History of Sokka (Spring 100 AG)

Book 2: Earth


After leaving the Water Tribe boat of Master Pakku, Sokka and the others arrive in an Earth Kingdom base. Once Aang is told that the only way to win the war is to master the Avatar State, Sokka attempts to help by scaring him into the Avatar state. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. He also knocks out the general, asking, "Anyone got a problem with that?"

Later, entering the Cave of Two Lovers, he is forced to deal with annoying nomads. He also assists in the freeing of the citizens of Omashu.

The Swamp
Sokka, Katara, and Aang are flying on Appa above a giant swamp. Aang stares at the swamp in a sort of hypnotic trance and starts lowering themselves into the swamp. When Sokka starts explaining what is happening to Aang, he comes out of his "trance" and starts telling Sokka and Katara that the swamp is "calling him." Sokka tries to convince Aang that there is nowhere to land and to move on, but Aang is still interested because of what King Bumi told him about listening to the Earth. Sokka, who is being usually stubborn, says to ignore it. Aang starts to leave once Katara, Appa, and Momo start to complain about the swamp. Unfortunately, an oddly located tornado comes right toward the gang and they fall down with much force.



Aang, Katara, and Sokka are separated from Appa and Momo due to landing in different places. The trio, led by Sokka, try to find their animal friends with Sokka chopping everything in sight with his machete. Aang tells Sokka that they should be "a little nicer to the swamp." Katara agrees with Aang, as she feels some supernatural qualities in the swamp. She claims that it feels "alive." Sokka keeps chopping around anyway. Aang says that the longer they stay there, the more he thinks he shouldn't do that. Though Katara and Aang still believe something supernatural is going on in the swamp, Sokka dismisses their concerns. They later see strange glowing eyes and get a little scared. The strange thing that was looking at Aang is shown again, still unseen. This time, it grabs each of them in their sleep with its vines. They wake up and each manages to escape from the vines using their styles of fighting. The trio all end up in separate places.

While wandering the swamp by himself, Sokka thinks he sees Princess Yue. The illusion speaks to him in Yue's voice and says, "You didn't protect me." She leaves and Sokka stands there stunned. The trio is reunited and they reach the center of the swamp, which is a giant tree. Aang believes that the swamp was calling them there. All of a sudden, the giant monster who earlier had grabbed them appears. Aang and Katara finally defeat the swamp monster, who is really a Waterbender bending the water in the vines that encased him to make the monster. He says the swamp is just one big tree, stretching out its roots for miles. He also says that the whole world is one organism like the swamp. If you listen carefully, he explains, then you can hear everything breathing together because everything is connected. He goes on to explain each person's visions. In the swamp, people have visions of "people we've lost, people we've loved", though they are not really gone because everyone is connected. After the group finds Momo and Appa, they leave the Swamp.

Avatar Day


While in the Earth Kingdom village of Chin Village, the three kids learn of an annual holiday called "Avatar Day". They watch a parade with giant floats that are made to look like Kyoshi, Roku, and Aang. The trio at first believed that the festival is honoring the Avatar, but then a man torches the three floats to the loud approval of the village, who chant, "Down with the Avatar! Down with the Avatar!" Aang reveals himself as the Avatar, only to be arrested. While in his jail cell, the village's mayor explains to him that "Avatar Day" was formed after Avatar Kyoshi killed the village's leader, Chin the Great. Sokka then takes up the job as Aang's detective. To prove Aang's (or rather, Kyoshi's) innocence, Sokka and Katara search the village and return to Kyoshi Island to find evidence that says otherwise. Unfortunately, the evidence is useless because in these trials, the opposing sides only tell what they believe happened. Using only the two stories, the jury decides who is innocent and who is guilty; for this case, the village mayor serves as both prosecution and jury.

During Aang's trial, after hearing the village mayor's story and Aang's vague version, he is found guilty. Refusing to give up, Sokka and Katara have Aang dress up in Kyoshi's old uniform. Kyoshi manifests herself through Aang and tells the true story. Right afterwards, the town is attacked by the Rough Rhinos. The trio engages the warriors in battle and is successful in driving them away, Sokka regaining his boomerang during the battle. In an act of thanks, the mayor decides that in the future, Avatars will be honored on "Avatar Day."

