Animated Character Database
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Sokka's sword

He is a member of Team Avatar. He is also Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.

History[]

Sokka was a Water Tribe warrior of the Southern Water Tribe and the son of Kya and Chief Hakoda. Following the death of his mother and his father's leave for war, Sokka was raised by his grandmother Kanna along with his younger sister Katara.

Hakoda left along with all of the other men in his tribe to fight the Fire Nation when Sokka was a young boy. Despite his desire to join his father, Sokka was not permitted to accompany the men on the mission and was left behind.  As there were no other teenage boys in the tribe, Sokka was the oldest male in the South Pole and, therefore, left as the leader of the tribe. He assumed responsibility for the tribe, haplessly training children to be future warriors, until his sister discovered an Air Nomad named Aang frozen in an iceberg. When he learned that Aang was the Avatar, he was at first skeptical that a child could really save the world. As he and his sister helped Aang on his quest, he began to believe that Aang really was the only hope for peace in the world.

Despite his inability to bend, Sokka became the strategist of the group, constantly trying to prove himself to be a great warrior like his father. He attempted to train the younger children of the Southern Water Tribe in fighting. Sokka was also the "matter of fact" guy in the group and did not believe in spirit magic, as he openly mocked it. His leadership skills improved during his travels with the Avatar, culminating with his masterminding the plan for the invasion of the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun. His humor and his ability to organize and plan became imperative to the group on their travels. By the conclusion of the Hundred Year War, Sokka became a master swordsman and a great warrior like his father.

After Aang and Zuko formed the United Republic of Nations, Sokka became the representative for the Southern Water Tribe and he also became the United Republic Council chairman.

Book Two[]

The trio went to the town of Gaoling to continue their search for an earthbending instructor. While searching, Aang received a free earthbending lesson from a man named Master Yu, but he found that Yu cared more about having him pay for lessons than he did about teaching. Afterward, they overheard a pair of studentsdiscussing Earth Rumble VI, a tournament featuring several powerful earthbenders. The boys were not very inclined to inform Aang of the tournament's location, until Katara secretly used her "feminine charm", which involved freezing them to the walls, to coerce them to tell.

At the tournament, they witnessed a powerful earthbender named The Boulderdefeat every challenger he came across. Sokka became completely enthralled in the spectacle, but Aang was not very impressed, saying that The Boulder was "just listening to his big muscles" as opposed to listening to the earth. After vanquishing all other contenders, The Boulder confronted the current champion, the Blind Bandit, a blind twelve-year-old girl. Aang noticed the Bandit's techniques, especially how she waited and listened carefully to the movements of her opponent and realized she was the master of neutral jing Bumi had been encouraging him to find. He also realized that she was the girl whom he had envisioned in the swamp.

After the Bandit effortlessly defeated The Boulder, the host of the tournament, Xin Fu, offered a large sum of gold to whoever could defeat the Blind Bandit in a fight. Seeing an opportunity to talk to the Bandit, Aang challenged her. The Bandit, however, was ready for a fight and refused to engage in conversation, instead launching a boulder at Aang. She was not prepared, however, to face an airbender and was defeated when Aang blew her out of the ring. The Bandit took badly to her loss and stormed off, refusing to listen to Aang when he beckoned to her.

Aang and the others returned to Master Yu's school to try to find out where the Blind Bandit lived. They approached the students they had confronted earlier, both of whom were quite intimidated by Katara. They did not obtain much information; however, Aang recalled the flying boar he had seen with the girl in his vision. The boys stated that the flying boar was the symbol of the Beifong family, the wealthiest family in the town.

Aang and company traveled to the family's house, where they were accosted by the Bandit, now wearing the same dress Aang had seen her wearing in the swamp. The girl, named Toph, refused to aid Team Avatar and called the house guards to chase them off.

That evening, Aang used his status as the Avatar to gain a formal audience with the entire Beifong family. He attempted to gain her father's support regarding Toph aiding him, but Toph used her earthbending to keep him from saying anything revealing. Her parents and teacher were completely unaware of her true skill, and she wanted to keep it that way. After numerous interruptions, Aang retaliated by sneezing, bringing the dinner to both a premature end and into everybody's faces.

After dinner, Toph called a truce with Aang and recounted her history. Her parents perceived her as a weak and fragile child due to her blindness and severely restricted her freedom. From an early age, she began sneaking out of the house and mastering earthbending on her own, secretly competing in tournaments and surpassing her "teacher" in skill. The pair was suddenly ambushed and captured by Xin Fu and his stable of earthbenders, who suspected the two of duplicity earlier during the tournament. Toph was later freed and, after defeating Xin Fu's earthbenders, rescued Aang, an event her father witnessed.

