The Nuance of Avatar's 'The Puppetmaster'

there's a lot to love about Avatar The Last Airbender but something that's not talked about nearly enough is how unafraid the series is to go off course and adapt to entirely unique plots and narrative structures this kind of thing is very prevalent not necessarily just in shows geared towards children but specifically in animation something about this medium allows more flexibility in its narrative structure it's not at all uncommon for an animated series to step away from its typical plot style and have a few episodes that explore unique storytelling sometimes embodying a new genre entirely honestly I don't know why this is it could be that the fans of this medium skew Less conventionally in their tastes and are more receptive to exploring different modes of Storytelling or maybe the types of people who go into animation are naturally more inclined to take these types of creative risks or maybe it's just that execs are generally more likely to approve a cartoon doing something unusual for an episode than say a procedural detective drama that would be one of the few perks of animation generally being taken less seriously whatever the case Avatar excels at staying true to the overarching storyline while still allowing themselves room to try new things along the way they creatively experiment swapping tones genres and points of view there's a courtroom episode there's a surrealist hallucination episode there's an episode based entirely on the plot of foot loose they get goofy they get Shakespearean they get weird they get tragic they get meta and in my favorite episodes they get creepy the Puppet Master consistently ranks as one of Avatar's creepiest darkest and scariest episodes and for good reason we're going to examine the episode's use of character narrative and subtext and how it subconsciously builds fear in the audience we're going to talk about the significance of Hama as a villain in relation to the world and our characters and break down what exactly it is that makes her so terrifying but first a spoiler warning for the following although I'm technically focusing on the puppet master I draw from several other episodes to compare the writing style structure and characters so fair warning additional sources are linked Below conventionally in a writer's room the showrunner and writers will come up with ideas for a season they'll narrow down the big plot points character arcs and relationships and what big things specifically need to happen in each episode and then assign the episodes to the writers individually from there the writer will leave write a detailed outline of that episode come back and then all the writers will go over it and make changes then the writer leaves again writes the first draft of the script comes back and then they all collectively go over it again until it's finished this is how it worked for Avatar's writer's room and when a showrunner learns a staff writer excels in a certain subject matter they'll often assign them those types of episodes in the future so it isn't a coincidence that most of Avatar's creepy episodes were written by the same person Tim Hedrick wrote The Puppet Master but he also wrote the deserter the swamp the city of walls and secrets and Lake La guy these episodes epitomize eyes creepy they have such a distinct feel to them like they're tinged with the same filter a cold fog of the unknown plot-wise the actual events of these episodes are very different but when placed next to each other it's easy to notice their commonalities in structure themes and writing style beyond their mood all of these episodes including the Puppet Master play with one of if not my favorite themes appearance versus reality this is what the best plot twists are made of appearance versus reality takes the greatest qualities of mystery and Thriller and plants them below an unsettled unsteady ground of eerie this is my favorite brand of horror the inexplicable feeling that something isn't right that things are not what they seem Avatar and Tim Hedrick specifically excels in this area and the puppet master is the perfect embodiment of that the episode's log line is in a spooky Village qara makes a special connection the group investigates strange disappearances that occur during full moons so very quick speedr recap if you need a refresher the kids are telling scary stories in the woods when they are approached by Hama an old inkeeper who invites them to stay at her Inn and tells them people in town have been disappearing around the full moon Saka develops a bad feeling about Hama but qara quickly bonds with her they find out Hama is a water bender from the southern water tribe who was taken prisoner by the Fire Nation but somehow managed to escape the next day Hama teaches qara water bending techniques while Ang Saka and tof investigate in town find the missing people and learn that Hama is responsible meanwhile Hama tells Kar about bloodbending a dark art unforgivable curse equivalent that water benders can use during full moons to physically control other people qara then realizes that Hama is behind the disappearances and confronts her when Ang and Saka arrive to help qara is forced to use bloodbending to save them and take down Hama so the thing is in a 20ish minute episode there's only that 20ish Pages for the screenwriter to work with every beat