Avatar: The Last Airbender/Bato of the Water Tribe

Bato of the Water Tribe
Season 1, Episode 15
Airdate	October 7, 2005
Production Number	1x15
Written by	Ian Wilcox
Directed by	Giancarlo Volpe
← 1x14 The Fortuneteller	1x16 → The Deserter
Avatar: The Last Airbender — Season One

Bato of the Water Tribe is the fifteenth episode of the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the fifteenth episode overall.

Guest Stars: Richard McGonagle (Bato), Jennifer Hale (June)

Plot Overview

The gang encounters a waterbender named Bato, an old friend of Sokka's and Katara's from their village. They accompany him back to his camp in a monastery, but Aang feels left out as they reminisce. He fears his friends will abandon him to join their father in the Water Tribe army, and intercepts a message that would have told them his whereabouts. Meanwhile, a bounty hunter named June and her shirshu (a huge animal with an excellent sense of smell) tracks down a stowaway on Zuko's ship. Zuko insists that, as payment for damage done to his ship during the fight, June track down the Avatar.

Bato takes the three ice dodging, a Water Tribe rite of passage that Sokka is of age for. The focus on trust compels Aang to deliver the message and confess. Sokka is furious, and insists that he and Katara set off without Aang to meet their father after all, but later calms down and decides to turn back. Just then June catches up with and captures them, and takes them back to the monastery to find Aang.

In the ensuing battle, Appa engages the shirshu while Zuko attacks Aang. The Avatar is cornered, but Sokka and Katara use a vat of perfume to confuse the shirshu's sense of smell, driving the animal bezerk. As the reunited friends leave the monastery, Aang presents Katara with her necklace, which he had taken from Zuko during the fight, and receives a kiss and reconciliation in return.

Notes

• This is the first detailed information presented about Sokka's and Katara's father, who was mentioned offhand in The Boy in the Iceberg and The Avatar Returns as having gone off to war.
• Iroh seems rather taken with June, and puts on a slight touch of "dirty old man" in her presence.

Arc Advancement

Referbacks

• Zuko found Katara's necklace at the end of Imprisoned, after she lost it in the Fire Nation prison.
• June visits the herbalist Aang consulted in The Blue Spirit, and the town the gang saved from a volcano in The Fortuneteller.

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