| “ | In my years, I’ve encountered people with rare and unique bending abilities. I once bested a man with my trusty boomerang who was able to firebend with his mind. Why, even metalbending was considered impossible for all of history until our esteemed Chief of Police Toph Beifong single handily developed the skill. The overwhelming amount of testimony and evidence has convinced this council that Yakone is one of these benders and he exploited his ability to commit these heinous crimes. We find Yakone guilty of all charges and sentence him to life in prison. | „ |
| ~ An adult Sokka recounting some of his adventures and experiences with rare bending forms of the past in a flashback scene in The Legend of Korra. |
Sokka is a major protagonist in the Avatar franchise, serving as one of the two tritagonists (alongside Toph) of Avatar: The Last Airbender and a posthumous character in the sequel The Legend of Korra.
He was the non-bending older brother of Katara and a member of the Southern Water tribe who discovered Avatar Aang in the iceberg he was trapped in for 100 years, and together with him and Katara, went on a quest to save the world from the Fire Nation and make Aang master all the elements. Notably, he was the only member of Team Avatar to be a non-bender (not counting Suki who only joined the team for the last few episodes), but made up for it with his intellect and courage.
He was voiced by Jack DeSena in Avatar: The Last Airbender and by Chris Hardwick in The Legend Of Korra.
His Good Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Good?[]
In General[]
- While he started off as a jerk who would constantly disrespect people and treat them with skepticism/distrust. However, during the course of the show (specifically season 1), he learns to lose his cynical attitude and subverts almost all of his jerkish traits, becoming a kind, supportive and optimistic person.
Book One: Water[]
- Although he started off as an immature misogynist, he quickly learns to respect women, and believes they are just as capable at being warriors as men, therefore subverting this corrupting quality within the first season.
- After all the men left to fight the Fire Nation, he became the Southern Water Tribe’s last line of defense and was courageously willing to lay down his life to protect the tribe despite his lack of skill.
- Although he initially was skeptical of Aang and even banished him for accidentally alerting the Fire Nation to the Water Tribe, he decided to rescue Aang with Katara from Zuko and agreed to take Aang to the North Pole with Katara.
- He told Katara not to hide the truth of the Air Nomad Genocide from Aang just to protect Aang’s feelings, but instead just tell Aang the truth.
- He and Katara comforted Aang after he discovered the truth about the Air Nomad Genocide by telling Aang that he was part of their family now.
- After being disciplined by Suki, he humbly asked Suki to train him in the ways of the Kyoshi Warriors and agreed to follow all her instructions and traditions, including wearing a dress.
- He helped fight off the Fire Nation invasion of Kyoshi island with Suki, apologizing to her for his sexist attitude.
- He extinguished the fires set on Kyoshi Island by the Fire Nation using the Unagi.
- Although initially not wanting Katara to risk her life for a stranger, he agreed to orchestrate a fake argument with her so Katara could go to the Prison Rig to save Haru, and he, along with Aang, helped free all the earthbending prisoners by giving them a large amount of coal to use to fight the Fire Nation warden and guards.
- Tried to help Aang fight Heibai when it became clear Aang couldn't reason with the spirit, and appeared to be in danger.
- Along with Katara, agreed to join Aang in his journey to Roku's Temple in the Fire Nation.
- Came up with a plan to open the door to Roku's Sanctuary. While it didn't work, it did allow Aang to trick the Fire Sages into opening the door
- He did the difficult task of cleaning Appa’s toes
- He disapproved of Katara stealing a waterbending scroll, even if she was stealing from pirates.
- He tricked the pirates and Zuko into getting into a fight so Team Avatar could escape, and got Katara’s waterbending scroll back, giving it to her as long as she learned her lesson about stealing.
- He was the one who saw Jet’s truly evil nature when he stopped Jet from beating an old Fire Nation civilian to death and tried to warn Aang and Katara of Jet’s true nature.
