Sokka

"water"

- I'm just a guy with a boomerang. I didn't ask for all this flying, and magic…

Sokka is a teenage Water Tribe warrior. Raised by his grandmother Kanna along with his younger sister Katara in the Southern Water Tribe, Sokka is the son of Chief Hakoda, who left along with all of the other men in his tribe to fight the Fire Nation. As a result, Sokka was the oldest male in the South Pole. He assumed responsibility for the tribe until his sister discovered an Air Nomad named Aang frozen in a block of ice. When he learns that Aang is the Avatar, he is at first skeptical that a child could really save the world. As he and his sister help Aang on his quest, he begins to believe that Aang really is the only hope for peace in the world.

Despite his inability to bend, Sokka becomes the strategist of the group, constantly trying to prove himself to be a great warrior like his father. Sokka is also the "matter of fact" guy in the group and does not believe in spirit magic, as he calls it "mumbo-jumbo". Originally poor, his leadership skills improve over the series as well. His humor and his ability to organize and plan becomes imperative to the group on their travels. By the end of the series, Sokka becomes a master swordsman and finally becomes a great warrior like his father.

Background


Sokka comes from the Southern Water Tribe. A warrior-to-be, 15-year-old Sokka is a very physical person. He's protective of his younger sister, Katara, and treasures the boomerang given to him by his father, Hakoda.

When his father left with the other men of the tribe to fight in the war, Sokka was put under his Gran Gran's care and became his tribe's last defense, although there were little kids who were about 7-9 years old who assumed the role of soldiers. He took the task very seriously and even built a number of snow watchtowers around the village. Although Sokka has the spirit of a soldier and the courage to stand up to any enemy, at the beginning of the series he lacked the skills and techniques that would make him a formidable opponent. That wouldn't stop him from trying though, especially if his friends need help.

During his travels with Aang, Sokka betters his skills significantly. By Book 3 he has become a very skilled fighter, leader, and strategic planner, with a sword forged from meteorite.

Future
Not much is known about Sokka's future, but Andrea Romano confirmed in a recent interview that he and the rest of Team Avatar are dead.

Personality
At first, Sokka is skeptical and abrasive, "sexist" and "immature", according to Katara (The Boy in the Iceberg). He is always sharp-witted. Detached from Katara's and Aang's pursuit of the Bending Arts, he openly expresses his 'Bender Envy', most clearly shown in Sokka's Master. Not having bending abilities himself, Sokka instead prefers the ways of the warrior and the scientist. He takes his responsibility as protector very seriously. Initially, he doesn't seem to believe in the bending arts, calling Katara's bending "magic water". The appearance of the Avatar seems to change his mind. However, he never seems to fully accept the fact that as the avatar, Aang must learn firebending. He is the least eager for Aang to start learning firebending under Jeong Jeong. Later on, when Aang accidentally burns Katara, Sokka throws him to the ground and yells how he knew that Aang learning firebending was a mistake. This antagonism toward firebending seems to persist. Later, he refers to Zuko's training of Aang as "jerkbending". Apparently, Sokka only accepts the mastering of the last element because it will help Aang defeat the Fire Lord. He can become serious when he wants to or when need arises and is very protective of his sister, Katara. This is shown when he violently tackled Aang to the ground after Aang accidentally burned Katara's hands in "The Deserter". Sokka is also protective of Aang, and when Aang surrenders himself to Zuko, Sokka immediately prepares to rescue him. Later, he decides that getting Aang to the North Pole is more important than seeing his father again after years of separation. Sokka is also very intelligent and good at coming up with ideas, even if said ideas are not always very good. He is also generally the one who is counted on determining the strategy of attack.



Patriotic and long to hold a grudge, he strongly wants to extract vengeance for the Fire Nation's decimation of the Water Tribe and the death of his mother. He holds little interest in the mysticism surrounding bending and prefers to solve problems using his strength and his wits. He tends to be rash, however, and his pride often leads to embarrassment. When Sokka has been humiliated, his versatility makes for a heartfelt apology and changing of his ways. A good example of this is in "The Warriors of Kyoshi", when he apologizes to Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors for saying that boys are better than girls.

Sokka learns to be flexible. He may be closed-minded at first, but that's because he wants to protect himself and those he loves. Not long after he starts traveling with the Avatar, Sokka begins to change. His humble apology to Suki is seen in "The Warriors of Kyoshi". As the series progresses, he becomes more optimistic. He likes to keep smiles on his friends' faces using his wit, sarcastic humor, and overall eccentricity. Sokka is an underdog. He is constantly the one who gets beaten upon. Most of his plans fail miserably; however, he bravely keeps fighting.

