Sokka

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Avatar: The Last Airbender character
Sokka
Nationality	Southern Water Tribe
Notable Aliases	Wang Fire
Gender	Male
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Blue
Age	15
First appearance	"The Boy in the Iceberg"
Voiced by	Jack DeSena

Sokka is a fictional character voiced by Jack DeSena in the Nickelodeon animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The fifteen-year-old is a warrior of the Southern Water Tribe who, along with his younger sister Katara, discovers Aang, the long-lost Avatar, and accompanies him on his quest to defeat the Fire Nation and bring peace to the war-torn nations.^[1]

Contents 1 Concept and creation 2 History 3 Personality 4 Innovations and abilities 5 References

[edit] Concept and creation

It is provided in the Avatar Nick Mag Presents: First Edition issue by co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko that Sokka was originally designed to be much more low-key, but when his comedian voice actor Jack DeSena came in and brought liveliness to his character, they began writing towards that strength.^[2] Much of Sokka's dialog and actions are derived from improvisations and intentional exaggerations on DeSena's part that the writers chose to include within scripts. Furthermore, DeSena has stated that he is inspired by fellow comedian Jim Carrey, which would explain a majority of Sokka's mannerisms expressed throughout the show.

As a result of his design, Sokka's character has come to serve as a source of comic relief throughout the series, often a victim of visual slapstick. Among various running gags involving Sokka are his affinity for being covered in viscous substances, such as raw sewage, slurry, and Appa's phlegm or saliva, and forgetting that Toph is blind. Sokka also has a tendency to produce or at times laugh at jokes that nobody else gets, a trait he shares with his father.^[3]

[edit] History

Sokka grew up in his village as an aspiring warrior-in-training of the Southern Water Tribe. Forced to mature quickly when his mother was killed in a Fire Nation raid, he cultivated his warrior skills with a militant zeal, while his sister Katara did chores and practiced waterbending.^[4] When he was thirteen, his father and the other village men left to fight alongside the Earth Kingdom in the war against the Fire Nation, leaving him and his sister to look after their tribe with their grandmother, Gran Gran.^[5] As the oldest male left in the South Pole, Sokka came to assume a semi-leadership role by the time he was fifteen, fiercely protecting the village from any possible outside threats while trying to train children to be a new generation of defenders.

While on a spearfishing expedition, Katara and Sokka discovered Aang in suspended animation inside an iceberg. After Katara freed him, Sokka initially believed that the Airbender might be a Fire Navy spy, and he eventually grew xenophobic enough to banish him from the village. Upon discovering that Aang was the Avatar, destined to master all four elements and bring peace to the world, Sokka relented, realizing that they had a common enemy -- the Fire Nation. He then set off with Katara and Aang on their journey to find a waterbending instructor at the North Pole, determined to hone his warrior skills by way of fighting a few Firebenders along the way.^[1]

In "Sokka's Master," Sokka expresses self-doubt and worry that he is not contributing as much to the group as his bender companions are. Inspired by his friends' encouragement, he seeks out a master from whom he could learn the art of the sword. Rather than fighting with brute force and flawless technique, Sokka's creativity and thinking-outside-the-box approach to things are the cornerstones of his technique, and his master notes that in time Sokka will be a superior swordsman. As he departs, Piandao has his butler Fat give Sokka a White Lotus tile, a piece used in Pai Sho, simply saying that its something to remember him by.

[edit] Personality

Skeptical, abrasive, and sharp-witted, Sokka is detached from Aang, Katara, and Toph's pursuit of the bending arts. Not gifted with bending abilities himself, Sokka instead prefers the ways of the warrior and the scientist, and he takes his responsibility as protector very seriously.^[1] He is also very intelligent and good at coming up with ideas and plans on the spot--even if said ideas are not always very good.

Patriotic and long to hold a grudge, he strongly wants to exact 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.^[6][7] He tends to be rash, however, and his pride often leads to embarrassment. Despite his obvious cleverness, Sokka sometimes acts very silly if not outright stupid. His sarcastic and absurd behavior can sometimes carry over into important decisions.