- He refused to help Jet and the Freedom Fighters commit genocide on an Earth Kingdom village called Gaipan, and outsmarted Pipsqueak and Smellerbee to escape his imprisonment.
- He saved the entire people of Gaipan, including the Fire Nation soldiers/civilians from Jet’s attempted genocide by evacuating them before the flood destroyed the village.
- He offered to help the fisherman catch fish even though there might be a dangerous storm in order to earn money for Team Avatar.
- He saved the village of Makpu by convincing the villagers to dig a trench deep enough to hold the erupting volcano’s lava and channel it to a nearby river.
- Although he was understandably angry that Aang had hid a letter from his and Katara’s dad and convinced Katara to leave Aang so they could find dad, he soon felt remorse for abandoning him and came back with Katara to apologize to Aang and continue their journey with him.
- He defeated June and her tracking animal Nyla by convincing the nuns to release all their perfume and had Katara waterbend so that Nyla would be confused by all the different smells so that Team Avatar could escape.
- He, along with Katara, comforted Aang by telling him that Aang is part of their family now and reassured him that they would get to the North Pole.
- He worked with and praised the Mechanist who had settled in the Northern Air temple and successfully orchestrated a plan to prevent a gas leak and explosion of the temple by plugging in the gas leak holes with rotten eggs so that they would smell a rotten egg smell the next time a gas leak happened.
- He helped the Mechanist create a war balloon and he defeated the Fire Nation attackers by using the war balloon to bomb Fire Nation tanks and using the balloon to detonate the gas leak to destroy part of the Northern Air Temple’s foundation to cause a landslide that forced the Fire Nation to retreat.
- He suggested Aang could teach Katara waterbending from the skills Aang learns from Pakku since Pakku was an extremely chauvinistic misogynist who refused to train Katara.
- He told Princess Yue his true feelings for her, but understood if she didn’t want to date a “peasant” like him, only for Princess Yue to kiss him and tell him the truth about her loveless engagement to Hahn. He would later take Princess Yue on joyrides with Appa and plan other activities with her.
- He protected Princess Yue as her bodyguard and helped rescue Aang from Zuko along with Katara and Princess Yue.
Book Two: Earth[]
- He defeated General Fong by knocking him unconscious to stop him from kidnapping and exploiting Aang again.
- He rescued all the citizens of Omashu by making the people pretend to have a pentapox outbreak, which convinced the Fire Nation soldiers to release the “infected” citizens out of the city.
- Although he cut through the swamp to try and find Momo and Appa, he later learned his lesson from the swampbender Hue and stopped damaging the swamp.
- As Aang’s “detective”, he tried to prove Aang's, or rather, Kyoshi’s innocence in the murder of Chin the Great.
- He sacrificed his vacation day to instead embark on a mission with the group to find Wan Shi Tong’s legendary library in the Si Wong desert to find info on how to defeat the Fire Nation. Once there, he figured out that there would soon be a solar eclipse, which would leave the Fire Nation powerless and be the perfect opportunity to attack/defeat them.
- After reuniting with Suki, who helped Team Avatar escort a refugee family through the Serpent’s Pass, he sacrificed himself by pushing Suki out of falling rubble, only to luckily be saved by Toph.
- Although he became overprotective of Suki, it was out of good intentions and he apologized to her, saying that he wanted to protect her because he lost someone he cared about (Princess Yue) before. He then kissed Suki just before Team Avatar had to depart to Ba Sing Se.
- He came up with a plan to have him, Katara and Aang infiltrate Azula’s drill from the inside and destroy it, saving Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation.
- He tried to convince Joo Lee and later Grand Secretariat Long Feng about the danger of the Fire Nation and the info about the solar eclipse he had, to no avail.
- Despite Jet’s previous actions, Sokka held no animosity towards Jet and quickly figured out that Jet was brainwashed by Long Feng and the Dai Li.
