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| “ | You should've learned this technique before you turned against me! It's impossible to fight your way out of my grip! I control every muscle, every vein in your body! | „ |
| ~ Hama uses Bloodbending on Katara. |
| “ | They threw me in prison to rot, along with my brothers and sisters! They deserve the same! You must carry on my work. | „ |
| ~ Hama explains her motivation to Katara. |
| “ | My work is done. Congratulations, Katara. You're a Bloodbender. | „ |
| ~ Hama's last taunt to Katara. |
Hama, also known as "The Puppetmaster" or "The Witch", is the titular main antagonist of the Book 3 episode "The Puppetmaster" in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Hama is a ruthless Southern Tribe waterbender who, after being abducted by the Fire Nation, developed the taboo practice of bloodbending to exact her revenge on the Fire Nation and anyone who stood in her way.
She is voiced by Tress MacNeille, who also voiced Sarah Ravencroft in Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost, Agnes Skinner, Dolph Starbeam, Lindsey Naegle in the Simpsons
Biography[]
Hama is a waterbender hailing from the Southern Water Tribe. She was taken captive by the Southern Raiders and imprisoned. Discovering that her waterbending's power increased during a full moon, she utilized this enhanced strength to manipulate the blood within an individual's body, starting with the jail rats and later a Fire Nation man whom she forced to unlock her cage, inventing the art of bloodbending.
Seventy-five years after her escape from prison, Hama settled down in a Fire Nation village, posing as a kind innkeeper. Secretly, she used bloodbending to control villagers, kidnapping them and imprisoning them in an underground cavern as revenge for her imprisonment.
However, only one person managed to escape: a man named Ding. Hama used bloodbending to force him toward the mountains, as she had done with her other victims. Ding attempted to regain control of his body, but Hama's power proved too strong. Gazing at the moon, believing it would be his final sight, Ding reached the prison just as the sun rose, leaving Hama unable to maintain control. He escaped, and from that day forward, he boarded up his windows before nights with a full moon to prevent experiencing such control again.
When Team Avatar arrives, Hama is initially kind to them, believing they share her hatred for the Fire Nation. Recognizing Katara's waterbending prowess, Hama decides that Katara would be the perfect pupil to carry on her teachings in bloodbending. She shows Katara how to draw water from the environment around her, such as from plants and air, and teaches her about the full moon's boost to their power.
When Hama finally introduces Katara to bloodbending, Katara is horrified and refuses to use it. Realizing that Hama is responsible for the villagers' disappearances, Katara renounces her as a teacher.
Enraged, Hama begins using her bloodbending on Katara, torturing her by forcing her to contort and dance. Katara retaliates with her own waterbending and begins to overpower Hama, but when Sokka and Aang arrive, Hama forces them to attack Katara and eventually each other. As Hama sends Sokka to stab Aang, Katara is forced to intervene and bloodbends Hama herself. Toph later frees the imprisoned villagers and promptly arrests Hama, who then proclaims her work to be done and congratulates Katara for having become a bloodbender. As Hama is taken away to be imprisoned for the rest of her life, she laughs maniacally, leaving Katara sobbing in fear and guilt.
Despite this, Katara never used Hama's technique except when she angrily confronted the Southern Raider leader whom she believed killed her mother. Zuko, who was with her, was deeply surprised and disturbed when she did this. Many years later, Hama's bloodbending technique became outlawed due to the efforts of Katara following the formation of Republic City. Despite her horrible nature, Hama nevertheless preserved the Southern Waterbending technique by passing it on to Katara, ensuring the art would be passed on to the next generation of waterbenders.
Personality[]
| “ | She seems like a normal old woman. But she controls people, like some dark puppetmaster. | „ |
| ~ A Fire Nation villager comments on Hama's true nature. |
Hama initially appears to be a gentle, kind old woman. She possesses a caring, maternal personality, which eventually won Katara's full trust. However, Hama's true nature proves her to be vengeful, cruel, determined, and arrogant. She fought persistently to ward off the Fire Nation during the Southern Water Tribe raids.
Later events brought out a much darker and unstable side of Hama. Her discovery of bloodbending led her to become power-hungry and radically driven to exact revenge on Fire Nation civilians whenever possible. Holding a lifelong grudge, she actively retaliated against the Fire Nation by imprisoning local villagers in a cruel manner, seeking to punish the Fire Nation for the devastation they brought upon the Southern Water Tribe. She revealed her cruel side, showing no mercy toward random Fire Nation citizens or even Katara, as she willingly used bloodbending on her.
