The thing I find really awful about Hamaâs storyline is that I understand what the writers were trying to do? Itâs one more part of the third bookâs main theme (that was built up to repeatedly in earlier seasons) which is that the world isnât black and white?
They do this most obviously, of course, with Zukoâs entire plotline, starting him out as the major antagonist and repeatedly and continuously peeling back layer after layer until heâs been entirely turned around, narratively, from the âbig badâ of the first episode, to a fundamental ally by the end. But they do it all over the place at different levels. Zuko is an individual who undergoes a redemtion, who changes from one state to the other. Then thereâs the contrast of people Like Jeong Jeong and General Fong, Iroh and Long Feng, as ways to show that even if a culture is âevilâ or âgood', individuals in that culture can be different, can even poison parts of that culture with enough power, or begin the healing process for more than themselves, with enough power.
Then they do something Iâve never seen any other childrenâs cartoon even attempt, which is they do it on a cultural level, too. They take Aang to the Fire Nation and show him that even the Fire Nation, as a culture, isnât all bad. There are fishing villages and schools and acting troupes doing what fisherpeople and students and actors do. Cultures are made up of people, and the people arenât wholly good or bad.
And the thing with Hama, what they were trying to do, was add a layer of this nuance to bending. They established, waaay back in season 1, that water is the âgoodâ element. Water heals, Fire destroys.
And the message of Hamaâs episode was supposed to be âWater can destroy, too.â (Later to be hammered home with the Sun Warrior episode with âFire is life, too.â) But they kind of lost it because... because they lost their own message in trying to cram that revelation into one episode and a throw-away episodic character.
It kind of erased Hamaâs nuance. In bringing the focus of that episode to how water-bending can be just as destructive in itâs own way as fire-bending, the nuance of Hamaâs story, her suffering, gets lost in the cackling villain stereotype. The nuance is there, in her story as an abused woman who fought back against her abusers the only way she could, but in their effort to drive home âlook, water-bending can be awful tooâ they completely erased the power (and empowerment) behind itâs creation.
They included all the pieces for a true nuanced reading of Hamaâs story, where she is neither wholly victim or villain, but a melting pot of both, because thatâs far more realistic than either extreme. But they lost it, they missed the mark because our emotional conclusion to that episode was Kataraâs horror, her swearing off of this path (which, I will admit I love that she didnât manage to hold for it for more than like half a season), her disownment of Hama. Her complete and utter rejection of Hama, which feels like a victory in the face of the truly awful things Hama did, and thus completely eclipses the pity we ought to feel for Hama. Which is then reinforced as Hama cackles as sheâs led away like itâs some kind of victory for her.
An abused-abuser is given into the care of people who are alligned with her old abusers, and she's more focused on âlol I corrupted you to, I win'??? Theyâre so focused on Kataraâs arc here, the âadd nuance to bendingâ theme, that they completely miss the moment that proper characterisation and representation of the complexities of abuse could have made the episode a true masterpiece.
What if Hama doesnât laugh? What if she screams? What if sheâs furious, and terrified, and thrashing as sheâs dragged away? What if she begs Katara to save her, avenge her, continue her work, kill them all, please, youâre just like me, you have to STOP THEM!
After that, I donât think it truly matters what Katara does. Whatâs the right answer here? To violate the people who are just trying to protect their own in order to free a serial killer? To leave an abused woman in the hands of people alligned with her abusers?
They both have benefits and problems. If she freed Hama, what then? They're children already burdened with stopping a whole goddamned war, they donât have the resources to take care of, rehabilitate, or even relocate Hama, and if they leave her where she is, whatâs to stop her from just starting up again once theyâre gone? If she didnât, what then? Can she really just leave a member of her tribe in the hands of her enemies? What does âI will never turn my back on people who need meâ mean when both sides of the war need her, and picking a side means she has to turn her back on one of them.
Have the guard take Hama away or have Katara save her, it doesnât matter. Afterwards, have Katara break down. She collapses to her knees in the dirt with her arms around herself like sheâs trying to hold all the pieces of herself together and sobs âI didnât know what to do, I couldnât save everyone, what was I supposed to do?â And she looks to her big brother, whoâs only a year older than her, because thereâs no one else to look to, because this war has taken everyone from her in one way or another. It took her mother when it killed her, it took her father when he went to fight, it took Gran-Gran when it called Katara to fight, and now itâs even taken Hama, a woman who should have been another Grandmother to her, by turning her into a monster.
And, because this is a kidâs cartoon, and there has to be a neat bow and a moral message, and this is already getting pretty damn dark, Sokka gets a moment to be the mature one, to show off how much heâs grown, been forced to grow by this war, and he kneels beside Katara and puts his hand on her shoulder and says âsometimes there is no right answer, youâve just got to do your best, and you did. Sometimes you do your best and you try your hardest and you still donât win, you still lose something, and thatâs okay, that doesnât make you bad, or wrong, or a failure. Iâm so proud of you for trying anyway.' And he holds her as she cries under the full moon.
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