Avatar: The Last Airbender Shares Behind-the-Scenes Look at Katara’s Darkest Moment

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the most celebrated animated series of all time as it introduced fans to a crew of characters who grew over the course of it, and now fans have gotten a special behind-the-scenes look at one of those characters’ darkest moments in the entire thing overall. As the series continued to introduce Aang, Katara, and Sokka to different elements of its bending world, fans began to see variations of these core elements that took these elements in new and unexpected directions to form new kinds of bending techniques. But this was not always pretty as seen with blood bending.

Avatar: The Last Airbender introduced variations to the core bending techniques with swamp bending, metal bending, and even glass bending in one of the novels released for the series, but blood bending was certainly one of the most frightening reveals yet. Katara learned that this was possible thanks to the light of the full moon, and she was horrified to learn that water benders could train to use their abilities to control their foes’ bodies like puppets.

She might have been horrified, but soon she was forced to use this technique herself to save her friends as Katara tapped into the power of blood bending and unlocked a dark new ability for herself. The official Instagram page for Avatar: The Last Airbender series shared a special behind-the-scenes look at this dark Katara scene with a look at the animatics that helped bring this moment to life. You can check it out below:

Avatar: The Last Airbender has its fair share of darker moments, and that’s even more so for its sequel The Legend of Korra. You can currently check out both franchises on Netflix and CBS All Access if you’re interested in going back and seeing what all the fuss is about or interested in checking out the fan favorite franchise for yourself for the first time. But what do you think of Katara’s blood bending scene?

How did you feel seeing Katara use blood bending for the first time in Avatar: The Last Airbender? Were you surprised to see her use the technique again later in the series? Where does this technique rank among your favorite bending elements? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!