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Broken spirited and broken mentally, several earth benders from a nearby tribe have been taken away and held captive by a group of Firebenders (The Fire Nation) that are located on a old coal and oil rig located in the middle of a large body of water on the episode Book One: Water, Chapter Six: Imprisoned.
This episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender starts off with Aang, Katara, and Sokka resting in the clearing of a forest or jungle like region. Sokka was out looking for food, and finally arrives with food, but all he had was acorns and nuts to offer after his search.
Suddenly, the group hears a loud boom and its coming from the other side of where they are resting. Aang, Sokka, and Katara rush towards this location. They find an earth bender practicing his skills in between a trail, levitating and throwing across the way, large boulders and small rocks. Katara yells out a greeting, and suddenly startles the earth bender, and he runs away as fast as he possibly can, and at the same time earth bends the trail closed half way by causing the trails rocks to collapse to the middle.
After seeing such an individual, Aang and Katara figure out that if the earthbender was in the area, their might be a village nearby; and where there is a village, there could be food.
When Aang and the rest arrive at the town, they have a chance to mingle a bit, and they notice the same earthbender that ran away from them before. Katara confronts him, and so does Aang and Sokka, and they find out the earthbenders name is Haru. Suddenly, Haru’s mother comes up and closes the door and the blinds to the house, leaving only Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Haru to listen to her complaints about Haru not being careful enough to not be seen earthbending. The mother and Haru both explain that a group of firebenders affiliated with The Fire Nation have been bullying the village for money to keep up fuel for Fire Lord Ozai, and Haru must not practice earthbending, because just like his Father and other earthbenders, he could be taken away if seen earthbending.
Katara disagrees with the idea that Haru should stop continuing to earthbend, because of the idea that you can’t just tell someone to stop such a remarkable talent.
Later in the episode, Katara and Haru are both talking and walking around the outskirts of the village, and suddenly hear a man whose in need of help. Haru earthbends a large stack of rocks and boulders that fell on an old man, and releases the man from his trap.
The man tells the Fire Nation about the incident, and Haru is captured, and taken to the rig. Katara feels that it was kinda her fault for making Haru earthbend the old man out, and decides to go incognito as a prisoner, faking an earthbending trip with the help of Aang and Sokka.
Fast forwarding a bit, Aang, Katara, and Sokka go into mission mode to save Haru, and thanks to the influential Katara, the mission goes from just saving Haru to saving all of the earthbender prisoners.
The earthbenders are finally saved, and they ride the Fire Nation boats back to their native lands, with a newfound belief in themselves and one another. We also get to meet Haru’s Father, Tyro, who was captured so long ago.
This episode may not have been an extreme excite fest, but there was truly a good message behind it. Avatar: The Last Airbender seems to be at a point of time to where each episode, consisting of meeting new people from different villages, are a test in themselves for Aang, Sokka, and Katara. Of course this was obvious from the beginning, but on further analysis, we have seen Aang learn to fight better, we’ve seen a development and structural contentment of friendship between Katara and Sokka, and we’ve also seen Sokka actually grow as a character, slowly but surely. The episode ‘Imprisoned’ seem to show how mentally creative the main characters truly are, especially when a situation looks bad. Although all characters have a lot of growing up to do, there is promise in the next few episodes that while growth in characters take place, the action, adventure, and mischief, will follow!
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