every line every word counts and serves a purpose the Puppet Master is brilliant because while the script is Well written on its own it expands Beyond its limited Pages by drawing on the viewer's prior knowledge in relation to the world that's already been established in previous episodes and even in the viewer's own life to build flesh out and enhance the plot mood in characters all without using any script pages to do so let's look at a couple of examples so throughout the series Toff has been able to sense incoming danger by feeling seismic vibrations in the ground with her earthbending this ability has saved their lives m multiple times and she can do it in her sleep I love when the series takes advantage of to's earthbending in unique ways it never feels cheap or like an unearned Dux Machina it's clear her abilities were creatively thought out in relation to her earthbending and seeing them in action is always just a fun reminder of how cool her character is honestly I am so glad we added you to the group and even at the beginning of this episode tof's sensitive hearing is highlighted guys did you hear that I hear people under the mountain and they're screaming yet despite this Toff doesn't feel Hama approaching it's been established that Toff can feel ants walking on the ground yards away but in a fear induced hyper sensitive State she can't feel an old woman moving through the woods behind them and this isn't a one-time fluke incredibly later in this episode it happens again again in the same episode Toof can hear people screaming from inside a mountain but she can't hear Hama climbing a creaky wooden staircase we could chalk this up to an inconsistency or even a deliberate oversight for the sake of a couple of jump scares and that could very easily be that and maybe it is but if it's not it's really creepy by this point in the series tof's unique set of skills has been carefully established this is the reality with which we've been presented in this world what we know to be true and we've seen intelligent strong formidable characters be hammered Ed and hurt by this reality but nonetheless have to abide by it because them's the rules so then to have a random new character much less a seemingly feeble elderly person just casually not abide by these rules not only makes her so much creepier by the sheer Skip and logic but also subtly tells us that Hama doesn't operate on our plane of reality we're naturally afraid of what we don't understand so this only further develops our fear of Hama totally separate from the gem scares really it's two scares for the price of one and these factors come with an implication like she doesn't belong to this world almost as if she's Supernatural the Puppet Master leans into the supernatural angle by very deliberately framing Hama as a stereotypical witch out of a mesh of pop culture and folklore as an elderly woman with long gray hair and a slightly hunched posture physically she fits the image well she has long bony fingers and sharp pointed nails consistent with hands we may expect the Halloween esque witch to have because hands are the tools of a puppeteer as well as a bloodbender it makes sense that the animation team would give H's hands deliberate thought and that's an understatement there are so many instances where they draw Focus to H's hands even in moments where they don't have to they make a point to frequently emphasizing her long fingers and pointy nails often making them claw-like in their movements for an added layer of creepiness seriously it's hard to find a scene where H's hands aren't emphasized in some way often multiple times in any given scene The Only Exception is her introduction when hamama first meets the kids in the woods she's only on screen for 20 seconds and her hands are hidden by her sleeves although they don't show Ham's hands in this brief scene they do manage to make another visual illusion to witches when Hama approaches the kid's campfire there's this shot that frames her to look like she's being burned at the stake an execution style that is exclusively inextricable to witches even though well it really shouldn't be this is actually a pretty big misconception in reality people convicted of Witchcraft weren't burned at the stake in America they were hanged we can pretty much entirely attribute the perpetuation of this false belief to pop culture and the media who have made burning at the stake to Witch is as Inseparable as black cats and cauldrons it's funny even when I don't intend to talk about it somehow this always seems to come up in my videos how media affects us and in ways we don't even realize like in this case shaping our view of actual history this is why I have partnered with ground news ground news is an app in website that gathers articles from more than 50,000 sources around the world in one place so you can compare how different Outlets cover the same story and get a visual representation of where the bias leans reliability and ownership of the sources let's take a look at this recent story this story is covered by over 400 sources on the left we can see Elon musk's neurotechnology Company claims to have implanted the first brain chip in human being but there aren't many details yet on the right we can see the initial focus is more reactive with Elon Musk being accused of playing God whatever the story we can instantly cross-compare