMassDestruction: Like all former Avatars, he qualifies, but he deserves particular note - while Kyoshi created an island, he destroyed one while possessing Aang.

* ShootTheDog: His advocating Aang killing [[spoiler:Zuko]] in ''The Promise.'' All the more so because [[spoiler:Zuko is his great-grandson and he hates the thought of killing him]], but he views his own reluctance to invoke this trope with Sozin as a tragic mistake that led to the troubles Aang has to deal with in the present time.

* StealthPun: Roku is the one who gives the [[PreviouslyOn 'Previously, on Avatar...']] speech, because he IS the previous Avatar.

* BreakoutCharacter: Has become this for the past Avatars, receiving the most attention and focus in expanded universe materials, including her own novel series. She will also be the star of her own project by Avatar Studios, an untitled animated film that’s set to release sometime after 2024.

* DistinctionWithoutADifference: How she sees Chin the Conqueror’s death; while Aang points out that she didn't actually kill Chin and it was his own stubbornness that caused him to fall to his death, Kyoshi says she doesn't see any difference, since her actions still led to his death, and if he had pushed the issue, she would have killed him outright.

* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: Kyoshi and Korra are the only Avatars with confirmed kills to their name - though Aang's de-bending of Yakone was depicted as a FateWorseThanDeath, to the point where Amon [[spoiler:learned to mimic it via blood-bending]] for the impact value in ''Korra''. Aang would rather not see what she did as killing Chin but she does. She also outright kills someone in her novel in a duel by dropping him to his death. This reputation seems to have long survived her, as Aang regrets asking her advice on how to handle Ozai.

Kuruk was the Avatar preceding Kyoshi, hailing from the Northern Water Tribe. Describing himself as a 'go with the flow' Avatar, he let people work out their own problems-- which he came to regret when the spirit Koh kidnapped his wife, Ummi, and stole her face.

For more on him, check out the two [[Characters/TheRiseOfKyoshi Kyoshi-focused prequels]]. While he is very, very dead by then, several of his friends are major characters who offer insight about him, and like Roku to Aang, he ends up giving Kyoshi a flashback of his history to help her understand what she's up against and what she has to do next-- a flashback which completely upends what she thought she knew about him.

* AscendedExtra: Like Kuruk, she debuted first in ''VideoGame/EscapeFromTheSpiritWorld'', a tie-in online game, and makes her show debut in the series finale. She gets an extended flashback in '' The Rift'', about her first mission as the Avatar, while ''The Rise of Kyoshi'' frequently namedrops her. She finally makes another appearance near the end of ''The Shadow of Kyoshi.'' Finally, much like Kyoshi herself, she is set to be the focus of the next novel in the ''Chronicles of the Avatar'' series, ''The Dawn of Yangchen''.

* LovedByAll: In ''The Rise of Kyoshi'', she's often invoked instead of the more recent Avatar Kuruk as the gold standard of a hardworking, effective Avatar, and described as 'blessed' and 'holy.' As she makes clear, though, this wasn't the whole story and Kuruk did a lot to preserve her reputation.
* MentorOccupationalHazard: In ''The Rise of Kyoshi,'' Kyoshi recalls that two of her bending masters lost their lives holding off enemies so that Yangchen could escape to fight another day.

* LastStand: {{Implied}}. We see the skeleton of a pacifist monk, lying on top of a PILE of fire soldier skeletons. Note that when said pile of skeletons were living and breathing, they were each powered up by 100 times the normal level by Sozin's Comet, but Gyatso's bones were unburnt -- so it can be inferred that instead of burning to death, he managed to take all of them out. Airbending is also never shown to have any inherently lethal abilities other than RazorWind over the course of the series until ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', so this is impressive indeed. When he went down, he went down ''hard''.

* MembershipToken: In flashback, he is shown playing a White Lotus tile, [[spoiler: implying that he was a member of the Order of the White Lotus.]]

* NiceGuy: Easily one of the sweetest, kindest characters in the whole franchise; in fact, you might say that, aside from his apprentice, he was the living embodiment of the Air Nomads' AlwaysLawfulGood values. The warmth of Sab Shimono's vocal performance certainly helps, too.
** It's safe to assume that if Gyatso had lived long enough to meet [[BigFun Uncle Iroh]], they would have gotten along ''famously''.

