Avatar Did Hama Teach Yakone Bloodbending

Avatar: Did Hama Teach Yakone Bloodbending?

What did Yakone mean when he said he came from a long line of powerful Bloodbenders in The Legend of Korra?

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Avatar Did Hama Teach Yakone Bloodbending

The end of the first season of The Legend of Korra came with a whammy of a twist, revealing that the season’s primary antagonist was actually a secret Bloodbender. Delving into the past, it turned out that Amon gained his deadly skills from his father Yakone, but a flashback contains a puzzling line from Yakone. “Our family has the strongest line of Bloodbenders in history,” Yakone says. Taking Yakone’s words at face value creates some fascinating possibilities.

The origins of the secret skill go back to the third season of the original series, when the Gaang comes across the only other surviving Southern Water Tribe Waterbender. The old woman’s name is Hama, and she details how she was captured by the Fire Nation during their raids in the South and that she managed to escape captivity and survive in a small Fire Nation village ever since. Escaping such deadly conditions would be no easy feat, and it turns out Hama had to develop a whole new bending sub-style to accomplish it: bloodbending.

Hama learned to manipulate the water within the veins of living beings, first practicing on rats before finally making her escape by manipulating her guards. An important plot point was that Hama required the power of the full moon amplifying her strength in order to bloodbend, and as she went on to terrorize the Fire Nation village she lived in, she exclusively abducted its vulnerable citizens by the full moon’s light. She passed the art down to Katara before Katara, sickened by the technique, overpowered Hama and the old woman was imprisoned. But it appears her legacy lived on.

Avatar Did Hama Teach Yakone Bloodbending

According to the most accurate timeline possible, nearly 30 years after Hama’s imprisonment the crime boss Yakone went on trial in Republic City. He stood accused of the crime of bloodbending, outlawed by Katara who sought to stamp out the forbidden art, but his defense rested on the impossibility of bloodbending without a full moon. When he saw a guilty verdict declared anyways, Yakone revealed his ability to bloodbend even in broad daylight as he paralyzed everyone present and tried to make his escape.

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When Yakone’s powers were removed by Avatar Aang he went on to pass his legacy to his two sons, which is where he delivers the puzzling line to the boys. He says that their family has the strongest line of Bloodbenders in history, hinting that the talent to bloodbend without a full moon is genetic, but just what could he possibly mean by that? 30 years would not be enough time for even a single generation to pass after Hama, and thus we’re met with a few distinct possibilities.

It would be easy to just dismiss what Yakone says as a lie. Either he doesn’t come from a long line of Bloodbenders or he’s simply overstating his case. Perhaps he discovered the ability all his own and is simply declaring himself the beginning of the strongest line of Bloodbenders in history. From a writing perspective, this would prove puzzling, however, as it seems to hint at a deeper history behind Yakone — one that’s never brought up in any meaningful way.

However, if he’s telling the truth Yakone’s story needs not involve Hama at all. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that Hama was not actually the sole inventor of bloodbending, but simply stumbled upon an artform practiced by Yakone’s ancestors for generations. This would mean that they managed to keep their immense power a secret for countless years, and while this interpretation is interesting, it pulls some of the “oomph” out of Hama’s story and its impact on the Avatar world.

Another interpretation of Yakone’s words requires a bit of a stretch, whereby Yakone simply learned bloodbending from Hama and was not actually a familial relation. This means that his line referring to “our family” would be speaking only about those present, Yakone and his two sons, but that the “strongest line of Bloodbenders in history” was more about the tradition of the technique than biological ancestry. Again, the wording is almost intentionally confusing if that’s the case, but the story of a power-hungry young Yakone finding the captive Hama and learning her secrets is an enticing enough tale to be worth it.

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The best interpretation possible preserves Yakone’s words while still promising an exciting story (that doesn’t undermine what was established in Last Airbender). This explanation would be that Yakone is actually Hama’s son, raised as the heir to her dark bloodbending tradition years before Hama ever came across Katara as a potential inheritor. It could be that Yakone and Hama parted ways, frustrating the old woman’s desire for an heir, or that she abandoned the child without ever teaching him. Hearing about Hama later in life, it’s possible Yakone could put the pieces together himself, exalting her as a powerful Bloodbender.

Whatever the case, a relationship between Yakone and Hama may be one of the most engaging explanations behind Yakone’s line. The alternatives mean that wither Yakone is lying or that he’s picking an extremely odd choice of words, but if his words are taken completely at face value, we end up with a dark tale in which the witch-like Hama finally managed to find a successor willing to own up to the gruesome tradition she started.

Nothing is known of Hama’s fate after she was dragged off into captivity. Questions remain regarding where she was imprisoned, whether she ever returned to the Southern Water Tribe and whether they managed to keep a Bloodbender imprisoned in the first place. Those questions get even more interesting once Yakone is involved, hearing her story and picking up her legacy to cultivate power no bender had ever seen before. However exciting as the story possibilities may be, as long as the mystery lingers, Avatar lore completionists have every reason to let their blood boil.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/avatar-hama-teach-yakone-bloodbending/

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