verbiage and see what's being said and how it's being said on every side in the past few years I've seen a concerning increase of people automatically believing the first or loudest voice not necessarily the most accurate one I've definitely done it but misinformation is dangerous it spreads rapidly and it isn't limited to a single political party or belief system ground news offers an unbiased digestible medium to not only see what's going on in the news but also to be aware of what's being said on every side which is so vital no matter where you fall politically subscribe to ground news through my link ground. news/ Stow to get 40% off the Vantage subscription or get started with the Pro Plan for less than $1 a month thank you to ground news for sponsoring this video now let's continue exploring the witch Parallels for a moment we've established H's physical details fit the witch archetype well and it's clear that thought carried over into the direction and storyboarding of the episode there are other things too there's a broom in her kitchen the Moon is obviously integral to water bending but for centuries it's been heavily associated with witchcraft H's marionet foreshadow her ability to physically control other people but also these puppets are not dissimilar to Voodoo dolls that are associated with witchcraft and are used for Less literal but similar purposes to manipulate their human counterparts and H's evil laugh really can only be described as a witch's cackle [Music] like tragically I don't have the script but there's no way Hama cackles like a witch was not written in the scene direction that sound is practically trademarked there's also this scene when the kids get back to the Inn with the groceries qara pulls out a head of cabbage that resembles an angry old woman's face and okay maybe I looked too deeply into this one and this is entirely coincidental but there is a Brothers Grim story called donkey cabbage that includes appearance versus reality and an old witch deceiving people and manipul in her sympathetic daughter and finally at the end of the episode one of the captured villagers even verbally refers to Hama as a witch which is the first and only time that the word Witch is used in the entire series it was no Spirit it was a witch a witch what do you mean these instances are too frequent and explicit to dismiss now we know Hama isn't a literal witch but that doesn't matter because whether these parallels are literal or metaphorical they do a subtle but very effective job at building our unconscious fear of H's character long before her true intentions are revealed the witch imagery and rhetoric is also more concretely in illusion to another much more well-known Brothers Grim fairy tale Hansel and gredle in which an old seemingly kind woman finds children lost in the woods and brings them back to her home where she feeds and shelters them but secretly has Sinister intentions huh where have we seen that before but these parallels add more than depth through intertextuality they seamlessly build anxiety in the audience when we get a bad feeling about something like Intuition or a gut feeling the psychology behind that feeling is our brains subconsciously identifying patterns from past similar experiences that didn't go well even if we don't consciously make the connection our brains often do and that warning to try to dissuade us from going down that same road manifests into a lingering feeling of unease so hear me out Hansel and gredle is one of the more internationally well-known fairy tales and it's safe to say Avatar's Target demographic at the time AKA kids in 2007 were mostly familiar with the story because the plots between the two are so similar this prior familiarity with Hansel and gredle may subconsciously set off red flags in the viewer's mind while watching The Puppet Master we might feel an inexplicable sense of anxiety from the beginning because we've seen similar events play out before with pretty dark results so these things Hama and ably not abiding by tough spending or sensitive hearing the witch parallels the audience's preconceived notions in connection to Hansel and gredle they're not outwardly acknowledged or explored they don't take up any script pages instead they easily fall over what is already happening adding layers that subconsciously enrich the story this is part of what makes Avatar so incredible great screenwriting is finding a way to say the most words with the fewest possible for this episode in particular so much of the cre lies in The Unexplained and what is never even addressed let's go back for a second when Saka looks around H's house for evidence to justify his bad feeling there's a brief moment where he opens a cabinet door revealing wooden marionet we may or may not later realize these puppets are modeled after the people Hama kidnaps which is terrifying but also there's something else here that's even more subtle the best word is subtext it's easy to think of subtext solely in relation to dialogue what's actually being said under what's literally being said but subtext doesn't just exist inside words it can just as easily lie under what is visually shown on screen what arises when we look a little closer and ask ourselves what that action or object implies as we've established the marionettes add to the creepiness and foreshadowing but even after knowing