The Blind Bandit


Aang and the trio go to the town of Gaoling to continue his search for someone to teach him earthbending. While searching, they hear from a pair of students about Earth Rumble VI, a Lei Tai tournament featuring several powerful Earthbenders. The boys are not very inclined to help Aang with the location until Katara uses her "feminine charm," which involves freezing them to the walls, to convince them to tell.

At the tournament, they see a powerful Earthbender named ‘The Boulder’ who defeats every challenger he comes across. Sokka completely gets into it, but Aang is not very impressed, saying that the Boulder is "just listening to his muscles". The Boulder defeats several other contenders, working his way up to the current champion, The Blind Bandit. The Blind Bandit is a blind Earthbender who happens to be Toph, a 12 year-old girl. Aang notices the Bandit's techniques, especially how she waits and listens carefully to the movements of her opponent, and realizes that she is the type of person that Bumi said would make a good earthbending teacher. After Toph helps Aang get away from kidnappers, she decides to come with them, but her father says no.

As Aang and the others get ready to leave, Toph runs up to them, saying that her father changed his mind, letting her travel with them. Sokka wisely offers to leave quickly before her father "changes his mind again." Toph is ready to go, but she wants to show Aang one thing first. Aang hops down, and she promptly launches him into a tree. Toph, declaring them even, demands to have her championship belt returned. Sokka drops the belt on her head expecting her to catch it, "forgetting" she is blind.

The Library
Each of the members of Aang's group decide to take a little "mini-vacation" as a way to unwind after all the work they've done; Sokka, on the other hand, thinks the group should be working on getting intelligence on the Fire Nation, most specifically a map for when Aang must hunt down the Fire Lord. The group meets Professor Zei, a professor at Ba Sing Se University, who tells them he is searching for a legendary library said to be in the middle of a nearby desert. The library, said to have been created by the spirit of knowledge and his fox servants, has more valuable tomes than any other place in the world. Sokka, believing he may be able to get information on the Fire Nation there, dedicates his "vacation" to finding the place.

Using Appa to fly, the group soon finds the library. They find it completely buried in the sand except for its single, highest tower. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Momo, and Professor Zei use a window to enter the library; Appa stays outside, of course, as does Toph, who cannot read since she is blind. Toph also mentions that, because of the desert sand, she cannot feel the vibrations in the ground as well as she normally can, making her lose her usual advantage.



When the group enters the library, they meet the spirit, Wan Shi Tong, who constructed the library; taking the form of a large owl, the spirit initially does not trust them. The spirit, apparently, dislikes the fact that humans only use knowledge to get an advantage over other humans; he brings up the last human to have discovered his library, who happened to be Admiral Zhao (Zhao mentions a library in "Siege of the North, Part II"), and believes the group only wants to get information to help them defeat their enemies (which is, of course, true). But, they convince him otherwise.

Sokka finds a burned paper that mentions "the Fire Nation's darkest day;" it has a date but no other information. It also turns out that Zhao, before leaving, apparently destroyed every other bit of information about the Fire Nation, probably to prevent exactly what Sokka and the others are trying to do. However, a fox (one of Wan Shi Tong's animal helpers) finds the group and leads them to a room dedicated to astronomy. There, a date can be entered on a stone wheel, which then shows the heavens on that particular date; when Sokka enters the date of "the darkest day," it shows a solar eclipse occurring. The group realizes that solar eclipses must weaken or take away the ability to Firebend in the same way lunar eclipses affect Waterbending; they realize they can use this information to plan an attack on the Fire Nation forces.

Soon, however, Wan Shi Tong finds out their plans and decrees that he will no longer allow humans to misuse his beloved information. He attacks the group and causes the library to begin to sink; that way, it will be completely underground forever. Aang and Sokka hurriedly try to use the astronomy room to find the next date of a solar eclipse; it turns out the next one is in a few months. They plan to give this information to the Earth Kingdom armies of Ba Sing Se to help in the war. The group then quickly escapes, except for Professor Zei, who says he would rather spend eternity in the Library than see it vanish forever; the others have no choice but to leave him. They escape before the Library vanishes into the sand; however, the episode ends with Toph telling Aang that Appa has been stolen by sandbenders.

