Hama and Katara - Let's talk about that...

Despite opinions on Hama’s arc, her overall character was very unique. She had a narrative that drew us in by causing us to both sympathize with her while also--for some people--dislike her for the methods she used to escape from Fire Nation prison, and later take revenge of the citizens of the Fire Nation village.

Hama in a way is presented to the audience as an oppressed person who lets their anger get the best of them. She was once innocent, but now uses her power and freedom to get back at others despite being finding her own liberation. And the narrative paints the Fire Nation villagers as innocent--so we are made to condemn Hama through the eyes of the writers.

And not just the eyes of the writers, but the eyes of the person closest to her at that time--Katara.

And if Katara, a positive moral compass throughout the series, demonizes Hama, then why should we as the viewers support Hama. Why shouldn’t we condemn blood bending if Katara, a victim of the Fire Nation herself, does not only hate it but later outlaws it?

Through the eyes of the story--we can clearly say that Hama is in the wrong--right?

Well--no, not really.

Not at all actually, in fact, Hama is not only right but she and Katara are both victims of very racist, unfair writing that is clearly through and for a white gaze. This idea of painting a victim of genocide as an aggressor and demonizing her is problematic enough, but making Katara who has personal history trauma with the Fire Nation, side with an oppressor while more than likely condemning one of the last benders of the Southern Water tribe at the time, to death adds a whole different layer of issues.

That said, I’d like to take an in depth look at Hama. Her bloodbending, her character and her relationship with Katara and how the narrative ultimately failed them both.

Let’s start off by discussing Hama and her own narrative and how in my personal opinion, she wasn’t wrong nor was bloodbending something that needed to be shamed.

Like Katara, Hama is the survivor of a genocide and that should be acknowledged. We see how the Firenation has killed, enslaved and pillaged various people and their groups throughout the world of Avatar. The Fire Nation, as a whole, needs to be acknowledged as well--evil, because that is what they are. Yes, we are given examples of “kind” fire benders such as Iroh and later Zuko who change our minds on the Fire Nation regarding certain individuals. But we really need to understand just how terrible they are and how they treat their victims.

Hama was subjected to years of imprisonment, isolation, humiliation and we can also assume things like torture and abuse at the hands of the Fire Nation. So therefore, in order to be free--she creates blood bending and at its root, it is taking control away from her oppressors.

The issue here is that the narrative not only demonizes Hama, but demonizes bloodbending, a weapon and literal metaphor for fighting back against oppressors. When Katara first hears of it, she is shocked and disgusted and immediately condemns Hama for using it.

See that’s an issue.

When oppressed people turn to violence to fight back at their oppressors, the narrative shouldn’t attempt to paint them in a negative light, at all. The point of the Hama episode was to show that there are bad people on ‘both sides’. But why do we need to see that? We had Long Fei, and we could’ve highlighted other corrupted people from other groups--such as more corrupt Earth Benders. Even Pakku could've been a great example of corrupted people on both sides for his sexist views.

Why, do we take a brown native coded woman who is a victim of genocide and decide to make her the ‘example’, when there have been so many others. Why is it okay to make a brown woman, who had to fight back against genocide and oppression a villain and therefore, demonize her struggle, weapon and narrative of survival?

Because what image does this portray?

That victims of oppression fighting back is wrong? That using methods, by any means necessary, to be freed from racial and cultural based violence is a bad thing, and that eventually, the victim will be corrupted and become the oppressor?

That’s not a very good message.

So perhaps you’re thinking, it wasn’t the bloodbending that was wrong--or the fact that she fought back--it was the fact that she used bloodbending to hurt innocent people. And not all firebenders are bad--as we’ve seen with Iroh. So therefore, Hama going after innocent Fire Nation citizens means she deserves what she got. And she was wrong, and this shows that an oppressed person can become the oppressor.

Now--let’s break these takes down because I’ve seen them.

One, Hama could never become an oppressor or have any societal power over anyone in the Fire Nation, “innocent” or not. Yes, she uses bloodbending, but the moment it was discovered she was a water bender, she was taken away, restrained and locked up. And even if she wasn’t, she still realistically couldn’t have any power or privilege over them. This narrative that the oppressed, especially water benders who were in my opinion--the most targeted and harmed by the Fire Nation during the hundred year war--had any privilege over firebenders or even non bending Fire Nation citizens was problematic.

Second, this is primarily my view on the white writers and the way they covered genocide and humanized the oppressive, xenophobic Fire Nation regime. If you are truly trying to portray a harmful government that literally pillages, enslaves and destroys people, then humanizing them in an effort to negatively portray one of their victims is disrespectful.

