Avatar: The Last Airbender was one of the highest pinnacles of Nickelodeon’s cartoon-making. Not only was it exemplary in its unique concept, it was also a master of balancing serious issues with gut-tickling comedy. A great episode could make me laugh like there was no tomorrow one moment, and then make me sober up at the moral choices the characters had to face in the next. I cannot stop recommending this show. I know, I know. It’s a cartoon, and cartoons are (supposedly) meant for children. Doesn’t matter. It’s a fantastic show for anybody.
One of the characters who makes the show a true delight is Sokka. (But let’s be honest. Every character makes the show a delight. Seriously. Point out to me a character that doesn’t.) Sokka is the older brother of Katara, and the two siblings are the ones who discover the Avatar frozen in ice. When you first meet Sokka, he’s a bit of a wet blanket. He doesn’t seem to hold with the idea of adventure, and he occasionally makes a fool of himself by trying too hard to be straight-laced. However, as the show went on, Sokka became a comedic genius and easily the most quotable character in the series.
This happy pairing of serious behavior with hilarity made for some of the best moments in cartoon history. Of course, it also opened the door to some nonsensical backstory for Sokka. Not that this ridiculousness impairs the series in any way. Read on if you want to read some more daft facts about our favorite non-bending hero.
20 One Man, Many Loves
Despite being an utter goofball, Sokka is the character in Avatar: The Last Airbender who has gotten kissed by the most people. I know, it’s hard to believe that the guy who can’t seem to hold his sarcasm and bad luck at bay is such a winner with the ladies.
But he’s had the most dynamic relationship status out of all of them.
He had a relationship with Princess Yue, the princess of the Northern Water Tribe, however brief it was. He also had a relationship with Suki, a young warrior from Kyoshi. It just goes to show that a good sense of humor can do more for you than a stunning good looks. Not that I’m saying Sokka looks bad (for a cartoon character). I’m just saying that clearly his personality is a major factor in attracting other people.
19 Club Membership
Throughout the course of the show, Sokka accumulates a fount of wisdom. The journey to get to that point is filled with mishaps though. When you first meet Sokka, he’s the last person you would call wise. The younger Aang seems wiser than him. His own sister seems wiser than him.
But Sokka’s abilities were enough to catch the attention of the White Lotus.
The White Lotus is a secret society of masters whose goal is to maintain a balance in the world. Some members include the awesome Uncle Iroh and Sokka’s sword teacher, Piandao. Apparently, they thought that Sokka was skilled enough to join their ranks. After learning all he could from Piandao, Sokka left to continue his journey with the Avatar, but not before he was given a White Lotus tile. And those tiles are only owned by members!
18 Epic Poetry Battle
From what we can gather, Sokka’s early youth in the Southern Water Tribe was spent learning how to be a warrior and struggling to maintain the defense of his village all on his lonesome. It doesn’t seem that he spent a lot of time learning the finer things in life. Sokka surprises all of us with his astonishing grasp of poetry when he and the gang are in Ba Sing Se. He stumbles onto a haiku class and he engages in what can only be called a “haiku battle” with surprising expertise. Either Sokka practiced these mad poetry skills in secret during his childhood, or he just has an innate talent for it. Despite his prowess, he gets his behind whooped when he accidentally includes a single syllable more than necessary in his haiku.
17 The Guy Who Saved The World
Sokka’s comedic tendencies (even if they are unintentional) were there from the start. His lovableness came along a little more slowly. If you can recall (and if you’ve seen the show), in the first episode, when Katara and Sokka first discover Aang frozen in ice, Sokka was having a pretty insulting conversation with Katara. He had been suggesting that Katara, as a girl, was only good for her home-making skills. Katara blew up at him and started gesticulating angrily, unknowingly waterbending their surroundings As she waterbends, she accidentally cracks the ice block that Aang is frozen in. So, unbelievable though it is, Sokka’s disparaging remarks toward Katara are what frees Aang and subsequently saves the world.
16 Dual Wielding
One fact about Sokka that is never mentioned in the show is the fact that he’s ambidextrous. Throughout his battle and, I suppose, his non-battle moments, Sokka is shown using both of his hands to perform these tasks. He can write with either hand, draw with either hand, and use his weapons with either hand. It could be that he started out left-handed, but had to learn to adapt to a right-handed world. There’s a persistent myth that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people. If that were true, mayhaps this explains why Sokka always handles situations in a… creative manner. Plus, it could also explain why he always comes up with decidedly imaginative nicknames for their enemies.