From the very start, as seen in "The Avatar Returns", Sokka is willing to die defending his tribe, even though he never stood the smallest chance. Despite his obvious cleverness, Sokka sometimes acts very silly, if not outright stupid. He occasionally creates ridiculous plans that are nearly impossible to carry out. He is also a general victim of slapstick, often being sent flying or getting struck by things. Aunt Wu even states, "Your future is full of struggle and anguish. Most of it, self-inflicted". When Sokka protests that she didn't even read his palm, she remarked "I don't need to. It's written all over your face". His sarcastic and strange behavior can sometimes carry over into important decisions.

Sokka has a habit of over-explaining his plans, much to the annoyance of his friends. He also has a habit of missing the point in certain situations, again much to the annoyance of his friends.



A passionate carnivore, Sokka has demonstrated his love of meat on multiple occasions and is the main hunter in the group. Sokka also has a habit of using sarcasm. In the episode "Bitter Work", Sokka shouts at karma in the heavens, vowing to give up both meat and sarcasm for assistance. He would also consider himself no longer "Sokka, the meat and sarcasm guy", but willing to be "Sokka the veggies and straight-talk fellow". By the end of the episode, however, he has given up neither meat nor sarcasm. He even asked "Aang, thank goodness, have you got any meat?" after being found less than a second after shouting to Karma. Despite his love of meat, he finds it almost impossible to resist food, often gorging himself on various dishes when the group eat properly cooked meals. He shows contempt for Katara's cooking, however.

As much as Sokka loves meat, he grows close to every pet he recieves. He has a hilarious relationship with Momo. He tries to adopt a Messenger Hawk, which he fondly names "Hawky".

Perhaps the biggest growth and change in Sokka between the beginning and end of the series, is his learning to accept people of the Fire Nation. As shown from experience throughout the series he has learned that no nation is entirety good or bad, meaning that he should not blame the people of the nation but rather its ruler.

Sokka also appears to be unbiased. As shown in "The Puppetmaster", despite Hama having been from the Southern Water Tribe like himself and his sister, a victim of War and the last true Waterbender of their tribe, Sokka still does not exempt her from his suspicions as the probable cause of the strange disappearances. He also makes no effort to prove her innocence when faced with absolute proof that she is behind them.

Under the guidance of swordsmaster Piandao, Sokka expresses various unorthodox procedures while undergoing his training. In one exercise, when told to stamp his identity onto a sheet of paper, rather than simply writing his name, Sokka smears ink all over his face and presses it onto the paper. As he presents Sokka with his blade, Piandao relates that it was not his skills that impressed him, but his creativity, versatility and intelligence. All were traits that go beyond mere skills and define a great swordsman.

Sokka writes with his right hand but draws and eats with his left hand. He is possibly ambidextrous, although his left-handed art is crude and rudimentary. However, this could just be due to a limited drawing ability.

Overall, Sokka probably has the biggest heart of all the characters, possibly excluding Katara. He changes where change is needed, learns to love and respect others, embraces his own identity, accepts failure, and forms lasting loyalties. He fights to the death even when the cause seems hopeless. Sokka becomes the warrior he has always dreamed of by the end of the series. He becomes a master swordsman and finally becomes a great warrior like his father.

Innovations and Abilities
For an inhabitant of a mystical world, Sokka shows a remarkable proclivity towards science. He seems naturally adept at creating weapons out of practically anything at any time. He learned how to construct amateur explosives from his father, which he once used to simulate Firebending. In another instance, Sokka used trickery and optical illusions to help his sister Katara fake the ability to Earthbend. Working side by side with fellow technologist, the Mechanist, Sokka has managed to engineer a system of control for an experimental hot air balloon as well as conceptualize the design for waterbending-powered submarines. Alongside his trademark boomerang, Sokka is proficient in a variety of weapons, including clubs, a machete, spears, and the newest addition, a meteorite iron sword. However, it is unclear if Sokka ever found his sword after throwing it off an airship.

In addition to his engineering skill, Sokka has shown a remarkable talent for poetry. In The Tales of Ba Sing Se, he stumbles into a poetry reading and goes toe-to-toe with the instructor in a haiku contest and holds his own and nearly wins. However, his hubris gets the best of him, and he is viciously thrown out for accidentally adding an extra syllable to the end of a haiku, where he then decides to change his outlook on poetry. Sokka is also, quite humorously, a terrible artist, yet somehow strangely unaware of it (or is in denial). He emotionally defends his "artwork", which is still met with more laughter from his peers.