the reveal they don't implicitly explain why Hama has them or what purpose they serve what this scene does more than anything is raise questions does Hama practice on the marionettes does she make them herself are they supposed to be a private joke or Worse trophies of her victims Tim Hedrick uses a similar writing tactic in Lake Lai the kids walk past this room where a class of women are being taught how to portray themselves as Judd we're so lucky to have our walls to create order at this point we already know about the conspiracy we already know Judy has been brainwashed by long Fang and we've already seen how it works we also know our G Judy isn't the only woman who's brainwashed and takes on the role of Judd plot-wise there's no real reason to include this it's essentially a filler cutaway to establish the group made it underground and is physically moving into the next scene but it adds so much depth to the entire conspiracy and opens the door to so many questions and implications like why are there so many of these women are they just assigned to high-profile visitors like the Avatar if that's the case who qualifies and why are they visiting how did these women get chosen how much free will do they have in the Puppet Master these types of subtle implications are scattered throughout the entire episode Toff hears the kidnapped people screaming Under the Mountain but why are they screaming does Hama torture them Hama runs an in but it's completely empty it's never addressed it's never said out loud why aren't there any guests Hama escapes prison decades before we meet her can we seriously believe that these are the first Fire Nation citizens she's used bloodbending to hurt how often does this happen how many towns has she lived in how many people has she killed so much of the horror lies in everything that isn't said and the questions we don't have answers to this is a significant part of what makes the puppet master so genius the subtle whispered Illusions to something we can't form or Define but only limitlessly guess at and imagine again from a screenwriting perspective these instances barely take up any space in the script they layer over what events already need to occur narratively expanding on another level to create depth add rewatch value and effortlessly build suspense and unease in the audience the episode structure takes a similar approach as a society we're very familiar with jump scares okay not that jump scare we've seen it a million times in a horror movie The Character slowly approaches something while creepy music builds the character is investigating is there someone standing behind the curtain behind the the door but just when you think there's going to be something there the character looks and the music subsides and there's nothing we exhale there's a second of normaly just one second and then the character casually turns and the music abruptly spikes and tandem with the actual jump scare and we react in fear alongside the character it's such a common device in horror that its efficacy has dwindled over time and we've learned to expect the scare even during the moment were signaled to relax but the Puppet Master side steps this instead reinvigorating the jump scare by incorporating it in its narrative structure the episode is set up like one long drawn out jump scare from the beginning the suspicion that there's something behind the curtain is led by Saka who is quick to distrust Hama Saka physically searches for evidence to justify his bad feeling metaphorically looking for the monster in the closet the kids then find the locked box and try to open it this is the music Rising is something their portion for a moment even taking on the literal jump scare [Music] Paradigm hamama then confesses that she is from the southern water tribe this Revelation alleviates Saka suspicions and I knew you were keeping a secret the bad thing Saka thought was behind the door turns out not to be anything bad at all that instance along with others the dinner Hama cooks for them her tragic backstory the pleasant day she and qara have together these serve as the sigh of relief this is the moment we're meant to relax but like the levity before the jump scare this is only a false sense of security the plot twist of H's real intentions is the jump scare we're not supposed to see coming it's you you're the one who's making people disappear during the full moons it's easy to see why the emotional core of the Puppet Master is tied to qara in a blog post co-creator Michael Dante D Martino said completely in relation to something else but it's applicable here when stories balance a hero's external quest with his or her internal one the tale resonates there are lots of quests going on in this show both internally and externally and they don't have a lot of time to flesh out some of the ones less significant to the overarching story but in this case we can see it work on two levels though qara wasn't born yet when the Fire Nation took what they thought were the last of the Southern water benders she still suffers the loss from their absence because she grows up as the only water bender in the southern water tribe at the start of the show she naturally feels a disconnection from her Heritage when it comes to water bending it's water bending and it's yeah yeah an ancient art unique to our culture blah blah blah this is all