Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Waterbending Scroll

The Waterbending Scroll
Season 1, Episode 9
Airdate	April 29, 2005
Production Number	1x09
Written by	John O'Bryan
Directed by	Anthony Lioi
← 1x08 Winter Solstice: Avatar Roku (2)	1x10 → Jet
Avatar: The Last Airbender — Season One

The Waterbending Scroll is the ninth episode of the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the ninth episode overall.

Guest Stars: Byron McKittrick (Pirate Barker), Jack Angel (Pirate Captain)

Plot Overview

Katara begins teaching Aang how to waterbend, but becomes resentful when his innate abilities outstrip her own learned ones. Later, while shopping for supplies, she discovers an ancient scroll describing waterbending techniques in a shop that turns out to be run by a group of pirates. She doesn't have enough money to afford it, and after they leave, the pirates suddenly run out after them and give chase. After escaping, Katara admits she stole the scroll, but even with its guidance her jealousy of the Avatar's prowess grows.

Iroh, combing the same market for a Pai Sho tile over Zuko's protests, hears of the pirates' encounter and together they track the gang up the river. That night, they capture the three friends in an ambush, starting with Katara, who snuck off to practice bending alone. The alliance between pirates and firebenders falls apart when they realize they've captured the Avatar, and in the ensuing chaos Aang and Katara cooperate enough to let the gang to escape, wrecking the pirates' ship and Zuko's launch in the process. Once safely away, Sokka reveals that he kept the scroll during the fight.

Notes

• In a refreshing change of pace from most children's shows' coverage of theft and related issues, this episode has its characters end up deciding that theft was the correct course of action after all, and laugh off their failure to learn any moral lesson from it.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Aang begins learning to bend the second element in the sequence he must follow. After he masters water, he must move on to earth, and then fire.

Characters

• The dream of being trained in waterbending was Katara's main reason for deciding to leave her home village in the first place, in The Avatar Returns.

Referbacks

• Zuko taunts a captive Katara with her mother's necklace, which he found after she lost it in Imprisoned.
• The cabbage vendor whose cart is destroyed was first seen in The King of Omashu, where he twice suffered similar misfortune.

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