The Desert


While traveling though the desert, the group runs low on water. Sokka finds a cactus plant with a liquid trapped inside. He and Momo, desperate for any thirst quencher, quickly drink the "cactus juice". Immediately, Sokka starts hallucinating, saying things like, "Who lit Toph on fire?" and "How did we get out here in the middle of the ocean?" Aang creates a giant mushroom cloud out of frustration from not finding Appa. Katara and Sokka see the giant mushroom cloud from a few miles away and Sokka says, "It's a giant mushroom.... Maybe it's friendly!" followed by waving his arms back and forth and saying, "Friendly Mushroom. Mushy Giant Friend!" At night, Toph accidentally kicks a Sandbender's Sand-sailor and they use its compass to sail to a giant rock which happens to be the magnetic center of the desert. On the rock they find strange tunnels that are actually insect-buzzard hives. In the hives, Sokka claims that his head has cleared out the cactus juice, only to eat some of the "honey" he finds on the wall of the hive. They fight the insect-buzzards until the arrival of a Sandbender tribe. Toph recognizes one of them as one of the sandbenders that stole Appa, accidentally prompting Aang to go into the Avatar State and destroy all but one of the sailors.

The Serpent's Pass
After the group escapes the desert, they met a refugee family traveling to Ba Sing Se. The group helps the family to an underground ferry way that leads to the city. While there, Sokka and the others are reunited with the Kyoshi Warrior, Suki, who was there helping war refugees. Later, the refugee family's documents are stolen, so Aang, Katara, Toph, Sokka, and Suki agree to help them cross the Serpent's Pass.



As the group travels along a sheer cliff side of the pass, Suki points out Fire Nation forces patrolling the water, telling them that they are rumored to be working on a secret project. As they continue, Than falls when the ground under him crumbles. Toph saves him, but the falling rocks draw the attention of the patrol ship, which launches a fireball at them. Aang leaps into action, knocking the ball back and striking their engines. The ship returns fire, hitting the rockface above them, and sending debris falling towards Suki. Sokka pushes Suki out of the way, and Toph saves him by deflecting the rocks. Sokka is too worried about Suki's safety to be thankful to Toph for saving his life, which annoys Toph. The group runs to the shelter of an outcropping wall of rock, leaving the ship behind to tend to its damage.

That night, Sokka is becoming overprotective of Suki, insisting that she not sleep so close to the edge of the cliff in case it collapses to the water below. After he moves her sleeping mat he screams and pushes her away from her mat. She inquires what's wrong; Sokka is calm and tells her that he thought he saw a spider. Suki finds Sokka staring at the moon. Sokka explains that he's being so overprotective because of someone he lost (Yue) before at the North Pole. Suki tells Sokka about someone she cared for and lost as well, although he only went away. Sokka starts to get jealous, not realizing that she's talking about him. Suki moves in to kiss him, but Sokka, feeling guilty to kiss her in front of the moon, turns away. As the group gets ready to depart, Suki gets ready to return to her comrades, telling Sokka that she went with him to make sure that he got through safely. She tries to apologize to Sokka for coming on to him the night before, but he silences her with a kiss. When the group comes to Ba Sing Se and sees the giant drill, they turn to Sokka for ideas. Katara's words about how Ty Lee fights gives Sokka an idea to infiltrate the machine and destroy it from the inside, by hitting its pressure points. With Katara and Toph plugging up the slurry, and Aang giving the final blow, the Drill is destroyed.

Ba Sing Se
Riding the Earth rail, the group finally enters Ba Sing Se. Sokka is confident that they will easily find Appa, but the city is bigger than they imagined... much bigger. Soon after they arrive, Aang and his friends are met by Joo Dee; a cheerful, incessantly smiling woman assigned to guide them around the city. Attempts by Sokka to try and get their guide to talk about the war and a possible audience with the Earth King are invariably ignored.



Katara makes a plan to sneak with Toph into a party. Aang and Sokka eventually arrive (after Katara and Toph) at the palace and manage to get in through the side entrance disguised as servants. Aang is soon exposed as the Avatar, but he quickly smooths things over with a display of his abilities to entertain the audience, until the Earth King himself arrives. Sokka is captured and dragged away by Dai Li guards as the Dai Li bind and gag Katara and Toph with earthbending. Inside Long Feng's chamber, Sokka tries to talk about the coming solar eclipse, but is abruptly cut off by Feng. To preserve the culture and utopian life within the walls of Ba Sing Se, Feng explains, no mention of the war is permitted. It is also revealed that Feng is in charge of handling day-to-day affairs in the city, including all military matters.