As the only non-bender in Aang's group, Sokka is often overshadowed by the bending skills of his friends. However, it is Sokka that usually devises plans, gathers intelligence, and collects data and maps that could help his group defeat the Fire Nation. He often becomes the navigator and chooses the route to follow despite the objections of others. His skills as a fighter have noticeably improved as the series progresses, although it is usually his persistence rather than skill that allows him to land a blow against opponents of superior skill, such as Zuko in "The Avatar Returns" and Ty Lee in "The Chase". Sokka employs other strategies to defeat larger enemies. In "The Library", he incapacitated Won Shi Tong by using the element of surprise and attacking him from above. In that particular encounter, Sokka's wit succeeded where Aang and Katara's bending had failed. It was also Sokka who discovered that a solar eclipse disables Firebenders to bend and his idea to travel to Ba Sing Se and inform the Earth King. Perhaps his greatest triumph, however, is his nearly single-handed defeat of Combustion Man by using his boomerang to block the latter's chi flow. This action ultimately resulted in Combustion Man's demise, something that the combined efforts of his friends failed to do.

Sokka's leadership skills have evolved in the series. Initially he assumed leadership of the group based on that he was the oldest, that he had some rudimentary warrior training, and that Aang was just a goofy kid. However, his bossy attitude infuriated Katara. His skills were also undermined by his xenophobia, chauvinism and general bullheadedness. However, Sokka is usually willing to admit when he's wrong. This seemed to earn him the respect of several of the people he met and help him grow as a warrior and as a person. It should also be noted that Sokka was occasionally right in his opinions. His immaturity, though, often caused Katara and Aang to ignore him. By the second season, Sokka seemed to have matured and refers to the group as a team. He also seems to respect the opinions of others. They, in turn, consider his advice more seriously, even coming to rely on it. In "Sokka's Master", the group tells Sokka how much they need him. Without him, they are bored, lost, unable to decide what to do, cannot remember what they need to do, and are being killed by Katara's horrible jokes, to the point where Aang admits, "I guess the jokes don't run in the family", much to her annoyance.

Sokka has come to learn the art of swordsmanship, wielding a Jian sword, and has improved his contribution to the team. Under the tutelage of the Fire Nation swordmaster Piandao, Sokka underwent various activities, including sparring matches with the butler Fat to hone his swordwielding skills and arts such as painting, calligraphy, and rock gardening to sharpen his mind. Eventually, when instructed to make his own sword, he uses fragments of a meteorite that fell the night before to collect the metal needed to forge his blade. Sokka's Sword, like his master's, is patterned on a Qing Dynasty jian, but has the properties of the alien material used for its creation, making it unique. The blade retains an unusual all-black appearance and is able to slice through the toughest materials, such as steel. Although Sokka proved unable to defeat his master in a duel, Piandao stated that Sokka possesses the traits that one day could make him an even greater swordsman than he is. During the events of Sozin's Comet, Sokka is once again able to prove his proficient skills in fighting. Even after breaking his leg from a fall and holding onto Toph who is about to fall to her death, he manages to take out two Firebenders that were about to finish him off. He defeats them by drawing his boomerang and throwing it at the first Firebender and knocking him out, then kicking his sword into the air, catching it, then throwing it to cut the platform the other Firebender was standing on. He unfortunately lost both items in the process, only for a group of Firebenders to appear. Luckily, he and Toph survived when Suki crashed another airship into the one they were on and they managed to safely drop onto it.

Sokka shows his incredible intellectual potential, capacity to learn, and critical thinking skills throughout the series. He absorbs information quickly and completely and solves problems at an alarming rate. An example of this can be seen in the Mechanist, where he solves the dilemma of the hot air balloon (which stumped an engineering genius) shortly after having the concept explained to him. More examples are present in Sokka's Master. In this episode, Sokka becomes an advanced swordsman rapidly, besting Piandao's servant, Fat, in just a couple of days. He also manages to gain a firm grasp on blacksmithing in that short time, as he forges his own sword and later a suit of armor for Appa. His unique critical thinking ability comes into play often in this episode through the training exercises of Piandao. He "stamps his identity" on a page by applying ink to his face and rolling it across the paper after he's informed that he got a little of it on him while thinking. During the rock gardening exercise, he "manipulates the terrain to his advantage" by rolling boulders and relocating moss to make a sort of lounge chair in the shade, thus appealing to his love of relaxation.