Toph later confronted her parents, expressing her desire to accompany Team Avatar on their journeys. Her father denied this request and ordered Aang and the others to leave the estate. As the team prepared to depart, however, Toph ran up to them, saying that her father had ultimately granted her permission to travel with them. Before departing, she launched Aang into a tree via earthbending and, declaring them even, demanded to have her championship belt returned

In a remote Earth Kingdom forest, Team Avatar was pursued by a tank train operated by Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. Their machine allowed them to cover great distances at high speeds; additionally, they were able to trace the team's whereabouts by following a trail of shed fur Appa consistently left. Aang and his friends were repeatedly forced to escape, depriving them of much-needed rest and draining the last of their power and patience. To make matters worse, Katara and Toph became tangled in a bitter conflict with Toph eventually leaving the group after a particularly acrimonious fight.

Aang attempted to deceive Azula by leaving a false trail of Appa's shed fur for her to follow, while Katara and Sokka retreated somewhere safe. Azula, however, unfolded his plan; she sent Mai and Ty Lee in the direction she believed the group to have gone and followed Aang's fabricated trail herself.

Aang's ultimately wound up in an abandoned town where he was later found and confronted by Azula. Zuko arrived on scene shortly after and all three assumed fighting stances, prepared to duel. Azula fired the first shot, hitting Zuko hard and knocking him back. All three exchanged blows until the duel was joined by Katara, Sokka, Iroh, and Toph. Azula was eventually cornered by the other six combatants. She surrendered and Iroh momentarily let his guard down, turning to see his comrades. Azula took advantage of this and launched a fire blast at him, striking him in the chest. Zuko let out a horrified cry, and all four benders unleashed their power against her; Azula, however, was able to escape the scene unharmed. Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph gathered around Iroh, but Zuko yelled for them to leave, backing up his words with a sweeping arc of flame. Respecting his need for privacy, Aang and the others fled.

Each of the members of Aang's group decided to take a "mini-vacation" as a way to unwind after all the work they had done; Sokka, on the other hand, thought 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 met Professor Zei, a professor at Ba Sing Se University, who told them he was searching for a legendary library said to be in the middle the Si Wong Desert. The library, said to have been created by the spirit of knowledge and his fox servants, had more valuable tomes than any other place in the world. Sokka, believing he may be able to get information on the Fire Nation there, dedicated his "vacation" to finding the place.

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

When the group entered the library, they met the spirit, Wan Shi Tong, who constructed the library; taking the form of a large owl, the spirit initially did not trust them. The spirit, apparently, disliked the fact that humans only use knowledge to get an advantage over other humans; he brought up the last human to have discovered his library, who happened to be Admiral Zhao (Zhao mentions a library during the Siege of the North[7]), and believed the group only wanted to get information to help them defeat their enemies (which is, actually, true). But, they convinced him otherwise.

Sokka found a burned paper that mentioned "the Fire Nation's darkest day"; it had a date but no other information. It also turned out that Zhao, before leaving, destroyed every other bit of information on the Fire Nation. However, a fox (one of Wan Shi Tong's animal helpers), found the group and leaded them to a room dedicated to astronomy. There, a date could be entered on a stone wheel, which subsequently showed the heavens on that particular date; when Sokka entered the date of "the darkest day", it showed a solar eclipse occurring. The group realized that solar eclipses must weaken or take away the ability to firebend in the same way lunar eclipses affect waterbending; they realized they could use this information to plan an attack on the Fire Nation forces.

Soon, however, Wan Shi Tong found out their plans and decreeded that he will no longer allow humans to misuse his beloved information. He attacked the group and caused the library to begin to sink; that way, it will be completely underground forever. Aang and Sokka hurriedly tried to use the astronomy room to find the next date of a solar eclipse; it turned out the next one was in a few months. They planned to give this information to the Earth Kingdom armies of Ba Sing Se to help in the war. The group quickly escaped, except for Professor Zei, who said he would rather spend eternity in the library than see it vanish forever; the others had no choice but to leave him. They escaped before the library vanished into the sand. Outside, Toph told Aang that Appa had been stolen by sandbenders.[8]

While traveling though the desert, the group ran low on water. Sokka found a cactus plant with a liquid trapped inside. He and Momo, desperate for any thirst quencher, quickly drank the "cactus juice". Immediately, Sokka started hallucinating, saying things like, "Who lit Toph on fire?" and "How did we get out here in the middle of the ocean?" Aang created a giant mushroom cloud out of frustration from not finding Appa. Katara and Sokka saw the giant mushroom cloud from a few miles away and Sokka said, "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 discovered a sandbender's sand-sailer, and they used its compass to sail to a giant rock which happened to be the magnetic center of the desert. On the rock, they found strange tunnels that were actually buzzard wasps hives. In the hives, Sokka claimed that his head has cleared out the cactus juice, only to eat some of the "honey" he found on the wall of the hive. They fought the buzzard wasps until the arrival of a Sandbender Tribe. Toph recognized one of them as the one who stole Appa, and said he was going to muzzle him, prompting Aang to go into the Avatar State out of rage and grief and destroy all but one of the sailers.[9]

After the group escaped the desert, they met a refugee family traveling to Ba Sing Se. The group helped the family to anunderground ferry way that led to the city. While there, Sokka was soon confronted by a security guard who seemed to know him frighteningly well. Sokka asked if they had met, and the guard replied by giving him a kiss on the cheek. Sokka quickly became excited and recognized the guard as the Kyoshi Warrior, Suki, who was there helping war refugees. Later, the refugee family's documents were stolen, so Aang, Katara, Toph, Sokka and Suki agreed to help them cross theSerpent's Pass.

