Sokka is one of, if not, my favorite character from Avatar the Last Airbender. Not only is he hilarious, but he's also resourceful, intelligent, and creative. But under his jokes and whatnot lies a desire to prove himself, to prove that he can do what his father requested of him years before, to protect his tribe, to be a real man. And it shines through like white on rice. (Not sure if that made sense but I'm gonna roll with it). He feels a lot of responsibility, beign the oldest member of team Avatar pre-Zuko, espcially in the earlier episodes. (Zuko is 17 and Sokka is 16). And it's this sense of responsibility, on top of everything else, all bundled together that made Sokka such a layered and interesting character.
Netflix plans to chuck all that out the window.
According to a tweet from Culture Crave, in Netflix's live action Avatar adaptation, Katara will be the older sibling for...some unknown reason. Sokka will be the younger one, with their ages of 4 and 16 getting switched. Now Sokka, who was 16, is now 14, and vice versa. On the surface, this may seem to be an insignificant change, but all you have to do is think about it before you realize what a terrible idea this is.
You see, as the older sibling, the original Sokka felt a duty to be the man of the tribe, to protect it with his life if need be, and this made sense because he was the oldest male, yes, but also the oldest child of the chief. Keep that in mind because it will be important for later. Sokka being the oldest also helps play into his intelligence and his ingenuity. While a 16-year-old probably shouldn't be able to outsmart a formal military, a 14 year old doing so would be even more laughable.
There are other factors to consider, like how Suki is, I believe, 16 and there have been no reports about changing her age that I'm aware of, or how with Katara being 16 and Aang still being 12, the Kataang romance is going to have some...creepy undertones thanks to the age swap. But let’s focus on how is ruins Sokka as a character.
Because with this age change comes other changes. While the original sokka felt a duty to protect his younger sister, and this is what made him endearing and relatable to other older siblings, such as myself, now he's a younger sibling who just pathetically tries to protect his older, and presumably more capable, sister. At the very least, even though Katara was a bender and Sokka was not, it still made sense that he would try to protect her in the original show because he was older and so was simply watching out for her.
Take that scene where Aang is practicing fire bending with Jong Jong. He accidently burns Katara when he lets the fire get out of control, and because of this Sokka has no problem tackling him to the ground. If you make Katara older in this episode though and Sokka the younger, the moment just doesn't have that same impact on you, or at least it wouldn’t on me.
There are more examples on how switching their ages would ruin Sokka as a character, like how his pessimistic attitude in the earlier episodes are no longer him just assuming the worst due to being the oldest and instead coming off like an edgy emo kid, but I think you all get the gist. Who would have thought that Netflix would ruin another one of our favorite TV shows? No wonder Bryke jumped Ship.