Trivia



 * "Avatar Extras" mentions that sarcasm used by Sokka is called Sokkasm.
 * From creator Michael Dante DiMartino it was revealed that Sokka also had some waterbending potential, but never realized it.
 * Excluding Katara's narration during the opening sequence, Sokka gets the first regular line in the series ("It's not going to get away from me this time").
 * Sokka is portrayed by Jackson Rathbone in the film adaptation, The Last Airbender.
 * Sokka's favorite pastime, apparently, is shopping. Second to that is developing plans.
 * Sokka has a habit of smacking his own forehead when aggravated, to the point that it became heavily reddened after his time with the nomads in "The Cave of Two Lovers". This has apparently strengthened his head quite a bit as shown in "The Chase", where after Ty Lee paralyzes both of his arms and one of his legs, she hurts herself after striking his forehead.
 * In "The Chase", Sokka mentions that his "ponytail" is actually a "Warrior's Wolf Tail", a traditional hairstyle sported by male Water Tribe warriors.
 * Sokka has been kissed far more times than any other character in the series, having been kissed at least three times in the first season alone, twice in the second season, and at least three more in the third season, totaling at a minimum of eight kisses.
 * Sokka is the only member of Team Avatar shown to kill an enemy, albeit indirectly. Sokka prevented the release of Combustion Man's chi after he successfully struck the assassin's tattoo with his boomerang. This subsequently led to Combustion Man's demise via explosion, after he unsuccessfully attempted to release the energy.
 * According to "Avatar Extras", Sokka is an active sleeper, meaning he tosses and turns at night.
 * Sokka's name is derived from the Japanese phrase Sou ka, meaning "'I understand" or "Is that so?" This may be a reference to his abilities as an analyst, technologist and scientist.
 * Sokka is well versed in most, if not all, Water Tribe weapons.
 * During the events of "The Drill", Sokka considered giving Team Avatar a name, which at the time was still nameless. He eventually settled on Team Avatar, though before he did, he considered names such as The Boomer-Aang Squad, The Fearsome Foursome, and The Aang Gang.
 * Sokka is sometimes treated differently because he isn't a bender. In "The Avatar State", when leaving the Water Tribe vessels, Sokka failed to receive a parting gift from Pakku, while Katara and Aang received Waterbending Scrolls and Spirit Water. In "The Chase", Toph insulted him, saying that it is a three on three battle, and that Sokka didn't count because he wasn't a bender. Afterwards, Toph corrects herself, saying the group consists of "three plus Sokka".
 * In "The Siege of the North: Part 1" with "Avatar Extras" bonus commentary, when Sokka was with Princess Yue, one of the commentary bubbles states that, "No girl can resist Sokka's charm."
 * A girl from each of the present nations has a crush on Sokka: Suki and Toph from the Earth Kingdom, Yue from the Water Tribes and Ty Lee from the Fire Nation.
 * In "The Waterbending Scroll", Sokka states that he was unable to steer the pirate ship as it was not a Water Tribe vessel. This suggests that he is knowledgeable in operating Water Tribe ships.
 * Sokka is the only name of the original Team Avatar to be mentioned by Azula.
 * Sokka lost both his sword and boomerang during the attack on the Fire Nation Air Fleet.
 * According to Sokka in "The Southern Air Temple", the reason he didn't trust Aang when they first met was because he was a Firebender in his past life, realizing this upon finding that Avatar Roku was a Firebender.
 * Sokka appears to have gained forging skills in "Sokka's Master", when he made his own sword in a forge. He later made a suit of armor that fit Appa perfectly.
 * Despite his age at the start of the series, Sokka technically wasn't a man until after he went Ice Dodging, the Water Tribes' cultural test of manhood. He had passed the required age to go Ice Dodging, but a man needed to conduct the test in order to pass. Since his father and all the other men in the village were away fighting in the War, Sokka was unable to take the test until "Bato of the Water Tribe", where Bato took Sokka Ice Dodging.
 * Sokka was one of the first invited outsiders to ever visit an Air Nomad temple, not including the Fire Nation.
 * Even though Sokka hated the Fire Nation for killing his mother, he failed to show any desire to get revenge on him, possibly due to realizing that not all Fire Nation people are bad, like Zuko.
 * Throughout the series, Sokka is repeatedly shown to be the "killjoy" for Team Avatar; focused mainly on the War, he protests against actions that would jeopardize their plans, such as in "The Painted Lady", when Sokka attempted to get Katara to forget about the sick and starving people in Jang Hui because it would take up too much of their time.
 * Sokka has been shown to be, to some extent, ambidextrous. He is shown using both hands at different times to write, attack and draw (though he does so poorly) and is even shown switching hands at times.
 * Sokka can perfectly navigate a Fire Nation Airship, as seen in "Sozin's Comet, Part 3: Into The Inferno".
 * Sokka's face changes from the beginning to the end of the series. Originally, he had smaller eyes and an altogether more adult face than at the end.
 * In the movie, Sokka tends to be less of a comical character.
 * Sokka is the most frequently shown non-bender in the series.
 * Until Yue's death, Sokka held little to no interest or respect for any spiritual matters. Even after her death, Sokka was the least spirtiual of Team Avatar; his lack of concern for otherwordly sactity rivaled only by Toph's own disregard for the subject.

Relationships

 * Sokka's Relationships
 * Yue (former love interest)
 * Suki (current love interest)

Relatives

 * Gran Gran Kanna (paternal grandmother)
 * Hakoda (father)
 * Kya (mother, deceased)
 * Katara (younger sister)
 * Aang (brother-in-law)
 * Pakku (step-grandfather)
 * Tenzin (nephew)