Avatar's The Puppetmaster Turns 19, and Hama Still Haunts Our Dreams
Never trust a sweet old innkeeper who asks about the full moon.
Nineteen years ago today, on November 9, 2007, Avatar: The Last Airbender aired "The Puppetmaster," and kids everywhere learned to fear a sweet old innkeeper. The Book 3 episode introduced bloodbending, and as Polygon points out in its anniversary look back, it changed the franchise forever.
If you haven't rewatched it in a while, this is your sign. It's still one of the creepiest half hours Nickelodeon ever put on television. It was also the first time many fans realized that Katara herself could become genuinely frightening.
What happens in The Puppetmaster?
While the Gaang hides out in the Fire Nation, they stay with Hama, a kind old woman who runs a local inn. It turns out she's a waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe, captured by the Fire Nation decades earlier.
Hama offers to teach Katara, and at first it feels like a sweet reunion between two members of the same tribe. Then she reveals how she escaped prison. Under a full moon, a waterbender can control the water inside a living body, and Hama has been using that power to make villagers disappear.
Why is bloodbending so terrifying?
Because it takes away the one thing you can always count on, which is control over your own body. Hama turns Aang and Sokka into helpless puppets, and Katara is forced to bloodbend Hama to save them. As Hama is led away in chains, she smiles and tells Katara that her work is done, because Katara is now a bloodbender too.
Polygon also notes how cleverly the episode flips waterbending's biggest weakness. Katara spends the whole series carrying a water skin, and Hama shows her the water was inside everyone all along.
How did The Puppetmaster change the Avatar franchise?
It planted seeds for years. Bloodbending became the backbone of some of Legend of Korra's greatest villains, including Yakone, Tarrlok and Amon, who could even bend blood without a full moon. Katara even uses it again in a moment of rage later in Book 3, which shows how dangerous that power really is.
That darker legacy is still echoing through the newest series, and our Avatar: Seven Havens four seasons story covers where the franchise goes next.
My read is that The Puppetmaster is the moment Avatar proved it trusted its young audience with real horror. It never sanded off the scary parts, and that's exactly why it still works almost two decades later. (We will never trust a friendly innkeeper during a full moon again.)
What's the scariest Avatar episode for you? Tell us in the comments.
More Avatar news is right here.