the more evidence by the contrast between the Southern and Northern water tribes especially when we see how significant water bending is to the northern trib's culture season 1 makes it clear that Gara has a strong desire to learn waterbending to fight yeah but just as much if not more as a way to connect to a part of herself her identity is as well as her culture and we see her go to Great Lengths to do so by the time she meets Hama qara has technically mastered water bending but she's still just as excited to culturally learn from Hama because she still has this internal need we've seen bits and pieces of this internal Quest that qara has struggled with and tried to fulfill the emotional core has already been built with the audience we want this for her too and really why wouldn't we katara's plight is so innocent she's just a kid and she's so genuinely excited to learn from this woman whom she blindly trusts and feels a cultural connection to and for Hama to spend the day essentially grooming qara warming her up to an idea that would never even cross katara's mind on her own is more than disturbing it's devastating this dichotomy plays up one of the core themes of the episode innocence versus corruption it's the purity of katara's intentions in sharp glaring contrast with the nefariousness of Hamas because bloodbending is more than just a ridiculously unfair advantage in a fight or a battle it's taking the choice from that person entirely it's a violation of autonomy there's no gray area for an ethical debate Hama trying to teach qara something so inherently evil and passing it off is the highest form of a cultural Legacy only makes it all the more Insidious and you know credit or credit is due the voice acting is off the charts May Whitman really stepped up to the plate here I mean she knocks it out of the park and her performance strongly contributes to the emotional impact of the episode katara's dialogue and some of these scenes just really drives home the Innocence that makes the dark twist especially tragic yes of course to learn about my Heritage it would mean everything to me and this episode has some of my favorite line deliveries in the whole series special mentions include Saka Saka what are you doing you can't just I know Momo this place this is creepy I don't know if I'm going to be able to fall asleep this feels weird Hama H I love that one one more time Hama this isn't the first time Qatar has been burned in all seriousness a very similar situation to the Puppet Master unfolds in jet from book one though this episode wasn't written by Tim Hedrick the plots are uncanny in resemblance in both episodes the kids meet a Friendly Stranger who invites them back to their home Jad and Hama are kind and welcoming quickly forming emotional connections with qara meanwhile Saka develops a bad feeling about them and voices his suspicions but qara shoots him down unwilling to believe Jet and Hama are not who they appear to be qara realizes too late that Saka was right one of the kids saves the victims and qara confronts and defeats them these similarities are very striking but they go beyond the plot as characters Jed and Hama are undeniably similar their lives have been AR revocably Changed by the fire nation in terrible ways they are victims who have used their pain and anger for Retribution on innocent people for Jet and Hama simply being born in the Fire Nation is reason enough to hate someone and no exaggeration want them dead granted jet is 16 and H's like 100 so there's a little more Nuance but I mean jet tries to wipe out an entire town of people I don't know I I get hung up on that jet goes through the tiniest Redemption Arc if you squint but he still dies hating the Fire Nation and believing that all of their citizens including the elderly and children are inherently bad and in both episodes there's a scene in which Saka tells the group he is suspicious of Jet and Hama and in both episodes qara doesn't want to hear it but qara more than just disagrees she's overly defensive and protective of these people that she's practically just met I want to hear Jet's side of the story or she's hiding something that's ridiculous he got a hob there's nothing weird about that so why the defensiveness why the protectiveness over these people that she again barely knows because we see virtually the same sequence of events happen twice we could argue the root cause is deeper than emotional ties let's go back to this quote when stories balance a hero's external quest with his or her internal one the tale resonates throughout the series we see Kara's struggle with the death of her mother not just with mourning her but with the circumstances and how they affect Kara's emotions actions and world view this is probably katara's longest and most profound internal quest in the series it's easy to be annoyed with qara in both of these instances and we might attribute her defensiveness to Blind trust or naivity but what if really katara's severe reaction to Sak's intuition is because it stands in direct contention with her own we've seen qara quickly form bonds with other characters through shared trauma related to the war with the Fire Nation her initial pulled to these characters may be because she recognizes a big part of herself in them she understands their pain anger and loss with Hama and jet qara might not pick up on what Saka