- He convinced the rest of Team Avatar that they couldn’t abandon Ba Sing Se as the Earth King was their best chance of defeating the Fire Nation and that they had to infiltrate the palace and convince the Earth King that Long Feng was lying about there being no war.
- After Long Feng’s arrest and the Earth King realizing the truth about the war, he convinced the Earth King to support his plan of invading the Fire Nation during the solar eclipse, and the Earth King gave Sokka the full support of the entire Earth Kingdom.
- He kissed and hugged Katara for sacrificing her chance to see dad so he could see dad instead, but after meeting his dad and spending some time with him, Sokka departed with Aang to help the deteriorating situation in Ba Sing Se.
- He warned the Earth King of the coup plot, exposed Azula, Ty Lee and Mai to the Earth King for impersonating the Kyoshi warriors and tried to fight them with Toph in vain.
- After the Fall of Ba Sing Se, he (inadvertently) convinced the Earth King that he and his pet Bosco were spoiled and pampered, which motivated the Earth King to renounce his title and travel the world as a humble man to learn the plight of the common man.
Book Three: Fire[]
- Once Aang woke up, he explained everything that happened while he was stuck in a coma.
- He pointed out the danger to Aang about infiltrating a Fire Nation school (but let Aang stay) and pretended to be Aang’s parents with Katara to bail Aang out of trouble from the principal.
- Although initially against helping the village of Jang Hui since they had limited time and had to focus on invading the Fire Nation, which was more important, he was convinced by Katara that they had to help people wherever they went and assisted in Katara in saving the village from being wiped out by Fire Nation soldiers. After the villagers found out Katara's disguise as the Painted Lady, he defends her by scolding them that they should be thanking her for destroying the factory that is polluting the river, which one of the reasons they were motivated in helping themselves.
- Unlike almost everyone who went to see legendary Fire Nation swordmaster Piandao, Sokka was incredibly humble and admitted he had no skill in fighting, which convinced Piandao to train him.
- After completing his training from Piandao, he felt guilty for lying about being from the Fire Nation and told the truth to Piandao about being from the Water Tribe and being a part of Team Avatar. He dueled Piandao once Piandao attacked him and refused to let the rest of Team Avatar get involved before it turned out that this was just a test that Sokka passed since Piandao knew Sokka’s true nature all along and held no animosity towards Team Avatar at all, convincing Sokka to train every day to master his skills.
- He gave Toph a bracelet made from the meteorite he constructed his sword with as a gift.
- Although he briefly supported Toph’s scams of scam artists since Team Avatar was short on money, he quickly changed his mind and urged Toph to stop after a wanted poster for Toph was posted.
- He helped Katara and Toph reconcile by telling Toph (unknowingly to him, Katara was listening) about how Katara acted motherly because she had to hold the family together after their mom died and admitted that when he tried to think of his mom, all could he think about was Katara’s face.
- He was the first member of Team Avatar to be suspicious of Hama and later helped Katara face her with Aang.
- He helped calm Aang by going along with Katara’s plan to make him a soft bed for Aang to get a good night’s sleep.
- He sketched numerous weapons designs for submarines and tanks for the Mechanist to create for the Invasion of the Fire Nation.
- He planned and led the invasion of the Fire Nation on the day of the solar eclipse, destroying dozens of tanks, storming the Royal Plaza and forcing the firebenders to retreat.
- He figured out that Ozai was hiding in an underground bunker, going with Aang and Toph to face Ozai while Katara stayed behind to lead the invasion.
- He felt immediate remorse for getting provoked by Azula and allowing the eclipse time to pass even though Aang and Toph pointed out it was Azula’s fault, not his, and he stopped Aang from going to face Ozai without the eclipse, telling Aang that there would be a next time.
- He ordered a retreat from invading the Fire Nation, but reluctantly agreed with his dad to get all the kids to safety while the adults surrendered to the Fire Nation and bid farewell to his dad with Katara.
- He defeated Combustion Man, albeit he ended up killing him in the process.
- Although initially skeptical of a redeemed Zuko, he supported Aang’s decision to be taught by Zuko and accepted him into the group, showing Zuko his room and quickly warming up to him.
- He went to the Boiling Rock prison to free his dad and allowed Zuko to come with him. He ended freeing his dad, Suki and the helpful prisoner Chit Sang, and taking them back to Team Avatar’s temporary hideout.
- He dueled Azula with the help of Zuko.
- Despite having lost his/Katara’s mom, he refused to support Katara’s mission to find and kill their mother’s murderer, agreeing with Aang that violence and revenge was not the right answer. He also did not express any anger towards Katara when she told Sokka he didn't love their mother the way she did and was only hurt by this statement.
- He decided to lead a mission with Toph and Suki to destroy the Fire Nation airship fleet to stop them from wiping out the entire Earth Kingdom by taking over one airship and crashing it into all the other airships, saving the Earth Kingdom from genocide.
- He saves Toph and himself from falling to their deaths, but breaks his leg in the process.
- He stepped in to protect Suki when he thought Ty Lee infiltrated the Kyoshi warriors again, but relented when he discovered that she genuinely joined the Kyoshi warriors and redeemed herself.
Sequel comics[]
- He met the Earth King once again and supported his decolonization efforts, terming the plan the “Harmony Restoration Movement”, and came up with a plan to disable all the tundra tanks during the Battle of Yun Dao between the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom to buy enough time so that the Earth King and Firelord Zuko, along with Aang, could come up with a solution.
- He mediated the dispute between Toph and Zuko/Azula’s firebending teacher Kunyo over ownership of an academy.
- He, like the rest of Team Avatar, agreed to help Zuko, and reluctantly, Azula, find their mother, and he helped fight and tame Azula during her psychotic episodes.
- He fought off the Rough Rhinos and later saved Toph’s life with the help of her metalbending students. He and Suki later visited Toph’s academy and helped her regain her passion for teaching.
- He proposed a plan to have benders wear chain-mail under their armor to prevent Gilak’s southern nationalists from chi-blocking them in order to rescue the Earth King. After the battle, he comforted Katara at their mother’s grave.
- He did not support the idea that Aang should take away Liling’s bending even if Liling was a bigoted supremacist who hated non-benders, arguing it was morally wrong and that Liling was still just a civilian, unlike Ozai.
- He redeemed Liling’s non-bending daughter Rue and defeated her other daughter Yaling to save Toph’s life.
Before The Legend of Korra[]
- As leader of the United Republic, he sentenced Yakone to life imprisonment for his crimes.
- He gave advice to Aang and Katara’s airbending son Tenzin that he shouldn’t solely rely on bending, but strategy and reflexes as well.
- He saved a young Korra (who was Aang’s successor as the Avatar) from being kidnapped by Zaheer and the Red Lotus with the help of Zuko, Tenzin, and Korra’s father Tonraq.
What Prevents Him From Being Pure Good?[]
- Despite subverting most of his jerkish actions, he still has some jerk moments, such as making fun of Aang and Zuko's firebendings by calling it "jerkbending" or when he bragged about killing Combustion Man despite it being an accident. However, it should be noted that almost all of them are played for laughs.
- Although he gets rid of almost all of his arrogance, he still has one minor moment of arrogance when as an adult, he wrote down a story about how he “single handedly” saved the entire world from the Fire Nation included in Aang’s book to his son Tenzin. This is also played for laughs most of the time.
Trivia[]
- Alongside Korra and Suyin Beifong, he is one of the few heroes in the Avatar franchise to actually kill someone. Ironically, they are all Near Pure Good.
- Sokka and King Bumi are the only Avatar NPG to be male as Katara, Korra and Suyin are all female.
External Links[]
- Sokka on the Heroes Wiki
- Sokka on the Avatar Wiki
- Sokka on the Shonen Heroes Wiki
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 Near Pure Goods
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Avatar: The Last Airbender The Legend of Korra See Also | ||