Sokka is extremely popular with many girls in the series. He becomes romantically involved with Princess Yue of the Northern Water Tribe, and after her transformation into the spirit of the Moon begins a relationship with Suki, the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors. Furthermore, Ty Lee and Toph have both expressed romantic interest in him, although these feelings are apparently not reciprocated, in Ty Lee's case, or yet to be, as in Toph's case.

A passionate carnivore, Sokka has demonstrated his love of meat on multiple occasions and is the main hunter in the group.^[8][9] 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, agreeing to 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.

Under the guidance of swordsmaster Piandao, Sokka expresses various unorthodox procedures when 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 though his skills were hardly impressive, he displayed much creativity, versatility, and intelligence. All were traits that go beyond mere skills and defined a great swordsman.^[10]

Sokka writes with his right hand, but draws with his left hand.^[11][12] He is possibly ambidextrous, although his left-handed art is crude and rudimentary (but this could just be due to a limited drawing ability).

[edit] Innovations and abilities

For an inhabitant of a mystical world, Sokka shows a remarkable proclivity towards science and is something of a jack-of-all-trades. He seems naturally adept at creating weapons out of practically anything at any time.^[13] He learned how to construct amateur explosives from his father, which he once used to simulate Firebending.^[14] In another instance, Sokka used trickery and optical illusions to help his sister Katara fake the ability to Earthbend.^[15] 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 conceptualise 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, an all-black jian(sword) moulded from a meteorite.^[10]

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. However, his hubris gets the best of him and he gets thrown out for accidentally adding an extra syllable to the end of a haiku.

As the only non-bender in Aang's group, Sokka is often overshadowed by the bending skills of his friends.^[16] However, it is usually Sokka who comes up with a plan for victory. He has assumed the important role of gathering intelligence for the group, collecting data and maps that could help them defeat the Fire Nation, often becoming the navigator and choosing the route to follow despite other's objections.^[11] His skills as a fighter have also noticeably improved as the series progresses, though it is usually his persistence rather than skill that often allows him to get a shot in against opponents of superior skill, such as Zuko in "The Avatar Returns" and Ty Lee, in "The Chase." Sokka employs the element of surprise in defeating larger enemies in "The Library" when he knocked out Wan Shi Tong by attacking him from above. In that particular encounter, Sokka's wit succeeded where Aang and Katara's bending failed. It was also Sokka who found out about a solar eclipse's ability to incapacitate firebenders and his idea to inform the Earth King in Ba Sing Se.

Sokka has come to learn the art of swordsmanship in order to improve his contribution to the team. Under the tutelage of the Fire Nation swordmaster Piandao, Sokka undergoes various activities, including sparring matches with the butler Fat to hone his swordwielding skills as well as arts such as painting, calligraphy and rock gardening to sharpen to 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 Chinese jian, but unique in that due to the properties of the alien material used for its creation, the blade retains an unusual all-black appearance. The sword is also able to slice through the toughest materials, including regular metal (as seen when Sokka slices completely through a Fire Nation cannon during the Day of Black Sun).^[17] Although Sokka proves unable to defeat his master in heated battle and must leave to continue his training on his own, Piandao states the belief that Sokka retains traits which one day could very well come to make him an even greater swordsman than himself.^[10] Sokka was also given a white lotus Pai Sho piece by his master, an important symbol to the secret White Lotus Society. What this gesture means and its importance to the group is yet to be revealed.

Beginning in the third season, Sokka also on occasion assumes the persona of Wang Fire, a Fire Nation citizen in good standing. First done to pass as Aang's father (with Katara as his wife, Sapphire Fire), he subsequently dons an oversized beard for comic relief as in Nightmares and Daydreams and pulling scams in The Runaway.

[edit] References

v • d • e Avatar: The Last Airbender Characters Aang · Katara · Sokka · Toph · Appa · Zuko · Iroh · Azula Universe Water Tribe · Earth Kingdom · Fire Nation · Air Nomads · Spirit World Waterbending · Earthbending · Firebending · Airbending Franchise Trading cards · Avatar: The Last Airbender (video game) · The Burning Earth · Into the Inferno Episodes Season 1 · Season 2 · Season 3