15 Follow The Leader
Despite being the all-powerful Avatar, Aang is not the leader of Team Avatar. As an Air Nomad, Aang has always been very passive and peace-loving. While he can be decisive at times, Aang has always been more of a patient listener. It’s Sokka who is the leader of the team. He even gave the group the name of Team Avatar. Sokka’s the idea guy, the man with the plan.
His leadership skills become more evident as the show progresses.
I find it refreshing that the only nonbender of the group ends up being the leader. Sokka’s ingenuity as a leader shows itself several times, most notably during the attacks against the Fire Nation that happened in the final season of the show.
14 Loopy Juice
The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender is full of fantasy creatures. Bison that fly, spirits that roam the physical world, and the bending of the elements all contribute to building this mystical environment. Of course, there are also ridiculous aspects to this world as well. And of course, it’s Sokka who introduces us to one of the stranger aspects. When Aang and the gang find themselves lost in a desert without any food or water, Sokka decides to try drinking some juice from inside a cactus.
In the real world, this is a legitimate survival technique.
But for some reason, in the world of Avatar, cactus juice functions as a kind of hallucinogenic. We find this out when Sokka starts acting like a crazy person after guzzling more cactus juice than he could handle.
13 You’ve Got Mail
Sokka is the king of practicality. Usually. Other times, he seems to give in to the most inane whims. One good example of that is when he decided to buy a messenger hawk at a Fire Nation market. He makes this purchase on the spot, and I’m pretty sure he had no idea what he was actually going to do with this hawk. Who was he planning to send messages to? And, as we see later in that episode, he had no idea what using a messenger hawk entailed. How could he send a letter even if he wanted to if he had no idea how to use his hawk. This hawk, who Sokka creatively named Hawky, does end up sending a few messages, but probably not enough to warrant the money Sokka spent buying him.
12 The Science Of Love
In a world where fantasy runs rampant, Sokka holds true to the cold, hard facts. When Team Avatar comes up against enemies from the Spirit World, Sokka is always the one who doesn’t believe in what they’re fighting against. You know, for someone who trusts their own two eyes, Sokka doesn’t trust his own two eyes when a Spirit is in front of them. What makes Sokka’s incredulity in the face of the supernatural unbelievable is the fact that his first girlfriend turned into the moon right in front of him. You would think after witnessing an event like that Sokka would be a little more inclined to believe in wishy-washy spirit stuff. But even after the Book One finale, when Princess Yue transformed into the moon, Sokka was still praising the value of science over spiritualism.
11 The Twilight Zone
Twilight gave the world heaps of vampire fanfiction, and it also bestowed upon us five movies based on the four books. It may surprise you to note that the actor who played Jasper Hale in the Twilight series also played Sokka in the live-action The Last Airbender movie. Jasper is known to be a grim and brooding vampire, and Sokka is known to be the comedic relief for Team Avatar.
They appear to be polar opposites of each other.
Nevertheless, we got to see the same actor try to fill in the shoes of each character. If they make another Avatar movie, they should definitely remember to keep Sokka’s hilarity in the film. As we all observed while watching The Last Airbender, without those Sokka one-liners, the whole story suffers.
10 A Monument To Your Wins
The Legend of Korra succeeded in being a sequel to a most beloved animated show. It accomplished this by introducing fantastic new characters to the story while simultaneously paying homage to the characters from the last show. Sokka got some of that sweet nostalgic love when Korra and her friends traveled to the Southern Water Tribe’s Cultural Center. Right in front of the building, there is a giant statue of Sokka holding his boomerang aloft. It seems that even when he was an adult, Sokka was still known as the boomerang guy. While it feels a little odd that his statue would include his boomerang, it’s fitting that Sokka got some credit for his actions during the previous show.
9 Last Line Of Defense
The war with the Fire Nation devastated many families around the world. This is especially apparent in the Southern Water Tribe. All of the men in the village went off to fight in the war, leaving Sokka as the oldest male in charge of protecting the village. This never made any sense to me. I understand that the men of the Tribe would want to contribute to the war effort, but they left their entire village defenseless. Sokka was in the single digits when they made him the “man of the house.” How was he supposed to defend everyone there by himself? As we saw in the first few episodes that take place at the South Pole, Sokka was reduced to training toddlers to help him in his defense of the Tribe. Kudos to Sokka, but shame on the men of the village who left him in charge.
8 Eclipsing Greatness
Sokka’s genius is understated. With just a few hints to help him along and a couple of stolen library books, Sokka orchestrated the attack on the Fire Nation during the solar eclipse. It was a brilliant move. Just as waterbenders lose their bending during a lunar eclipse, firebenders lose their bending during a solar eclipse. Sokka timed an assault on the capital of the Fire Nation that should have ended the war early. Unfortunately, the Fire Nation had advance notice of Sokka’s plans, and they were able to prepare accordingly. Still, that doesn’t detract from Sokka’s ingenious scheme. The knowledge of the solar eclipse was lying around for anybody to use, but it was Sokka who utilized it. (Seriously, how can such a dumbo be so smart sometimes?)