As the group traveled along a sheer cliff side of the pass, Suki pointed out Fire Nation forces patrolling the water, telling them that they were rumored to be working on a secret project. As they continued, Tahn fell when the ground under him crumbled. Even though Toph saved him the falling rocks drew the attention of the patrol ship, which launched a fire ball at them. Aang leaped into action, knocking the ball back and striking their engines. The ship returned fire, hitting the rockface above them, and sending debris falling toward Suki. Sokka pushed Suki out of the way, and Toph saved him by deflecting the rocks. Sokka was too worried about Suki's safety to be thankful to Toph for saving his life, which annoyed Toph. The group ran to the shelter of an outcropping wall of rock, leaving the ship behind to tend to its damage.

That night, Sokka was becoming overprotective of Suki, insisting that she should not sleep so close to the edge of the cliff in case it collapses into the water below. After he moved her sleeping mat, he screamed and pushed her away from her mat. She inquired what was wrong; Sokka was calm and told her that he thought he saw a spider. Suki found Sokka staring at the moon. He explained that he was being so overprotective because it was hard to lose someone you care about. Then Sokka told her that he learned this at the North Pole when he lost someone he was supposed to protect, referring to Yue his first love interest and therefore he did not want that to happen again. Suki told Sokka about someone she cared for and lost as well, although he only went away. Sokka started to get jealous, not realizing that she was talking about him. Suki moved in to kiss him, but Sokka, feeling guilty to kiss her in front of the moon implying Yue's presence, turned away. After they had managed to cross the Serpent's Pass, the woman from the family which they were travelling with gave birth to a girl who was named Hope. The group later prepared to move on to Ba Sing Se, and in the meantime Suki got ready to return to her comrades, telling Sokka that she went with him to make sure that he got through safely. She tried to apologize to Sokka for coming on to him the night before, but he silenced her with a kiss.

When the group came to Ba Sing Se and saw the giant drill trying to break through the wall of the city, they turned to Sokka for ideas, but at the time he had none. However Katara, after several earthbenders lost a fight to Ty Lee, discovered it was her who defeated them, and claimed it was like she "took you down from the inside," which now gave 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 was destroyed.

Riding the Ba Sing Se Monorail, the group finally entered Ba Sing Se. Sokka was confident that they would easily find Appa, but the city was much bigger than they had imagined. Soon after they arrived, Aang and his friends were met byJoo 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 were invariably ignored.

Katara made a plan to sneak with Toph into a party to meet the Earth King. Aang and Sokka eventually arrived (after Katara and Toph) at the palace and managed to get in through the side entrance disguised as servants. Aang was soon exposed as the Avatar, but he quickly smoothed things over with a display of his abilities to entertain the audience, until the Earth King himself arrived. Sokka was captured and dragged away by Dai Li guards as the Dai Li bound and gagged Katara and Toph with earthbending. Inside Long Feng's chamber, Sokka tried to talk about the coming solar eclipse, but was abruptly cut off by Feng. To preserve the culture and utopian life within the walls of Ba Sing Se, Feng explained, no mention of the war was permitted. It was also revealed that Feng was in charge of handling day-to-day affairs in the city, including all military matters.[12]

In the peaceful city, Sokka was outside his element of war and battle. His boomerang had become a toy as he walked through the city. Sokka found a haiku class full of pretty girls. While peeking through the window, enjoying the 'show', he was shoved from behind by an ostrich horse and winds up inside. While explaining the accident to the girls, he accidentally rhymed in haiku. The instructor became upset with the intrusion and disruption of the class. She was also severely annoyed by the unsophisticated meaning his haiku messages entailed and thus educated Sokka in the art of poetry by addressing him with a formal haiku. Sokka soon got into a contest with the teacher, (which seemed to parody a rap battle) both of whom spoke only in haiku.

After each of Sokka's, the girls in the class broke into giggling. After several bouts, with Sokka comically winning each one, he eventually messed up and added 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 was ejected from the room by a very large guard into the street. Sokka changed his mind about liking poetry in the end.

Trivia[]

  • Sokka's ponytail is called a "Warrior's Wolf Knot".
  • Sokka was quite the ladies' man in-series, having successfully hooked up with Suki and, before her, Princess Yue. Plus, he was the object of Ty Lee's one-sided crush. But it's his Wang Fire cover identity that earns him his spot here. Though it was only used briefly as a disguise, it quickly became an internet meme that merely looking at Wang Fire could get a girl pregnant. Due largely in part to Katara posing as his pregnant wife, Mrs. "Sapphire Fire", complete with a Balloon Belly disguise.
  • Sokka in Avatar: The Last Airbender; when caught hatching a plan to escape from The Boiling Rock, he responds that the only thing they were hatching was "... an egg?"
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