In the peaceful city, Sokka is outside his element of war and battle. His boomerang has become a toy as he walks through the city. Sokka finds a haiku class full of pretty girls. While peeking through the window, enjoying the 'show', he is shoved from behind by an ostrich horse and winds up inside. While explaining the accident to the girls he accidentally rhymes in haiku. The instructor becomes upset with the intrusion and disruption of the class. She is also disgusted with the common place message his haiku presents and presents the rules of haiku to him in a much more formal tone. Sokka soon gets into a contest with the teacher, (which seems to parody a rap battle) both of whom speak only in haiku.

After each of Sokka's, the girls in the class break into giggling. After several bouts, with Sokka comically winning each one, he eventually messes up and adds an extra syllable to the final line, causing the class to become silent and hard faced. After counting the syllables and realizing his grave error, Sokka is ejected from the room by a very large guard into the street. Sokka changed his mind about liking poetry in the end.

Lake Laogai & The Earth King
At Aang's house, Sokka is attempting to draw pictures of Appa, but Aang and Katara burst in with a stack of professionally-made posters they had a printer make featuring much better pictures of the lost bison than Sokka's crude drawings. The group plans on spreading the fliers all over the city, hoping someone will have some information.

Out in the city, the gang is setting up more posters when Katara runs into Jet. He tells her that he wants to help, but Katara distrusts him and attacks. Jet deflects her attacks and tries to prove his honesty by dropping his hook swords. The others arrive, drawn by the noise, and Jet tries again to explain himself. Then Jet shows them a flier. Toph, reading Jet's heartbeat and breathing patterns, pronounces that he's telling the truth.

On their way out, the group is sidetracked when Smellerbee and Longshot happen to come across them. Katara once again turns on Jet, as he had claimed to have left the gang behind. Jet insists that he's been living alone in the city, but Smellerbee claims that he was dragged away by the Dai Li. Toph realizes they are both telling the truth, even though their stories don't match. Sokka quickly figures that Jet has been brainwashed by the Dai Li.



The group makes their way to Lake Laogai the next day and Toph quickly finds and uncovers the underwater entrance. The gang find themselves confronted by Long Feng and several Dai Li agents. A battle quickly breaks out. Jet hurls one of his hook swords at Long Feng, who dodges and retaliates with Earthbending. After dealing a grievous blow to Jet, Long Feng escapes as the others enter the chamber. Katara tries to heal Jet and realizes just how badly he was injured. Longshot, speaking for the first time in the series, tells Aang and his group that they should go and find Appa and leave Jet to Smellerbee and himself. Jet tries to assure Katara that he'll be fine, but as they leave, Toph sorrowfully says that Jet was lying.

The group rushes back to the surface and is reunited with Appa. Less than an hour after the events of "Lake Laogai," Sokka and his friends are on a small island recovering and discussing what they should do. Katara and Toph both want to leave Ba Sing Se, as they have found Appa and thus have no reason to remain there. On the other hand, Sokka wants to stay to inform the Earth King of all that is taking place within Ba Sing Se, as well as the approaching solar eclipse, as this was their entire reason for heading to Ba Sing Se in the first place. Aang agrees with him. Ultimately, the others agree to do so, and all four ride Appa back to Ba Sing Se's upper ring and manage to break into the palace, tearing their way through the Royal Guards despite a strong defense.

At the palace, Aang and his friends finally reach the Earth King's throne room. Aang goes on to explain the various events going on that the Earth King is unaware of: a war outside Ba Sing Se's walls, Long Feng and the Dai Li's conspiracy, the imprisonment of Appa, and the brainwashing of Jet and countless other individuals. The Earth King arrives at the outer wall and is shocked to see the remains of the Fire Nation's drill leading right up to and through Ba Sing Se's outer wall. The Earth King orders the Dai Li to arrest Long Feng. The two Dai Li agents accompanying Long Feng share a conspiratorial glance and then bind Long Feng's arms with metal manacles. When they return to the palace, he also agrees, after some persuasion to support Sokka's plan to invade the Fire Nation on the day of the solar eclipse (dubbed by Sokka The Day of Black Sun), when the Fire Nation will be helpless.