7 The Ultimate End Game
After the attack on the Fire Nation during the solar eclipse failed, Aang and his friends had to deal with the fact that Aang would possibly have to confront the Fire Lord during Sozin’s Comet.
The comet would exponentially increase the abilities of all firebenders.
The group knew that the match between Fire Lord Ozai and Aang would have to end with one of them perishing. Aang had serious problems with the idea of ending someone’s life, but strangely enough, Sokka and the rest had no such compunctions. However, during the whole show, every single one of those characters had a strong moral compass. For some reason, the final episodes showed a darker side to Sokka and everyone else’s character.
6 The Lonely Artist
Part of Sokka’s sword training with Piandao involved painting a landscape. (Piandao said it had something to do with memorizing your surroundings in the blink of an eye. I don’t know if this is based on real sword-fighting training or not.)
Sokka’s skill with a quill is dubious, to say the least.
At the end of the series, when the war is over and Sokka and his friends are relaxing at a tea shop, Sokka takes it upon himself to paint a portrait of the whole group. You see that picture above with all the squiggly lines on Sokka’s scroll? That’s an accurate representation of what Sokka drew. I really hope Sokka doesn’t consider himself an artist. I can’t say what induced him to try painting his friends in the first place.
5 Promises, Promises
Sokka gets upset when foes that he, Aang, and Katara face trick them with lies and false promises. But Sokka’s no honest Johnny himself. Once, when Sokka got himself stuck in a fissure in the earth while trying to hunt a little critter (I swear I don’t know how he manages to do that to himself), he promised to stay off meat if he got himself out of his predicament.
He took himself getting trapped as karma for adoring all meat foods.
However, despite later getting out of this hole in the ground with the help of Toph, his earthbending friend, he did not stick to his promise of withholding meat from his diet. I know he only made this vow to the little moose lion cub he had been hunting (who he fondly named Foo Foo Cuddly Poops), but promises should mean something, don’t you think?
4 Manly Pursuits
A good way to perk up a melancholy Sokka is to take him out shopping! After Sokka expresses feeling blue about being a powerless nonbender beside all of his powerful bender friends, Katara decides to cheer him up by taking him shopping. Sokka’s spirits just shoot straight up like a lit firework. The next few minutes in the episode are devoted to showing Sokka prancing around a weapons store trying on different kinds of armor and swishing various weapons around in a comedic fashion. It was adorable to watch Sokka’s depression cured by simply browsing around a store. Not only was that moment hilarious to watch, it also felt thoroughly relatable.
3 Face Plant
When Piandao chose Sokka as his next pupil, I bet he wasn’t expecting to be treated to a whole slate of Sokka antics. It seems that every lesson Piandao tries to impart is marred by Sokka’s goofiness. For example, when Piandao tries to teach Sokka calligraphy, Sokka decides to cover his face in ink and then roll it around on the parchment. I’m sorry, where did practical, logical Sokka go? I know he’s goofy, but this stuff happens in the last Book of the show, right around the time Sokka is displaying his wondrous leadership skills. I thought he was really trying to make a good impression on Piandao. Something about Sokka’s demeanor must have pleased his master though, since Piandao continued to try and teach the increasingly silly Sokka.
2 Nightly Games
It’s shocking that this was included in a cartoon show, but it’s also shocking that Sokka attempted this in the first place. During a night when the group is camped out, Sokka has prepared himself for a romantic night with Suki… a weird one. They’re a couple; they’re entitled to time on their own.
But the rendezvous was totally ill-planned.
Zuko walked right in on Sokka before Suki arrived. If Sokka was half as brilliant at planning a date night as he is at planning a battle, he wouldn’t have found himself in this situation. Unfortunately for him (and unfortunately for poor Zuko, who had to walk into this embarrassing situation), Sokka doesn’t always use his brain.
1 True Survivor
Perhaps the most unbelievable fact about Sokka is his ability to hold his own against and alongside powerful benders. I know that the show often portrays him as fumbling around a battlefield on the sidelines while Aang and Katara are taking out Fire Nation tanks and things like that. But Sokka is still going up against the same fellows. And his character is never diminished by the fact that the rest of his group are so gifted. If anything, Sokka’s more gifted than any of his other teammates. Take away Toph, Aang, or Katara’s bending, and there wouldn’t be much for them to do in a fight. Sokka’s biggest weakness is also his greatest strength, and I think we can all appreciate a character who rises above such challenges.
