Ah, I asked because later on in Avatar they introduced a Waterbending technique where the user could bend the water inside the human body and basically control a person's body. I thought it was a pretty clever way to turn "I have elemental control over water" to "I can control a person like a puppet".
That's EXACTLY who I was thinking of when I saw him cut off Oars' foot.
Only after it's appeared in the anime. And then only if there was something in the episode that made me want to see if the manga was any different.