does but Saka doesn't pick up on what qara does either we could argue that Saka intuitively senses their characters but qara intuitively senses their emotions more specifically the immediate connections qara forms with Hama and Jet could very easily result from unconsciously recognizing their trauma I knew I felt a bond with you right away this makes her all the less willing to believe Saka because it so deeply clashes with the feeling she has of them in her head H's character expands our understanding of waterbender capabilities and the fire nation's actions and fulfills a big whole of the lore in the southern water tribe but Hama also stands to represent who qara could turn into we could maybe argue this for jet but it's seamless for Hama as an older woman who reminds qara of her grandmother is from her own tribe and is presumably the only other Southern water bender in the world Hama fits a deliberately curated manifestation of a path qara could choose to take the emotion hits so much harder because qara has all of the requisites to become like K qara has the loss she has the pain and by the end of the episode she has the skill you're a blood [Music] Bender something that is so fascinating about H's conception is that prior to this episode the only only image we have of the water tribes is inherently good we see cruelty from earthbenders in Zuko alone and corruption in the earth Kingdom with long Fang in the DI we've even encountered non-benders with skewed morals but we don't come across anything like that in the water tribes the closest argument we can make is paku who is presented as misogynistic and stubborn But ultimately changes and becomes liked by our main characters but even at his worst he's never meant to be seen as sadistic or Genuine ly malicious before the Puppet Master we had never actually met a water bender that was the bad guy and it is so important that we do it would be so easy for us to look at the water tribes and the Fire Nation and think this one is good and this one is evil blue versus red water is healing fire is destructive outside of the show that symbolism is practically ingrained in us but Avatar dispels this notion instead choosing to emphasize choices hope and balance fire is life not just destruction Beyond dismantling this Western mindset of good versus bad the Puppet Master takes it a step further through characters like Jet and Hama breaking down what the cycle of violence looks like and showing that it's possible for a victim to be an abuser too we are meant to feel sympathy for Hama and while we understand why she's doing what she's doing we're not supposed to see her victimhood as an excuse for who she's become it's like when people talk about the mature themes of Avatar they usually name genocide corruption and imperialism which they cover remarkably well but portraying characters like Jet and Hama is so important too the series makes it very clear that we can feel bad for Hama as a victim and still hold her accountable there are adults who cannot wrap their heads around this who can only see these two roles as mutually exclusive people who can only feel one feeling for one person at one time but Avatar makes it so so easy for kids to understand without even using words by the end of the Puppet Master katara's internal journey is far from finished she's still a victim with unresolved trauma we see this most blatantly in her relationship with Zuko Qatar is the most reluctant for him to join the team and her distrust of him stays the longest while she is Justified in her negative feelings toward Zuko much of that anger goes beyond him betraying them and bossing say to her Zuko represents the Fire Nation for so long now whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy it was your face and more significantly what the Fire Nation did to her mother or I know you could bring my mother back I think somehow she's connected her anger about that to her anger at me her pain and hurt are valid but she struggles with what to do with those emotions how to process them and how to act on them this conflict doesn't come up in many episodes so it may seem resolved or minimal but in the southern Raiders we're shown just how untrue that is when Once qara learned she can find her mother's killer all those feelings she hasn't dealt with immediately surface we have to consider bloodbending is more than an unethical practice but is what it represents it isn't a coincidence that the only other time we see qara bloodbend in the series is when she confronts the man she believes killed her mother and it isn't a coincidence that when she does qara mirrors H's own technique all of her pain established throughout the series culminates in the episode and comes full circle instead of following H's path qara chooses to follow one similar to Ang's katara's internal journey is finding the strength to end the cycle of violence not continue it like Comm okay yeah I I think that's it on this one if you liked this video please uh I have to figure out how to write shorter [Music] scripts we also know our OG Judd we also know our OG Judy is not we also know our I can't say this line we also know our OG Judy me we also know we also know our OG Judy I can't say it

Channel: Sloan Stowe

Views: 189,237

Keywords:

Id: xrofTsCuHO8

Length: 31min 47sec (1907 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024