Book 3: The Runaway / The Puppetmaster

It's all about our girls this time around.

“You’re probably wondering how I ended up like this.”

 Katara has turned Toph over to the local authorities! But why?

Three days earlier, Katara, Toph, and Aang are training, with Toph and Katara throwing insults at each other. 

Mudfighting is considerably less enjoyable when it’s two young girls.

Aang, Toph, and Sokka explore a local town, and Toph decides to hustle a street hustler for money so they can buy some food.

I wonder who mints the currency in the Avatarverse. You think there’s a nation-independent treasury? A bank of sorts? Might be a cool fanfiction.

Katara doesn’t like how Toph cheated the vendor - it would draw attention to them, and Aang promises not to do anyore.

Of course the next montage is of the three pulling scams, because despite looking to be around one of the colonizes, no one expects an Earthbender to be in their midst.

Honestly what the hell is this supposed to be a hybrid of? It looks like a wildebeest and a Axolotl.

The tensions rise between the two girls, with Katara surmising that Toph feels guilty for leaving her parents behind, even if it was to help Aang and that her freedom was being stifled.

Back in town, Sokka sees…a wanted poster of Toph!

Fun fact: Nickelodeon sold shirts with this poster on it. I have one, it’s cool as hell. Unfortunately I can’t find it.

And while he goes to warn Toph, she buys him off and hides the poster, but Katara finds it after snooping. I do like how Katara doesn’t give two fucks that Toph is robbing Fire Nation citizens. At least she has her priorities in order!

“You think it’s your job to boss everyone around, but it’s not.” Yells Toph, before leaving.

Later, Sokka talks to her, and agrees that yes, Katara is bossy and annoying…”but I rely on it.” 

He does nothing but praise his sister, how she filled in after their mother’s death, her strength, and what is possibly the saddest moment in the series to me - “I’m not sure I can remember what my mother looked like…and now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara’s face is the only one I can picture.”  

Considering he’s two years older than her, and he was maybe six when she died…that’s sad.

If this talk came in the first season, it would be very "Inept male relies on competent sister," but clearly both siblings are competent in their own right.

She’s listening below the cliff.

And Toph admits that it’s nice to have someone who cares. “More than my own mom.” before she threatens Sokka into silence.

Later, the two make up! Yay!

And Katara wants to pull of one last scam.

Which narrows down to turning Toph in and collecting the reward. Not complicated.

But instead, both of them are imprisoned in a wooden cage, to be used as bait for the Pyro-Assassin (because it’s too much to type out ‘Sparky Sparky Boom Man’) to capture Aang.

Katara just wanted Toph to know that she wasn’t a stick in the mud. But Toph likes Katara just as she is, even if they do argue, and that Katara was right - Toph does feel bad for leaving her parents.

The two escape via - no joke - Sweatbending, just in time to see the assassin go after Sokka and Aang.

That happened.

The Assassin is immediately incapacitated by a pebble & the Gaang escapes.

The Puppetmaster is probably the only bona-fied horror episode of the show. I believe it even originally aired in October of its premiere year.

The Gaang find a woman named Hama, who rescues them from the creepy forest, and Katara quickly takes a liking to her.

She looks like a Pokemon trainer from Gen 1. Like a Ghost one.

Hama invites them back to her inn and warns them - people are going missing in the little town. Toph can hear them early in the episode, but no one believes them. 

People are also going missing during the full moon. Now, what relevance could the full moon have to a certain bending dicipline?

Once again, Sokka is the only person who doesn’t feel good about the situation and uses that as an excuse to snoop around.

Also, he finds a closet full of wooden puppets.

They find a box and open it, revealing…

A comb. Nice!

“It’s my greatest treasure. It’s the last thing I own….”

“…from growing up in the Southern Water Tribe.”

  Hama is a Waterbender, a former prisoner of The Fire Nation who has disguised her talents and lived among them for her entire life after escaping.

And she teaches Katara how to basically suck the life (water) from living things.

While the others still try to solve the mystery of the disappearing citizens. After all, it is the full moon tonight. A citizen says that it felt as if they were posessed under the moon until the sun came out.

So, Hama goes to teach Katara the last art of Waterbending.

Not ominous at all.

Meanwhile, the others find the prisoners under the mountain! But who put them there?

I mean, who do you think? The woman who was taken prisoner and learned to bend the liquid inside of the bodies of living beings.

We call it Bloodbending. 

You have to give Hama credit - After Katara, she is possibly the most talented Waterbender alive.

  Hama has more good points - The Fire Nation basically tried to wipe them all out, like they did the airbenders.

Hama also points out that she and Katara are The Last Waterbenders of the Southern Tribe, which….while I never thought about that, is quite true in retrospect.

So she’s been kidnapping random citizens instead of, you know, Fire Nation soldiers or sympathizers. And Katara won’t allow it any longer.

Or, she wouldn’t, if she could control her body as it’s being Bloodbended.

No!!!!!!!!!!

But this is Katara, the greatest Waterbender in the world, and she’s not going down that easily.

Katara doesn’t want to use the skill but she has to, otherwise Hama will kill Aang and Sokka, who pick the wrong moment to show up in the clearing.

In the end, Katara takes Hama down with her own dark technique, and the skill lives another day.

It shows up again in Legend Of Korra (Where it’s downright outlawed), but not to any great effect.