Hama should have never been written in such a way where she was an aggressor to Fire Nation citizens in a manner that painted the Fire Nation as the victim to a woman they were responsible for hurting. That writing was through the gaze of whiteness and is extremely problematic and racist; because while I am aware that no one in Avatar is white, the writers were, and humanizing a racist organization is something that is clearly done through a white perspective.

Attempting to portray ‘both sides of the story’ doesn’t work when a victim, an elderly victim at that, is standing right there. Because what need do you, as a white creator and white person have to portray a brown indigenous woman in a harmful light--what does it achieve for her character?

While we can say that Avatar is good and groundbreaking, we can critique this aspect of it--as this is common in white writing that attempts to give a human light to literal colonizers, racists and oppressors.

Hama’s situation can also clearly be juxtaposed to Iroh--Iroh who is a war criminal but was also redeemed by the narrative and fandom. Iroh, who is praised for taking Ba Sing Se, who was a renowned general in the war, who more than likely pillaged various villages and groups of people.

Iroh who also only cared about changing sides when his son, also a soldier in the Fire Nation army, died. Iroh is typically portrayed as a tea loving, hippie who the fandom exempts from all of his war crimes, yet while holding Hama (and Jet) accountable for their crimes.

And this is mostly because the writers prioritize his redemption and narrative over Hama’s. So just let it sink in; how gross and disrespectful it is to humanize and redeem and actual colonizer who was responsible for genocide, over a victim of that oppression.

Furthermore, the Southern Water Tribe is heavily coded off of Inuk people and other native groups who even today, are victims of colonialization, racism and modern day genocide.

So why was that okay? It wasn’t. Hama’s whole narrative, from her bloodbending being demonized to her character being portrayed as an aggressor was heavily problematic and racist. It was also disrespectful to elderly native women who are literal survivors of racist governments and establishments.

That all said, there is another harmful layer and narrative that coexist with Hama’s, and that is her relationship with Katara.

Let’s break down Katara and her feelings/views toward Hama from beginning to end, and see how the narrative disrespected Katara, her past and downplayed her trauma with the Fire Nation.

To Katara, her relationship with her mother is important. Unfortunately, her mother was killed and because of that, she has no motherly figure left. She had Gran Gran, but as we know, Katara had to leave her.

So her relationship with Hama could’ve been amazing. Not only is she from the Southern Water Tribe--the same tribe Katara is from, she is also a bender and she immediately begins to teach Katara more things about her tribe and abilities. This is what Katara needed. That maternal like figure that she’d lost.

So that said--I can’t even begin to explain how awful it was for the writers to not only have Katara push away from Hama, but in the same breath, have Katara side with the nation who killed her mother. Side with the people who caused her so much trauma in a way where she most likely indirectly sentenced Hama to death.

Keep in mind, Katara may blame herself for her mother's death. So making Katara indirectly responsible for the imprisonment of another maternal figure is awful writing.

Not only is that gross, but that is unfair on Katara because she didn’t deserve that.

I’ve said many times that the writers nor the fandom actually know how to properly handle Katara and her trauma, and it really showed with her relationship to Hama.

It first starts with her demonizing Hama for bloodbending, which didn’t make sense. Because Katara understands doing anything to escape Fire Nation clutches. I’m not saying she had to agree with Bloodbending, because that clearly was not in her character--but to demonize Hama to the point of villainizing her was really--it was bad.

For Katara not to understand why Hama did what she did, and for Hama’s pleas of having to do anything she possibly could to escape from the Fire Nation to be ignored by Katara…. it was just out of character completely for Katara. To demonize a fellow survivor of genocide made no sense for her character.

Katara could have easily told Hama something along the lines of ‘ I understand and don’t hold that against you, but bloodbending is not for me’, yet, she didn’t. And because of that, because we were seeing that scene and bloodbending through Katara’s perspective, we were made to demonize both it and Hama because Katara, as a survivor, didn't like it.

And this is where we can really see Katara is written through a white gaze.

Because this idea of people sympathizing with their oppressors, to the point of demonizing survivors who fought back--is a very white style of writing. Especially when we’re portraying darker skinned people of color, specifically women of color.

This idea of having to give the oppressors more leeway and more room to be sympathized with verses the actual oppressed people is a tactic white writers use to again, humanize the oppressive enemy so that white people who may identify with said groups don’t feel guilty.

Because no one Avatar is white, we know this--no one at all. But that doesn’t mean Avatar isn’t written through a white gaze, and at some points primarily for a white audience. We see this with the ‘redemption’ of Iroh--who never had to go through any trials or punishment for his war crimes despite the fact that he was an esteemed general who conquered the largest Earth Kingdom city. And we also see this with how the narrative redeems Mai, who never actually was held accountable for willingly working with Azula while also being the daughter of a high ranking Fire Nation official who literally worked in the government.