Father and Son Reunion


The Earth King's top generals, the Council of Five, raid Long Feng's office and discover files about every person in Ba Sing Se. They find an intelligence report giving the location of Water Tribe warriors led by Hakoda, Sokka and Katara's father.

Aang and Sokka make their way over the plains surrounding Ba Sing Se on Appa, convinced that things are finally going positively for them. Aang and Sokka land at the mouth of Chameleon Bay, where they were told that Sokka’s father Hakoda and the rest of the Southern Water Tribe Warriors are. Sokka is very nervous, but Aang tries to calm him down, and succeeds somewhat. Sokka questions Aang on his feelings towards him meeting Guru Pathik to master the Avatar State. Aang smiles, and replies that he, unlike Sokka, is not nervous in the least. He then takes off on Appa, shouting back to Sokka that they will reunite in a week.

Sokka walks into the base and is greeted with warm and welcome arms by the warriors of the Southern Water Tribe. After a very brief exchange of greetings, the warriors point him off to a tent. Sokka enters the tent, where several more warriors, including Bato and his father Hakoda, are studying a map. Hakoda looks up from the map and he and Sokka embrace happily.

Sokka, Hakoda, and the rest of the Warriors are preparing what Hakoda calls Tangle Mines. Comprised of a buoyant casing around an explosive mine, they are filled with Skunkfish and Seaweed. Upon detonation, the seaweed entangles itself in propellers of Fire Nation ships, immobilizing them. Afterwards, the stench of the Skunkfish forces the soldiers on board to abandon ship. Hakoda jokes that he has dubbed the plan, “The Stink and Sink,” to which Sokka explodes with laughter. Bato remarks dryly on how similar the father and son are.

A scouting party returns, informing the warriors of the presence of four Fire Nation ships. Hakoda quickly acts, telling Bato to finish preparing the mines and the rest of the warriors to prepare for battle. Sokka hesitates as the other warriors prepare for battle, and then asks Hakoda what he should do. In a slightly irritated, yet joking tone, Hakoda repeats pointedly that he wanted, "the rest of [the] men to get ready for battle." Sokka smiles at his father's confirmation of his coming-of-age and quickly prepares himself for the encounter ahead.

Sokka and the rest of Hakoda's warriors are finishing preparing their ships to move on. Sokka tells his father that he is going to make him proud and prove what a great warrior he is. Hakoda smiles and replies that Sokka does not have to prove himself - he has always known Sokka has been a great warrior. This heart-felt moment is brought up short by the sudden appearance of Aang and Appa. Sokka only has to look at Aang for him to realize that the situation is urgent and bids farewell to his father.

Fall of Ba Sing Se


Sokka and Aang hurry back to Ba Sing Se on Appa; as they fly along, they spot Toph, who is trying to get back to the Palace as quickly as she can. They pick her up and fly to Ba Sing Se, trying to get there quickly to see if Katara is all right. When asked if he had mastered the Avatar State, Aang lies to the others, saying that he has.

Outside the Palace, the gang discovers that there is indeed a huge underground city and decides that Toph and Sokka should go to warn the Earth King about the coup, and Iroh and Aang are sent to rescue Katara and Zuko. Sokka and Toph soon see General How, but before they can say anything, the Dai Li place him under house arrest. At that very moment, every general is arrested. The two make it into the Throne Room and they reveal to the Earth King that the girls are not Kyoshi Warriors. Upon seeking Sokka, Ty Lee starts to flirt with him, but he says that he is involved with Suki. Ty Lee does not know who Suki is, which exposes, them and Toph throws her to the side with some rocks. Mai, realizing that their identities were exposed, threw a hail of ornate shurikens at Toph, who blocked them with a wall of earth. Ty Lee begins to “fight” Sokka. However, the fighting is in vain, as Azula soon has the King at flamepoint. Sokka and Toph give up immediately and are soon disabled by Ty Lee.

Back in the Palace, Ty Lee is trying to teach Bosco the Bear how to walk on his front legs, but soon she is trapped by Toph. Toph and Sokka take a fighting stance against Mai, who in her nonchalance says to take the bear and the King reunites happily with his pet. As the Earth King, Bosco, Momo, Toph, Sokka, Katara, and Aang fly atop Appa's back over the Outer Wall and out of the city, the Earth King looks back and sadly proclaims, "The Earth Kingdom... has fallen."