--> "Climbing the ladder? Nobody's tried that before."

** In a number of South- and Southeast-Asian languages (for example, Hindi and Indonesian) Bumi -- sometimes, Bhumi -- is the word for ''Earth'' ...rather appropriate, no? Apparently, Sokka was onto something with his "He's an Earthbender, his name must be Rocky!" quip.
** Bhumi is also the name for the Hindu earth god. Very appropriate considering his nigh-godlike earthbending.

--->'''King''': [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Wrong. Choice.]]

--->'''Bumi''': It's time [to reclaim my city].

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Action variety and a good law maker.

* ShootTheDog: His advocating Aang killing [[spoiler:Zuko]] in ''The Promise.'' All the more so because [[spoiler:Zuko is his great-grandson and he hates the thought of killing him]].

* RefugeInAudacity: He's a wanted army deserter who lives in a castle in the middle of the Fire Nation. Because nobody can make him leave.

* SomebodyElsesProblem: During Kyoshi's life, Chin the Conqueror took over nearly all of the Earth Kingdom. Kyoshi didn't bother doing anything about it until he came to her doorstep with an army. Her general reaction was to tell him to buzz off, then separate what would become Kyoshi Island from the mainland. Chin only dies by accident and his own stubbornness, not because of any direct action against him on Kyoshi's part (unless one includes using airbending to rip off his clothes).
** This makes sense in-universe, as the role of the Avatar is to ensure balance ''between'' the nations, not enforce a particular form of government. Kuvira points this out to Korra, telling her to mind her own business, and that Kuvira's war against the United Republic was actually an internal Earth Kingdom matter over which the Avatar has no jurisdiction. It's implied the real problem everyone had is that her justifications and actions were beginning to resemble that of Fire Lord Sozin's (suggesting her conquest might've not stopped at just the Earth Kingdom) and everyone knows how ''that'' turned out.

* AppealToForce: Scares Jeong-Jeong into training Aang, against the other man's better judgement, whatever his reasons for doing so. This was a recurring pattern with him, as demonstrated when he responded to [[spoiler: Sozin's first colonies]] by threatening him, then obliterating half his palace in a brutal CurbStompBattle and informing him that if he steps out of line again, he'll kill him. It's worth pointing out that in the latter case, Roku actually sees what he did as the opposite of this trope. As far as he's concerned, he was being soft on his former friend, merely trying to show him humility. In hindsight, he fully believes he should've killed Sozin right there and prevented the entire war and the century of devastation that followed.

* LukeIAmYourFather: Roku is the maternal great-grandfather of [[spoiler: Prince Zuko and Princess Azula]]. He confirms in ''The Promise'' that he is aware of this, by being the one to reveal it to Aang. It was possibly {{Foreshadowed}} earlier, when he freed Zuko in addition to Katara and Sokka during the Solstice.

* ShootTheDog: His advocating Aang killing [[spoiler: Zuko]] in ''The Promise.'' All the more so because [[spoiler: Zuko is his great-grandson and he hates the thought of killing him]].

* ThePowerOfLegacy: ''The Shadow of Kyoshi'' reveals that [[spoiler: his apparently lacklustre tenure as Avatar was in part because he sacrificed his reputation and health to protect Avatar Yangchen's legacy as one of the best Avatars, who threw the balance between humanity and spirits out of whack by favoring humans extensively.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Last seen telling Aang that he needed to open his final chakra as Aang [[spoiler: flew off to save Katara from danger]]. His only appearance after that was in a sleep-deprived hallucination with six arms singing "Chakras, chakras, everyone loves chakras, chakra sandwich is good, yum!" Also, we never find out where he came from, since he appears to be of different ethnicity than anyone else in the ''Avatar'' world. Tenzin namedrops him in Book 2 of ''The Legend of Korra'', so he wasn't completely forgotten (like Admiral Zhao), but that just makes the questions all the starker.

* WizardsLiveLonger: An odd example, as while he isn't a bender he does seem to possess some sort of spiritual powers, and is old enough to have been a good friend of Monk Gyatso, putting him at well past 100 years old. Interestingly, this would also imply that he was alive during the time of Avatar Roku, making him the only person in the world to have lived during the times of both Avatars Roku and Aang.

* SoulPower: He demonstrates such knowledge and mastery of spiritual powers as to get the fandom wondering whether he might be an energybender.