We also see Azula’s semi redemption in the comics without her actually having to do anything to get that redemption. Zuko makes sure she is taken care of in a mental facility where she is kept safe despite the fact that she carelessly hurt others while she was the Fire Nation princess--yes even she conquered Ba Sing Se to an extent. Where as others such as Jet and even Hama who fight back at their oppressors are not portrayed as morally ambiguous, and don’t get a chance to be redeemed or seen in a positive light. This is how white narratives and white writers prioritize the storylines of oppressive groups over their oppressors and it is harmful.

We can even compare this to other media.

A non avatar storyline we also see something similar in is, in Star Wars Rebels, with Zeb forgiving Kallus for the genocide of Lasan, where in Kallus an Imperial Solider partook in and took credit for a genocide that near completely wiped off an indigenous native species from their home planet by the use of weapons that quite literally vaporized them. The survivors were literally enslaved after.

Zeb, a free survivor of that genocide is made to forgive Kallus by the narrative because ‘not all imperials are bad’ therefore, even though Kallus partook in and took credit for a genocide where Zeb’s species was killed, the narrative attempts to humanize Kallus to make us sympathize with him, all at the sake of Zeb’s trauma.

So yes, Avatar is not at all unique when it comes to prioritizing the oppressors over the oppressed, and making the oppressed side with people who literally caused them trauma.

And we clearly see this with Hama and Katara.

Katara is again, made to sympathize with the people who are responsible for hurting her communities all while demonizing Hama.

In doing so, she places Hama directly back into the hands of the people who oppressed her, while the other characters in the show emphasize that she is going to be locked up for a long time. So Hama, if she is not executed, will more than likely have to spend the rest of her years in prison--again. Or worse, she can be executed or literally used as a slave--which Avatar is no stranger to slavery and execution. These are both seen as good options--things that Hama deserves because the narrative went out of its way to paint her as evil.

Again, this is not unique to Avatar. As we see this with another famous piece of media written by white creators, that attempts to portray a native or native coded group of people, while going out of their way to demonize a native citizen to uplift oppressors or colonizers.

The media in question, Road to El Dorado.

We can see this when Tzekel Khan, the High Priest, was intentionally portrayed as evil so that Miguel and Tulio, two spanish colonizers could be seen in a positive light while Khan, a native was quite literally being dragged away by Hernan Cortez into possible execution or slaverly at the end of the movie. Like that was supposed to be a good thing. And because Chel, an indigenous girl was happy and sided with the colonizers--we were supposed to agree with it.

Hama’s situation is very very similar to this, where she is intentionally demonized to prop up her oppressors. Back to Avatar specifically, what does that accomplish, what good does that do for anyone? How does that show a type of resolution?

It doesn’t because Katara is broken at the end of the episode, in tears.

The one person she thought she could trust turns out to be something she could’ve never imagined and the writers decided to do this. Instead of cultivating a relationship between two women of the Southern Water Tribe, two water benders at that, and two survivors of genocide, they instead decide to demonize Hama while humanizing “innocent” Fire Nation citizens.

And to make it worse, Katara uses blood bending to subdue Hama. The very thing that Hama created to fight back against oppressors, Katara used to throw her back into the hands of oppressors.

Instead of going into depth about survival, about fighting back against oppression and a xenophobic regime; instead of cultivating a story about survivors bonding over shared trauma, the writers literally made Hama an irredeemable villain.

This completely plays with Katara’s emotions and subjects her to more trauma, because again, she blames herself for her mother's death so here she is somewhat responsible for the potential death of another maternal figure. And that honestly isn’t fair and she didn’t deserve that, none of them did.

Katara already gets a staggering amount of hate from the fandom rooted in colorism, racism, and misogyny. In short, it’s primarily racialized misogyny that Katara is a victim of, and to truly go into depth about that-to go over how the fandom mocks her for speaking about her mother’s death, to go over how they tear her down for no reason, to go over how famous bloggers have made posts calling Katara a homophobe, a TERF, a token cishet primarily because she disliked Toph for entitled and selfish personality when they first met and she lashed out at Sokka for his misogyny, to go over how a certain group of shippers tear Katara down and say terrible things about her because she threatens their ship, and simply because Katara is a brown native girl who dares to speak up--I’d have to really make another article (which I plan on doing).

The point, the fandom already mistreats Katara so much--but to see it done in canon is even more heart wrenching and unfair.

In short, Hama and Katara deserve better. It’s important to note that both of them do. Because when people look at the failure of Hama’s narrative, they don’t really see how it actually affected Katara as well. Hama was a part of Katara’s narrative, and her growth and what happened with Hama could have really helped Katara. She needed that relationship and the white writers robbed her of that.

Hama deserved to have her own agency that wasn’t centered around being a ‘bad guy’ in an effort to humanize the Fire Nation.

They both deserved better and that’s really all there is to it.