Sokka

Sokka is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character, created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, is voiced by Jack DeSena. In the live-action film The Last Airbender, he is portrayed by Jackson Rathbone.

In the show, fifteen-year-old Sokka is a warrior of the South Pole's Southern Water Tribe, a race of people able to manipulate water. He, along with his younger sister Katara, discover an Airbender named Aang, the long-lost Avatar, and accompanies him to defeat the imperialistic Fire Nation and bring peace to the war-torn nations.

Concept and creation
In the Avatar Nick Mag Presents: First Edition issue by co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, stated that Sokka was originally designed as a minor figure; but when his comedian voice actor Jack DeSena brought liveliness to his character, they began to emphasize this quality. Much of Sokka's dialogue and actions are derived from improvisations and intentional exaggerations on DeSena's part, allegedly inspired by fellow comedian Jim Carrey.

As a result of his design, Sokka's character is a source of comic relief throughout the series, often a victim of visual slapstick. Among various running gags involving Sokka are his immersion in viscous substances, such as raw sewage, slurry, phlegm, or saliva; and forgetting that Toph is blind. Sokka also has a tendency to produce or at times laugh at jokes shared by no other character.

In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", Sokka's name was written as 索卡, whereof Sǔo (索) means to search, demand, ask, exact, or isolated and Kǎ (卡) means to check, block, or card. The character for Kǎ also appears in Katara's name.

Plot overview
Sokka, forced to mature quickly when his mother was killed, cultivated his martial skills with a militant zeal, while his sister Katara did chores and practiced waterbending. When he was thirteen, his father and the other men left to fight alongside the Earth Kingdom against the Fire Nation, leaving him and his sister to look after their tribe, advised by their grandmother. As the oldest male present, Sokka came to assume a leader's role by age of fifteen, fiercely protecting the village from external threats while trying to train children in defense.

In the initial episode, Katara and Sokka discovered Aang in suspended animation, and later embarked with Katara and Aang to find a waterbending instructor, determined to improve his own skill en route. In episode "Sokka's Master", Sokka seeks an instructor in swordsmanship, and receives training with Master Piandao, a Fire Nation swordmaster, in which creativity and lateral thought are the bases of his technique.

In the four-part series finale,"Sozin's Comet," Sokka and Katara meet with Katara's Waterbending master, Pakku, who has now married their paternal grandmother, Kanna. In the battle against antagonist Ozai, characters Sokka, Suki, and Toph hijack a Fire Nation airship and use it to destroy other airships while Aang duels with Ozai himself. With the battle over, the trio reunite with Aang. At Zuko's coronation, Suki is reunited with the Kyoshi Warriors, Sokka and Katara are reunited with their father, and the rest of the group reunited with their friends. In the end, Sokka is seen in Ba Sing Se.

In the sequel series The Legend of Korra, Katara, now an elderly woman, states that Sokka had passed away some time earlier. Sokka as an adult appears in Korra's flashbacks as a member of Republic City's governing council.

Personality
Incapable of bending abilities himself, Sokka instead pursues martial arts, sciences, and engineering. He is intelligent, resourceful and at times he even proves to be quite scholarly. However, he is often clumsy and sometimes mistaken. He holds little interest in the mysticism of bending and prefers to rely on his strength and wits. He tends to be rash, and his pride often leads to embarrassment, as during a haiku contest wherein he, in his final verse, included too many syllables.

As an advocate of human carnivorism, Sokka is the main hunter in the group; often makes dry-witted jokes or abrasive remarks; and accordingly once describes himself as "the meat and sarcasm guy".

Under the guidance of swordsmaster Piandao, Sokka displays various unorthodox procedures when undergoing his training; such that Piandao relates that though Sokka's skills were unimpressive, he displayed much creativity, versatility, and intelligence. As a rule, most or all of the foregoing characteristics appear as sources of comic relief.

After his failure to invade the Fire Nation, