Post by DM: Dersite Merchant on Aug 26, 2011 13:30:00 GMT -5
Full Name:
His name is Sokka
That's pronounced with an "aw-ka"
Young ladies, he rocks ya (wait... [recounts syllables] )
Nickname(s): Meat and Sarcasm Guy, Idea Guy, Complaining Guy, Wang Fire
Age: 16
Height: Average
Weight: Average
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Alliance: Good
Home: Southern Water Tribe
Franchise: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Physical Description
Sokka's a fit young man with dark complexion, blue eyes, and dark brown hair tied back in a short, rough ponytail designed to look more like a wolf's tail (a traditional "Warrior's Wolf Tail").
In warmer climates, Sokka typically wears a blue sleeveless kimono-like tunic, black pants, and brown knee-high boots. He has a whitish choker around his neck, navy fingerless gloves, and white wraps around his forearms. He uses a white loincloth as a form of swimwear.
In colder climates, he wears a thick blue coat with white fur trimming along the hood, sleeves, and v-shaped bottom. Three thick fur strings hang from the front, possibly for tightening the hood. He also wears navy three-hole mittens.
Weapons
Boomerang: Possibly Sokka's most prized possession, a light metallic blue boomerang with a thin edge and two holes along one side. It was a gift from his father before he and the other men of the tribe left for battle. It can be used to knock people out at long distances and even as a sort of club in melee battle if need be, though not as effectively. The boomerang's most famous act in battle blocked the chi of the deadly assassin "Combustion Man," causing his next combustion attack to backfire killing himself. Sokka is very skillful with his boomerang, able to effectively throw it and catch it on the rebound every time, except during once instance during a fateful battle on an airship in which the boomerang and space sword (see below) were subsequently lost. It is unknown when he got his weapons back.
Space Sword: Forged from meteoric iron, Sokka's jian (or "space sword" as he calls it) has a black 70x4 cm blade. The sheath is simple, presumably wooden, dark brown and straight, with a gold-plate inlay about midway down its length, with a rectangular tip. A gold filigree White Lotus symbol is on the sheath-top, identifying the weapon as a work of a member of the Order of the White Lotus. Sokka wears the sheath on his left waist.
Sokka forged his space sword under the careful watch of swordmaster Piandao after a few days of unconventional training; it is quite easily another of his prized possessions. The blade, forged from the iron of a meteorite that fell from space a few days beforehand, is powerful enough to cut through ordinary metal with enough force, though this makes it difficult to use sword for breaking one's fall. The space sword saw most of its action at their ultimately doomed invasion of the Day of Black Sun. During a battle on the bridge of an airship, Sokka used the sword to stop one of the Imperial Firebenders from killing him and Toph but lost it (and his boomerang; see above) in the process. It is unknown how he got either back.
Machete: Sokka's machete, forged from the same kind of metal as his boomerang, isn't quite as favored as his sword or boomerang. Usually, it's only put to more mundane tasks like shaving, though he has used it for carving a path through foliage and once used it to slice open a cactus for the liquid inside.
Battle Club: Carved from a polar bear femur with a blue orb attached to the end, Sokka's club is his main melee weapon besides his beloved space sword. Sokka lost his original club when Sandbenders kidnapped the team's flying bison Appa with it still in his saddle. He acquired a new bone club which he rarely used as it didn't feel the same. The replacement was replaced itself after the hundred-year war by another traditional Water Tribe one.
Jaw Blade: Sokka keeps this jawbone dagger in a small pouch on the back of his belt. It has a leather-wrapped hilt with four teeth along it and was made by sharpening the jawbone and teeth of a large arctic wolf. It's mainly used as a sawing tool, though it can amplify vibrations in the environment, allowing Sokka to accurately detect intruders.
Abilities/Powers
None; a fact that's... occasionally mentioned...
Skills
Sokka's skills are highly scientific for the mystical dimension he comes from. He seems naturally adept at creating weapons out of practically anything at any time. He learned how to construct amateur explosives from his father, which he once used to simulate Firebending. In another instance, Sokka used trickery and optical illusions to help his sister fake Earthbending. He was able to help the Mechanist engineer a system of control for his experimental hot air balloon and conceptualized the design for Waterbending submarines, which the Mechanist made reality.
In addition to his engineering skill, Sokka has shown a remarkable talent for poetry, stumbling onto a poetry reading and going toe-to-toe with the instructor in a haiku contest (he got cocky at the end and accidentally added a sixth syllable to the end of one). Sokka is also, quite humorously, a terrible artist, yet somehow strangely unaware of this (or is in denial).
Though Sokka is often overshadowed by be bending skills of his friends, it was Sokka that usually devised plans, gathered intelligence, and collected data and maps that could help his group defeat the Fire Nation. He often became the navigator and chose the route to follow despite the objections of others. His skills as a fighter had noticeably improved throughout Team Avatar's quest to end the war, although it's usually his persistence rather than skill that allowed him to land a blow against opponents of superior skill. Sokka was able to defeat the enraged spirit Wan Shi Tong by simple element of surprise and came up with the idea to invade the Fire Nation during the upcoming solar eclipse, when they'd be defenseless, with the support of the Earth King's forces. Perhaps his greatest triumph, however, was his nearly single-handed defeat of Combustion Man by using his boomerang to block the latter's chi flow, ultimately causing his demise after the others' combined efforts failed to do.
Sokka has developed good leadership skills throughout his adventure. At first, he just came off as bossy and undermined by xenophobia, chauvinism, and general bullheadedness. However, Sokka was usually willing to admit when he was wrong, though he was occasionally right in his opinions as well. But his immaturity often caused Katara and Aang to ignore him. Sokka eventually matured over the course of a few months, referring to the group as a team and respecting the opinions of others. They, in turn, considered his advice more seriously, even coming to rely on it. It eventually came to the point where they were bored, lost, and unable to decide what to do without him.
Sokka learned to wield a Jian sword under the tutelage of Fire Nation swordmaster Piandao. It was under Piandao's watch that he forged his own "space sword," which had an unusual black blade as a result of the meteorite he made it from. Although unable to defeat his master in a duel, Piandao stated that Sokka possessed the traits that one day could make him an even greater swordsman than him. During the arrival of Sozin's Comet, Sokka managed to take out two Firebenders even with his leg broken while holding Toph who was about to fall to her death.
Sokka displays incredible intellectual potential, capacity to learn, and critical thinking skills. He can absorb information quickly and completely solve problems at an alarming rate. His time with Piandao not only gave him swordsman skills but blacksmithing skills as well, having forged his own sword and later a suit of armor for Aang's flying bison Appa. His critical thinking ability came into play often through the training exercises of Piandao. He "stamped his identity" on a page by applying ink to his face and rolling it across the paper after he was informed that he got on him while thinking. During the rock gardening exercise, he "manipulated the terrain to his advantage" by rolling boulders and relocating moss to make a sort of lounge chair in the shade, thus appealing to his love of relaxation.
Personality
Sharp-witted if sarcastic, Sokka prefers the ways of a warrior and scientist over the mystical bending arts, even referring to Katara's Waterbending as "magic water" at one point. At the beginning of their adventure, Sokka started off abrasive, sexist, and immature, but he eventually learned to shed those factors of himself.
Sokka can become serious when he wants or needs to, and he is very protective of his sister, Katara, even physically retaliating against allies should they hurt her. While distrusting of him at first, Sokka has grown to be just as protective of Aang. He's also been shown to put worldly needs above his own, prioritizing getting Aang to the North Pole to find a Waterbending master over seeing his father again after two years of separation. Sokka is also very intelligent and good at coming up with ideas, even if said ideas aren't always very good. He was also generally the one who was counted on determining the strategy of attack.
Incredibly loyal to his friends, family, and allies, Sokka has helped them when he could and when he was needed many times over. However, Sokka also seemed to realize the importance--and sometimes necessity--of fighting one's own battles, such as insisting to his friends he fight Piandao alone when the latter attacked him for being Water Tribe. This also held true when he insisted to the others that Aang needed to fight his fateful battle withFire Lord Phoenix King Ozai alone, as it was his destiny to beat him.
Sokka was quite patriotic and held a deep grudge against the Fire Nation for the decimation of the Water Tribe and the death of his mother, though he eventually learned to let go. He was always willing to die defending his tribe, even if he didn't stand the smallest chance. However, he is unbiased to the point where he did not exclude an old Southern Water Tribe resident and war victim from his suspicions when Fire Nation civilians began mysteriously disappearing in once peaceful town. He often expresses little interest in mysticism and prefers to solve problems using his strength and wits. He tends to be rash, however, an this pride often leads to embarrassment. But his versatility always made for a heartfelt apology and changing of his ways.
Though closed-minded at first, Sokka learned to be flexible and even a little more optimistic. An underdog most of his life, Sokka was constantly the one beaten upon and most of his plans failed miserably, but he would always bravely keep fighting. Despite his obvious cleverness, Sokka sometimes acts very silly, if not outright stupid. He occasionally creates ridiculous plans nearly impossible to carry out and is a general victim of slapstick. A fortuneteller once told him, "Your life is full of struggle and anguish. Most of it self-inflicted," just by reading his face. His sarcastic and strange behavior can sometimes carry over into important decisions. Sokka has a habit of over-explaining his plans, much to the annoyance of his friends. He also has a habit of missing the point in certain situations, again much to the annoyance of his friends.
Sokka is considered the main hunter of the group and a passionate carnivore. Despite his love of meat, he tends to find it almost impossible to resist food, often gorging himself on various dishes when the group eats properly cooked meals, but he seems to show low regards to Katara's cooking. Despite his love of meat, he grew close to every pet he received. He has a hilarious relationship with the team's flying lemur Momo and once tried to adopt a messenger hawk in the Fire Nation, which he fondly named Hawky.
According to Piandao, it was not his skills but rather his creativity, versatility, and intelligence that impressed him during their training. All, he says, are traits that go beyond mere skills and define a great swordsman. Sokka appears ambidextrous, having painted with post his right and left hands.
Overall, Sokka probably has the biggest heart of everyone, possibly excluding Katara. He changed where needed, learned to love and respect others, embraced his own identity, accepted failure, and formed lasting loyalties. He fought to the death even when the cause seemed hopeless. Sokka became the warrior he had always dreamed of by the end of the war, just like his father.
History
Water. Earth. Fire. Air.
In a world where select people are born with the mystical capability to learn how to telekinetically control (or "bend") the four classic elements, the people were separated into four nations based on each element: the Water Tribes of the polar regions, the large rocky continent known as the Earth Kingdom, the volcanic islands known as the Fire Nation, and the four Air Nomad temples in four corners of the globe. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony, then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. With the fire-enhancing effects of a 100-year comet, famously renamed after him, Fire Lord Sozin suddenly ordered his army to ambush and wipe out the Air Temples and launched war against the remaining two nations. Only the Avatar could master all four elements; only he could stop the ruthless Firebenders and their destruction. But when the world needed him most... he vanished.
84 years passed, and Sokka was born to Hakoda, chief of the largely decimated Southern Water Tribe, and his wife Kya. Around a year or so later, and Kya gave birth to Sokka's little sister, Katara. When Katara was revealed to be a Waterbender, Hakoda searched far and wide for a master to teach her, but all Waterbenders had been taken prisoner by then in Fire Nation raids. When Sokka was only 10, the raiders returned one last time and killed his mother for unknown reasons; he'd learn later that they'd been hunting down the last Waterbender and Kya claimed it herself to protect her daughter. Around four years after the death of his wife, Hakoda left with the other men of the tribe to aide the Earth Kingdom in the war efforts. He left his son with the task of keeping watch of the village, and more specifically his sister, a task Sokka took very seriously.
With the men of the tribe gone, all that was left were women and children. Sokka and Katara did most of the hunting and gathering for the next two years, and it was during one of those hunts early winter a year before Sozin's Comet was expected to return that their lives (and the fate of the war) changed forever. After coming across a strange iceberg getting lost in rapids, the two siblings set free a 12-year-old Airbender named Aang, who'd been frozen since before the war began, and his large flying bison Appa. Sokka didn't trust Aang at first, finding his sudden appearance suspicious. But when Aang was revealed to be the latest incarnation of the Avatar and Prince Zuko, Sozin's great-grandson and banished heir to the Fire Nation, started trying to capture him in return for his lost honor (that's another story entirely), Sokka and Katara realized they would need to help the boy they unfroze find masters for the other elements, starting with Waterbending at their sister tribe up north.
The newly formed (and later named) Team Avatar journeyed north, getting into all kinds of hijinks along the way. Sokka met Suki, the leader of a group of highly skilled female warriors named the Kyoshi Warriors, after one of Aang's past lives, who forever changed Sokka's opinion of women and fighting. Then they met an old friend of Aang's named Bumi, who at 112 years old was still spry as ever and a highly powerful Earthbender, even made regional king of Omashu city by then. After a misadventure with an angry forest spirit, Aang learned from his most recent past life, Avatar Roku, that Sozin's grandson Fire Lord Ozai would use the returning comet to end the war and leave the world in a state not even the Avatar could repair, making Ozai's defeat before the comet arrived absolutely necessary.
After an encounter with an anti-Fire Nation extremest named Jet, whose plan to cleanse an Earth Kingdom village of their presence putting innocent lives in jeopardy tempered Sokka's own vendetta against the Fire Nation, a momentary reunion with Hakoda's best friend and lieutenant Bato, and a failed attempt by Aang to learn Firebending (despite having to learn Water and Earthbending, respectively, first) from a Fire Nation defector named Jeong Jeong, the gang met the inventing leader of Earth Kingdom refugees living in the remains of the Northern Air Temple. When the gang learned the mechanist was being blackmailed by the Fire Nation to build machines for them, Team Avatar helped them repel the invaders. Unfortunately, the Fire Nation got away with the prototype of a hot air balloon the mechanist and Sokka collaborated on shortly beforehand.
Once the gang finally made it to the Northern Water Tribe and found a Waterbending master for Aang, they were shocked to learn that their northern cousins had a very strict patriarchy and that Master Pakku refused to train Katara as well. After a heated duel between Master Pakku and Katara, who was already quite talented in her own right from self-teaching, Pakku won but relented when he learned that Hakoda's mother (and their Gran Gran) was his old arranged fiance who ran away from the north and its sexist laws. Meanwhile, Sokka met and fell in love with the Northern Chief's lovely daughter, Yue, who was unfortunately arranged to be married to a "jerk without a soul". Despite this, Chief Arnook assigned Sokka to be her bodyguard. But when the power-hungry Admiral Zhao killed the Moon Spirit, Tui, during the Fire Nation's ultimately failed Siege of the North, Yue revealed that the same Moon Spirit saved her live in infancy and subsequently gave it back, becoming the moon. Sokka could never look at the moon again without thinking of her.
Going on spring, Katara had trained to mastery of her element faster than even the Avatar, so Pakku tasked Katara with completing Aang's training as their quest continued. Their first candidate for Aang's Earthbending teacher, Bumi, turned out to be a no-go when the gang returned to Omashu finding it under Fire Nation control. After meeting with a strange hillbilly community of Waterbenders in a swamp and running afoul with a village that hated the Avatar for something Kyoshi supposedly did, the gang met a blind yet tough-as-nails little Earthbending girl named Toph who joined the gang to get away from her overprotective parents and teach Aang Earthbending. It was during their travels together that Sokka learned the date of a total solar eclipse that would leave the Firebenders powerless for a full eight minutes a month before the return of the comet. They knew that if they timed it just right with the eclipse, a full-scale invasion could easily take down the Fire Nation in their own turf and quickly end the war.
But getting this information to the Earth King in Ba Sing Se proved difficult with Zuko's cunning sister Azula, and her two friends Mai and Ty Lee, following them and then Appa getting kidnapped while their hands were tied. Then when they finally reached Ba Sing Se, they met the Earth King's chancellor, Long Feng, running a conspiracy within the walls of Ba Sing Se with the help of the elite Earthbender team called the Dai Li to silence any discussion of the war outside. Team Avatar was eventually able to meet the Earth King by force and prove Long Feng's conspiracy, resulting in his arrest, and the Earth King gave his full support for their invasion plan. Unfortunately, Azula and friends had infiltrated the city disguised as the Kyoshi Warriors and initiated a coup of the city from within, with the Dai Li's help, for the Fire Nation. In the conflict, Aang was shot dead by Azula's lightning attack but later revived by water from the oasis where the Moon Spirit's koi form lived.
Though the Earth Kingdom had fallen and the world believed the Avatar dead, Sokka refused to give up on his invasion plan; they just had to modify it to accommodate recent events. While Team Avatar infiltrated the Fire Nation from within, Hakoda and his men gathered troops to help along, including Earthbenders the gang met on their journey, the Swampbenders, and the mechanic of the Northern Air Temple, the latter of whom providing weaponry and vehicles dreamed up by Sokka himself. During their journey though enemy land, the gang discovered the Fire Nation tended to oppress its own people as much as it did the rest of the world. A few of their adventures included saving a fishing town being polluted by a nearby weapons plant and throwing a group of strictly molded Fire Nation students a secret dance party that would make Ren McCormick proud. Sokka soon after tried to learn more of the Fire Nation by joining the army, but that plan ultimately fell apart.
Feeling overshadowed by his companions' bending skills, Sokka sought out the training of a swordmaster named Piandao. After a few days of exercises Sokka tackled by unorthodox means, Piandao instructed him to make his own sword, which me made from the metal of a meteorite that fell the night before meeting Piandao. After making his "space sword," Sokka felt compelled to admit to his master that he was really from the Southern Water Tribe and was attacked for it. In the end, though, Piandao revealed he was only testing his skills and knew all along from his name alone. Though Sokka failed to beat him in the duel, Piandao assured him he had the potential to eventually surpass even him in swordmastery. He left his pupil with a mysterious parting gift: a white lotus tile from a Pai Sho board game. Using the blacksmith skills he acquired making his sword, Sokka was later able to make an impressive suit of armor for Appa to use during the invasion.
Their infiltration didn't go completely unnoticed, unfortunately, as a deadly bounty hunter who could "blow things up with his mind," whom the gang eventually named Combustion Man, started appearing and trying to kill them (mainly Aang). After they escaped his assassination attempts in a canyon, Combustion Man tried luring them into a trap Toph's little miss con artist antics in one village pretty much set them up for. He later followed Sokka and Aang onto a steam train, all but destroying the vehicle in the process. Meanwhile, Katara met up with one of the old Southern Water Tribe 'benders named Hama, who escaped imprisonment some time ago and lived incognito since. However, she did it by creating a very dark sub-skill of Waterbending by controlling people's bodies during the full moon called Bloodbending which she used to capture Fire Nation citizens. Before being arrested due to being exposed by Team Avatar, she managed to force a reluctant Katara to learn the dark art.
Come the Day of Black Sun when the invasion force would pull off their plan, Sokka prepared to explain the plan to all involved when he became overcome with stage fright and Hakoda took over for him. Sokka felt ashamed of his screw-up, but Aang assured him he would prove himself in battle. And indeed, his fighting skills proved infallible during the invasion itself. Aang, Sokka, and Toph soon infiltrated the Fire Lord's secret bunker only to find out that Azula's infiltration of Ba Sing Se provided the Fire Nation enough information to be well-prepared for the invasion; instead of Ozai, they found a smug Azula who refused to give his location and seemed unusually unsurprised by Aang's reappearance. With the help of a few Dai Li agents, and by baiting Sokka with talk about her "favorite prisoner" Suki, Azula was able to stall them until the eclipse ended, and the invasion as a whole ultimately failed. Team Avatar was forced to flee with the younger of the invasion group as the adults surrendered themselves.
With the comet only a month away, the gang hid out in the closet sanctuary they could find--the Western Air Temple--and immediately began brainstorming how to find Aang a Firebending teacher. As if on cue, Zuko himself showed up claiming to have switched sides and offering to teach him. Though the gang (with the exception of Toph, who could sense his honesty) refused to believe him, he ultimately proved himself by stilling Combustion Man--whom he hired in the first place--long enough for Sokka to block the chi around his third-eye tattoo with his boomerang, resulting in one of his blasts backfiring and killing him. Though still none to comfortable with having their old enemy in the group, Sokka eventually made friends with Zuko over a daring prison escape in which they broke not only Hakoda but Suki from the notorious Boiling Rock prison, the first prison escape from Boiling Rock in history. Sokka and Suki also began a romantic relationship around this point.
After Azula managed to follow them back to the Western Air Temple, the combined gang was forced to split up: Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, Zuko, and Suki escaped on Appa, while Hakoda escaped with the kids and a fugitive named Chit Sang who helped during the escape on the airship they stole during the said escape. After some more running (and a situation in which Katara and Zuko ran off to find Kya's killer but ultimately deemed him not worth killing), the gang ended up at the beach getaway called Ember Island where they watched a pro-Fire Nation satire play of their adventure with considerable discomfort. With Sozin's Comet not far off, the possibility of Aang having to kill Fire Lord Ozai to end the war was brought up, and everybody but Aang, including Sokka, felt such action would be necessary. And then, one morning with the comet just around the corner... Aang vanished without a trace.
Desperate to find him, the gang ultimately resorted to asking an effective bounty hunter, whom Zuko previously hired on them, named June for help. When even her skills proved inexplicably ineffective, Zuko decided to instead have her locate his Uncle Iroh, who'd been imprisoned for aiding Katara with Aang's body in escaping Ba Sing Se before escaping during the failed invasion. Iroh was found just outside Ba Sing Se with a secret organization called the Order of the White Lotus, which included Bumi, Pakku, Jeong Jeong, and Piandao, which was planning to retake the Earth Kingdom capital during the middle of the comet's presence. As a result of Bumi and Toph meeting, the two ended up partaking in an Earthbending duel to see who was the better that ultimately ended in a draw.
On the day of Sozin's Comet, Zuko and Katara flew off to the Fire Nation capital to keep Azula from seizing control after Ozai fell while Sokka, Toph, and Suki went to deal with the airship fleet the newly capital "Phoenix King" Ozai planned to scorch the Earth Kingdom with. While Aang fought Ozai himself, Sokka and the girls commandeered one of the airships and knocked the rest out of the sky with it. Unfortunately, he and Toph were separated from Suki, and Sokka broke his leg trying to escape Firebenders outside the ship. Preventing Toph from falling to her death below, Sokka ultimately sacrificed both his boomerang and sword to halt two attempts to attack them. But the situation seemed hopeless from then until Suki suddenly reappeared to save them both. Aang, meanwhile, managed to get the upper hand on Ozai and somehow managed to do something that took away his Firebending, a skill he apparently learned from an ancient animal called a Lion Turtle.
Following Ozai's depowering and subsequent imprisoning, Zuko was crowned the new Fire Lord, and he officially declared the war over, promising the other nations to help repair the relationships between the nations his great-grandfather destroyed. Though this didn't end all conflict just yet, with some factions of the Earth Kingdom still sore with the Fire Nation and pro-Ozai activists threatening to reignite the war (this will be covered in a comic series published by Dark Horse in 2012), Team Avatar was ultimately able to achieve the peaceful harmony between the nations. Aang and Katara became a couple in the aftermath of the war, which Sokka accepted, and they will eventually begin producing new Airbender to replace the one Sozin killed, including the next Avatar's Airbending master, Tenzin.
Other
There's some information related to canonical comics mixed in with the history listed above. Speaking of comics, I will be keeping an eye on the post-war comics in 2012 and incorporate whatever happens in them regarding Sokka into how I play him.
Picture(s)
His name is Sokka
That's pronounced with an "aw-ka"
Young ladies, he rocks ya (wait... [recounts syllables] )
Nickname(s): Meat and Sarcasm Guy, Idea Guy, Complaining Guy, Wang Fire
Age: 16
Height: Average
Weight: Average
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Alliance: Good
Home: Southern Water Tribe
Franchise: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Physical Description
Sokka's a fit young man with dark complexion, blue eyes, and dark brown hair tied back in a short, rough ponytail designed to look more like a wolf's tail (a traditional "Warrior's Wolf Tail").
In warmer climates, Sokka typically wears a blue sleeveless kimono-like tunic, black pants, and brown knee-high boots. He has a whitish choker around his neck, navy fingerless gloves, and white wraps around his forearms. He uses a white loincloth as a form of swimwear.
In colder climates, he wears a thick blue coat with white fur trimming along the hood, sleeves, and v-shaped bottom. Three thick fur strings hang from the front, possibly for tightening the hood. He also wears navy three-hole mittens.
Weapons
Boomerang: Possibly Sokka's most prized possession, a light metallic blue boomerang with a thin edge and two holes along one side. It was a gift from his father before he and the other men of the tribe left for battle. It can be used to knock people out at long distances and even as a sort of club in melee battle if need be, though not as effectively. The boomerang's most famous act in battle blocked the chi of the deadly assassin "Combustion Man," causing his next combustion attack to backfire killing himself. Sokka is very skillful with his boomerang, able to effectively throw it and catch it on the rebound every time, except during once instance during a fateful battle on an airship in which the boomerang and space sword (see below) were subsequently lost. It is unknown when he got his weapons back.
Space Sword: Forged from meteoric iron, Sokka's jian (or "space sword" as he calls it) has a black 70x4 cm blade. The sheath is simple, presumably wooden, dark brown and straight, with a gold-plate inlay about midway down its length, with a rectangular tip. A gold filigree White Lotus symbol is on the sheath-top, identifying the weapon as a work of a member of the Order of the White Lotus. Sokka wears the sheath on his left waist.
Sokka forged his space sword under the careful watch of swordmaster Piandao after a few days of unconventional training; it is quite easily another of his prized possessions. The blade, forged from the iron of a meteorite that fell from space a few days beforehand, is powerful enough to cut through ordinary metal with enough force, though this makes it difficult to use sword for breaking one's fall. The space sword saw most of its action at their ultimately doomed invasion of the Day of Black Sun. During a battle on the bridge of an airship, Sokka used the sword to stop one of the Imperial Firebenders from killing him and Toph but lost it (and his boomerang; see above) in the process. It is unknown how he got either back.
Machete: Sokka's machete, forged from the same kind of metal as his boomerang, isn't quite as favored as his sword or boomerang. Usually, it's only put to more mundane tasks like shaving, though he has used it for carving a path through foliage and once used it to slice open a cactus for the liquid inside.
Battle Club: Carved from a polar bear femur with a blue orb attached to the end, Sokka's club is his main melee weapon besides his beloved space sword. Sokka lost his original club when Sandbenders kidnapped the team's flying bison Appa with it still in his saddle. He acquired a new bone club which he rarely used as it didn't feel the same. The replacement was replaced itself after the hundred-year war by another traditional Water Tribe one.
Jaw Blade: Sokka keeps this jawbone dagger in a small pouch on the back of his belt. It has a leather-wrapped hilt with four teeth along it and was made by sharpening the jawbone and teeth of a large arctic wolf. It's mainly used as a sawing tool, though it can amplify vibrations in the environment, allowing Sokka to accurately detect intruders.
Abilities/Powers
None; a fact that's... occasionally mentioned...
Skills
Sokka's skills are highly scientific for the mystical dimension he comes from. He seems naturally adept at creating weapons out of practically anything at any time. He learned how to construct amateur explosives from his father, which he once used to simulate Firebending. In another instance, Sokka used trickery and optical illusions to help his sister fake Earthbending. He was able to help the Mechanist engineer a system of control for his experimental hot air balloon and conceptualized the design for Waterbending submarines, which the Mechanist made reality.
In addition to his engineering skill, Sokka has shown a remarkable talent for poetry, stumbling onto a poetry reading and going toe-to-toe with the instructor in a haiku contest (he got cocky at the end and accidentally added a sixth syllable to the end of one). Sokka is also, quite humorously, a terrible artist, yet somehow strangely unaware of this (or is in denial).
Though Sokka is often overshadowed by be bending skills of his friends, it was Sokka that usually devised plans, gathered intelligence, and collected data and maps that could help his group defeat the Fire Nation. He often became the navigator and chose the route to follow despite the objections of others. His skills as a fighter had noticeably improved throughout Team Avatar's quest to end the war, although it's usually his persistence rather than skill that allowed him to land a blow against opponents of superior skill. Sokka was able to defeat the enraged spirit Wan Shi Tong by simple element of surprise and came up with the idea to invade the Fire Nation during the upcoming solar eclipse, when they'd be defenseless, with the support of the Earth King's forces. Perhaps his greatest triumph, however, was his nearly single-handed defeat of Combustion Man by using his boomerang to block the latter's chi flow, ultimately causing his demise after the others' combined efforts failed to do.
Sokka has developed good leadership skills throughout his adventure. At first, he just came off as bossy and undermined by xenophobia, chauvinism, and general bullheadedness. However, Sokka was usually willing to admit when he was wrong, though he was occasionally right in his opinions as well. But his immaturity often caused Katara and Aang to ignore him. Sokka eventually matured over the course of a few months, referring to the group as a team and respecting the opinions of others. They, in turn, considered his advice more seriously, even coming to rely on it. It eventually came to the point where they were bored, lost, and unable to decide what to do without him.
Sokka learned to wield a Jian sword under the tutelage of Fire Nation swordmaster Piandao. It was under Piandao's watch that he forged his own "space sword," which had an unusual black blade as a result of the meteorite he made it from. Although unable to defeat his master in a duel, Piandao stated that Sokka possessed the traits that one day could make him an even greater swordsman than him. During the arrival of Sozin's Comet, Sokka managed to take out two Firebenders even with his leg broken while holding Toph who was about to fall to her death.
Sokka displays incredible intellectual potential, capacity to learn, and critical thinking skills. He can absorb information quickly and completely solve problems at an alarming rate. His time with Piandao not only gave him swordsman skills but blacksmithing skills as well, having forged his own sword and later a suit of armor for Aang's flying bison Appa. His critical thinking ability came into play often through the training exercises of Piandao. He "stamped his identity" on a page by applying ink to his face and rolling it across the paper after he was informed that he got on him while thinking. During the rock gardening exercise, he "manipulated the terrain to his advantage" by rolling boulders and relocating moss to make a sort of lounge chair in the shade, thus appealing to his love of relaxation.
Personality
Sharp-witted if sarcastic, Sokka prefers the ways of a warrior and scientist over the mystical bending arts, even referring to Katara's Waterbending as "magic water" at one point. At the beginning of their adventure, Sokka started off abrasive, sexist, and immature, but he eventually learned to shed those factors of himself.
Sokka can become serious when he wants or needs to, and he is very protective of his sister, Katara, even physically retaliating against allies should they hurt her. While distrusting of him at first, Sokka has grown to be just as protective of Aang. He's also been shown to put worldly needs above his own, prioritizing getting Aang to the North Pole to find a Waterbending master over seeing his father again after two years of separation. Sokka is also very intelligent and good at coming up with ideas, even if said ideas aren't always very good. He was also generally the one who was counted on determining the strategy of attack.
Incredibly loyal to his friends, family, and allies, Sokka has helped them when he could and when he was needed many times over. However, Sokka also seemed to realize the importance--and sometimes necessity--of fighting one's own battles, such as insisting to his friends he fight Piandao alone when the latter attacked him for being Water Tribe. This also held true when he insisted to the others that Aang needed to fight his fateful battle with
Sokka was quite patriotic and held a deep grudge against the Fire Nation for the decimation of the Water Tribe and the death of his mother, though he eventually learned to let go. He was always willing to die defending his tribe, even if he didn't stand the smallest chance. However, he is unbiased to the point where he did not exclude an old Southern Water Tribe resident and war victim from his suspicions when Fire Nation civilians began mysteriously disappearing in once peaceful town. He often expresses little interest in mysticism and prefers to solve problems using his strength and wits. He tends to be rash, however, an this pride often leads to embarrassment. But his versatility always made for a heartfelt apology and changing of his ways.
Though closed-minded at first, Sokka learned to be flexible and even a little more optimistic. An underdog most of his life, Sokka was constantly the one beaten upon and most of his plans failed miserably, but he would always bravely keep fighting. Despite his obvious cleverness, Sokka sometimes acts very silly, if not outright stupid. He occasionally creates ridiculous plans nearly impossible to carry out and is a general victim of slapstick. A fortuneteller once told him, "Your life is full of struggle and anguish. Most of it self-inflicted," just by reading his face. His sarcastic and strange behavior can sometimes carry over into important decisions. Sokka has a habit of over-explaining his plans, much to the annoyance of his friends. He also has a habit of missing the point in certain situations, again much to the annoyance of his friends.
Sokka is considered the main hunter of the group and a passionate carnivore. Despite his love of meat, he tends to find it almost impossible to resist food, often gorging himself on various dishes when the group eats properly cooked meals, but he seems to show low regards to Katara's cooking. Despite his love of meat, he grew close to every pet he received. He has a hilarious relationship with the team's flying lemur Momo and once tried to adopt a messenger hawk in the Fire Nation, which he fondly named Hawky.
According to Piandao, it was not his skills but rather his creativity, versatility, and intelligence that impressed him during their training. All, he says, are traits that go beyond mere skills and define a great swordsman. Sokka appears ambidextrous, having painted with post his right and left hands.
Overall, Sokka probably has the biggest heart of everyone, possibly excluding Katara. He changed where needed, learned to love and respect others, embraced his own identity, accepted failure, and formed lasting loyalties. He fought to the death even when the cause seemed hopeless. Sokka became the warrior he had always dreamed of by the end of the war, just like his father.
History
Water. Earth. Fire. Air.
In a world where select people are born with the mystical capability to learn how to telekinetically control (or "bend") the four classic elements, the people were separated into four nations based on each element: the Water Tribes of the polar regions, the large rocky continent known as the Earth Kingdom, the volcanic islands known as the Fire Nation, and the four Air Nomad temples in four corners of the globe. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony, then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. With the fire-enhancing effects of a 100-year comet, famously renamed after him, Fire Lord Sozin suddenly ordered his army to ambush and wipe out the Air Temples and launched war against the remaining two nations. Only the Avatar could master all four elements; only he could stop the ruthless Firebenders and their destruction. But when the world needed him most... he vanished.
84 years passed, and Sokka was born to Hakoda, chief of the largely decimated Southern Water Tribe, and his wife Kya. Around a year or so later, and Kya gave birth to Sokka's little sister, Katara. When Katara was revealed to be a Waterbender, Hakoda searched far and wide for a master to teach her, but all Waterbenders had been taken prisoner by then in Fire Nation raids. When Sokka was only 10, the raiders returned one last time and killed his mother for unknown reasons; he'd learn later that they'd been hunting down the last Waterbender and Kya claimed it herself to protect her daughter. Around four years after the death of his wife, Hakoda left with the other men of the tribe to aide the Earth Kingdom in the war efforts. He left his son with the task of keeping watch of the village, and more specifically his sister, a task Sokka took very seriously.
With the men of the tribe gone, all that was left were women and children. Sokka and Katara did most of the hunting and gathering for the next two years, and it was during one of those hunts early winter a year before Sozin's Comet was expected to return that their lives (and the fate of the war) changed forever. After coming across a strange iceberg getting lost in rapids, the two siblings set free a 12-year-old Airbender named Aang, who'd been frozen since before the war began, and his large flying bison Appa. Sokka didn't trust Aang at first, finding his sudden appearance suspicious. But when Aang was revealed to be the latest incarnation of the Avatar and Prince Zuko, Sozin's great-grandson and banished heir to the Fire Nation, started trying to capture him in return for his lost honor (that's another story entirely), Sokka and Katara realized they would need to help the boy they unfroze find masters for the other elements, starting with Waterbending at their sister tribe up north.
The newly formed (and later named) Team Avatar journeyed north, getting into all kinds of hijinks along the way. Sokka met Suki, the leader of a group of highly skilled female warriors named the Kyoshi Warriors, after one of Aang's past lives, who forever changed Sokka's opinion of women and fighting. Then they met an old friend of Aang's named Bumi, who at 112 years old was still spry as ever and a highly powerful Earthbender, even made regional king of Omashu city by then. After a misadventure with an angry forest spirit, Aang learned from his most recent past life, Avatar Roku, that Sozin's grandson Fire Lord Ozai would use the returning comet to end the war and leave the world in a state not even the Avatar could repair, making Ozai's defeat before the comet arrived absolutely necessary.
After an encounter with an anti-Fire Nation extremest named Jet, whose plan to cleanse an Earth Kingdom village of their presence putting innocent lives in jeopardy tempered Sokka's own vendetta against the Fire Nation, a momentary reunion with Hakoda's best friend and lieutenant Bato, and a failed attempt by Aang to learn Firebending (despite having to learn Water and Earthbending, respectively, first) from a Fire Nation defector named Jeong Jeong, the gang met the inventing leader of Earth Kingdom refugees living in the remains of the Northern Air Temple. When the gang learned the mechanist was being blackmailed by the Fire Nation to build machines for them, Team Avatar helped them repel the invaders. Unfortunately, the Fire Nation got away with the prototype of a hot air balloon the mechanist and Sokka collaborated on shortly beforehand.
Once the gang finally made it to the Northern Water Tribe and found a Waterbending master for Aang, they were shocked to learn that their northern cousins had a very strict patriarchy and that Master Pakku refused to train Katara as well. After a heated duel between Master Pakku and Katara, who was already quite talented in her own right from self-teaching, Pakku won but relented when he learned that Hakoda's mother (and their Gran Gran) was his old arranged fiance who ran away from the north and its sexist laws. Meanwhile, Sokka met and fell in love with the Northern Chief's lovely daughter, Yue, who was unfortunately arranged to be married to a "jerk without a soul". Despite this, Chief Arnook assigned Sokka to be her bodyguard. But when the power-hungry Admiral Zhao killed the Moon Spirit, Tui, during the Fire Nation's ultimately failed Siege of the North, Yue revealed that the same Moon Spirit saved her live in infancy and subsequently gave it back, becoming the moon. Sokka could never look at the moon again without thinking of her.
Going on spring, Katara had trained to mastery of her element faster than even the Avatar, so Pakku tasked Katara with completing Aang's training as their quest continued. Their first candidate for Aang's Earthbending teacher, Bumi, turned out to be a no-go when the gang returned to Omashu finding it under Fire Nation control. After meeting with a strange hillbilly community of Waterbenders in a swamp and running afoul with a village that hated the Avatar for something Kyoshi supposedly did, the gang met a blind yet tough-as-nails little Earthbending girl named Toph who joined the gang to get away from her overprotective parents and teach Aang Earthbending. It was during their travels together that Sokka learned the date of a total solar eclipse that would leave the Firebenders powerless for a full eight minutes a month before the return of the comet. They knew that if they timed it just right with the eclipse, a full-scale invasion could easily take down the Fire Nation in their own turf and quickly end the war.
But getting this information to the Earth King in Ba Sing Se proved difficult with Zuko's cunning sister Azula, and her two friends Mai and Ty Lee, following them and then Appa getting kidnapped while their hands were tied. Then when they finally reached Ba Sing Se, they met the Earth King's chancellor, Long Feng, running a conspiracy within the walls of Ba Sing Se with the help of the elite Earthbender team called the Dai Li to silence any discussion of the war outside. Team Avatar was eventually able to meet the Earth King by force and prove Long Feng's conspiracy, resulting in his arrest, and the Earth King gave his full support for their invasion plan. Unfortunately, Azula and friends had infiltrated the city disguised as the Kyoshi Warriors and initiated a coup of the city from within, with the Dai Li's help, for the Fire Nation. In the conflict, Aang was shot dead by Azula's lightning attack but later revived by water from the oasis where the Moon Spirit's koi form lived.
Though the Earth Kingdom had fallen and the world believed the Avatar dead, Sokka refused to give up on his invasion plan; they just had to modify it to accommodate recent events. While Team Avatar infiltrated the Fire Nation from within, Hakoda and his men gathered troops to help along, including Earthbenders the gang met on their journey, the Swampbenders, and the mechanic of the Northern Air Temple, the latter of whom providing weaponry and vehicles dreamed up by Sokka himself. During their journey though enemy land, the gang discovered the Fire Nation tended to oppress its own people as much as it did the rest of the world. A few of their adventures included saving a fishing town being polluted by a nearby weapons plant and throwing a group of strictly molded Fire Nation students a secret dance party that would make Ren McCormick proud. Sokka soon after tried to learn more of the Fire Nation by joining the army, but that plan ultimately fell apart.
Feeling overshadowed by his companions' bending skills, Sokka sought out the training of a swordmaster named Piandao. After a few days of exercises Sokka tackled by unorthodox means, Piandao instructed him to make his own sword, which me made from the metal of a meteorite that fell the night before meeting Piandao. After making his "space sword," Sokka felt compelled to admit to his master that he was really from the Southern Water Tribe and was attacked for it. In the end, though, Piandao revealed he was only testing his skills and knew all along from his name alone. Though Sokka failed to beat him in the duel, Piandao assured him he had the potential to eventually surpass even him in swordmastery. He left his pupil with a mysterious parting gift: a white lotus tile from a Pai Sho board game. Using the blacksmith skills he acquired making his sword, Sokka was later able to make an impressive suit of armor for Appa to use during the invasion.
Their infiltration didn't go completely unnoticed, unfortunately, as a deadly bounty hunter who could "blow things up with his mind," whom the gang eventually named Combustion Man, started appearing and trying to kill them (mainly Aang). After they escaped his assassination attempts in a canyon, Combustion Man tried luring them into a trap Toph's little miss con artist antics in one village pretty much set them up for. He later followed Sokka and Aang onto a steam train, all but destroying the vehicle in the process. Meanwhile, Katara met up with one of the old Southern Water Tribe 'benders named Hama, who escaped imprisonment some time ago and lived incognito since. However, she did it by creating a very dark sub-skill of Waterbending by controlling people's bodies during the full moon called Bloodbending which she used to capture Fire Nation citizens. Before being arrested due to being exposed by Team Avatar, she managed to force a reluctant Katara to learn the dark art.
Come the Day of Black Sun when the invasion force would pull off their plan, Sokka prepared to explain the plan to all involved when he became overcome with stage fright and Hakoda took over for him. Sokka felt ashamed of his screw-up, but Aang assured him he would prove himself in battle. And indeed, his fighting skills proved infallible during the invasion itself. Aang, Sokka, and Toph soon infiltrated the Fire Lord's secret bunker only to find out that Azula's infiltration of Ba Sing Se provided the Fire Nation enough information to be well-prepared for the invasion; instead of Ozai, they found a smug Azula who refused to give his location and seemed unusually unsurprised by Aang's reappearance. With the help of a few Dai Li agents, and by baiting Sokka with talk about her "favorite prisoner" Suki, Azula was able to stall them until the eclipse ended, and the invasion as a whole ultimately failed. Team Avatar was forced to flee with the younger of the invasion group as the adults surrendered themselves.
With the comet only a month away, the gang hid out in the closet sanctuary they could find--the Western Air Temple--and immediately began brainstorming how to find Aang a Firebending teacher. As if on cue, Zuko himself showed up claiming to have switched sides and offering to teach him. Though the gang (with the exception of Toph, who could sense his honesty) refused to believe him, he ultimately proved himself by stilling Combustion Man--whom he hired in the first place--long enough for Sokka to block the chi around his third-eye tattoo with his boomerang, resulting in one of his blasts backfiring and killing him. Though still none to comfortable with having their old enemy in the group, Sokka eventually made friends with Zuko over a daring prison escape in which they broke not only Hakoda but Suki from the notorious Boiling Rock prison, the first prison escape from Boiling Rock in history. Sokka and Suki also began a romantic relationship around this point.
After Azula managed to follow them back to the Western Air Temple, the combined gang was forced to split up: Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, Zuko, and Suki escaped on Appa, while Hakoda escaped with the kids and a fugitive named Chit Sang who helped during the escape on the airship they stole during the said escape. After some more running (and a situation in which Katara and Zuko ran off to find Kya's killer but ultimately deemed him not worth killing), the gang ended up at the beach getaway called Ember Island where they watched a pro-Fire Nation satire play of their adventure with considerable discomfort. With Sozin's Comet not far off, the possibility of Aang having to kill Fire Lord Ozai to end the war was brought up, and everybody but Aang, including Sokka, felt such action would be necessary. And then, one morning with the comet just around the corner... Aang vanished without a trace.
Desperate to find him, the gang ultimately resorted to asking an effective bounty hunter, whom Zuko previously hired on them, named June for help. When even her skills proved inexplicably ineffective, Zuko decided to instead have her locate his Uncle Iroh, who'd been imprisoned for aiding Katara with Aang's body in escaping Ba Sing Se before escaping during the failed invasion. Iroh was found just outside Ba Sing Se with a secret organization called the Order of the White Lotus, which included Bumi, Pakku, Jeong Jeong, and Piandao, which was planning to retake the Earth Kingdom capital during the middle of the comet's presence. As a result of Bumi and Toph meeting, the two ended up partaking in an Earthbending duel to see who was the better that ultimately ended in a draw.
On the day of Sozin's Comet, Zuko and Katara flew off to the Fire Nation capital to keep Azula from seizing control after Ozai fell while Sokka, Toph, and Suki went to deal with the airship fleet the newly capital "Phoenix King" Ozai planned to scorch the Earth Kingdom with. While Aang fought Ozai himself, Sokka and the girls commandeered one of the airships and knocked the rest out of the sky with it. Unfortunately, he and Toph were separated from Suki, and Sokka broke his leg trying to escape Firebenders outside the ship. Preventing Toph from falling to her death below, Sokka ultimately sacrificed both his boomerang and sword to halt two attempts to attack them. But the situation seemed hopeless from then until Suki suddenly reappeared to save them both. Aang, meanwhile, managed to get the upper hand on Ozai and somehow managed to do something that took away his Firebending, a skill he apparently learned from an ancient animal called a Lion Turtle.
Following Ozai's depowering and subsequent imprisoning, Zuko was crowned the new Fire Lord, and he officially declared the war over, promising the other nations to help repair the relationships between the nations his great-grandfather destroyed. Though this didn't end all conflict just yet, with some factions of the Earth Kingdom still sore with the Fire Nation and pro-Ozai activists threatening to reignite the war (this will be covered in a comic series published by Dark Horse in 2012), Team Avatar was ultimately able to achieve the peaceful harmony between the nations. Aang and Katara became a couple in the aftermath of the war, which Sokka accepted, and they will eventually begin producing new Airbender to replace the one Sozin killed, including the next Avatar's Airbending master, Tenzin.
Other
There's some information related to canonical comics mixed in with the history listed above. Speaking of comics, I will be keeping an eye on the post-war comics in 2012 and incorporate whatever happens in them regarding Sokka into how I play him.
Picture(s)