When she met Katara, she wanted to pass on the Southern Water Style so it would not die along with her, as well as her own invention of bloodbending, stating "Katara must carry on her work". She showed herself to be an encouraging teacher, though perhaps overly focused on instructing Katara. But her real goal was to ensure bloodbending would not die with her, and that Katara would use it for the same reason Hama did: to get revenge on the Fire Nation in the name of the Southern Water Tribe.
Hama was shaped by a tragic and unjust history, having spent her youth trying to protect her tribe alongside her fellow waterbenders. Her unjust and cruel imprisonment festered her hate towards the Fire Nation and drove her to escape, despite her prison being designed to hold waterbenders.
Realizing that the full moon gave her strength, Hama concluded that there had to be a way to escape, and that wherever there was life there was water. She reasoned that bodies were like skins filled with liquid; with the power of the full moon, she discovered bloodbending, enabling her to manipulate living creatures. She spent years honing the technique, limited by the brief periods of the full moon. Once she mastered the rats, she targeted the guards and forced one to release her, allowing her to walk free for the first time in years.
However, her long confinement had preserved her hate, and her new power had long since corrupted Hama. Instead of returning home, she chose to take revenge against the people of the Fire Nation, wherever they were, however she could. She became no better than those who had stolen her freedom when she imprisoned random Fire Nation citizens, with the intention of leaving them to rot as she and her fellow waterbenders had been. She expressed not a drop of remorse when she was at last foiled, instead satisfied that she had succeeded in forcibly passing on her technique to Katara, mockingly congratulating her successor as she was led away in chains, this time to spend the rest of her life locked up.
By the time of The Legend of Korra, she had passed away, but her legacy continued through her bloodbending. One who became even more powerful than Hama was Yakone, born several years later, a bloodbender who could bend people without a full moon.
Abilities[]
Waterbending[]
Hama was an exceptionally powerful and creative waterbender, and, along with Katara, one of the two known living waterbenders from the Southern Water Tribe. She was also the only remaining master of the Southern Style, until she passed her knowledge on to Katara. Hama was resourceful enough to draw water from plants, and even from thin air, to fuel her bending. She demonstrated exceptional combat prowess, resisting capture longer than any other waterbender during the Southern Water Tribe raids.
Hama's proficiency extended to manipulating water from grass, flowers, and even trees, using it in combat and other applications—a testament to her exceptional resourcefulness.
Bloodbending[]
Having spent years with the single-minded goal of perfecting this art, Hama became highly skilled at bloodbending, a technique that allowed her to manipulate the blood in other creatures' bodies, giving her complete control over her target's actions—even enabling her to torture them. The technique was powerful, and Hama was proficient enough in its use that she could simultaneously control Aang and Sokka with great finesse.
Other Skills[]
Hama was a capable teacher, passing on all knowledge of Southern Style Waterbending to Katara in a short amount of time, though Katara was already a master in her own right. Hama also proved to be a capable actress, hiding her grudge against her Fire Nation neighbors as she enacted her revenge on them one by one, even disguising her grim intentions from Toph, who had proven herself to be remarkably perceptive at detecting lies.
Hama was also highly intelligent, as she managed to escape a prison designed to hold waterbenders, and was the only one to do so. Even before that, however, she proved to be an expert fighter, evading the Fire Nation Army until she was the last waterbender left in her entire tribe.
After escaping prison, she concealed herself and successfully shook off suspicion, taking up residence in a small town as an innkeeper. She could have spent the rest of her life as a free woman, had she not seen passing on her skills as more crucial, and revealing herself to Katara for who she really was.
Trivia[]
- Hama inventing bloodbending would indirectly lead to the Equalist revolution in Republic City, after crime boss Yakone and his sons Noatak and Tarrlok had learned bloodbending and had experimented with it. This makes her, although she is never mentioned in The Legend of Korra, an overarching antagonist in its first season, as well as one of the overarching antagonists.
- The name "Hama" is similar to the Greek word haima (αίμα), meaning "blood", which is appropriate as Hama was the inventor of bloodbending.
- Hama may have been the reason Yon Rha decided to murder Kya, as he probably did not want to take in another potential bloodbender.
External links[]
- Hama on the Avatar Wiki.
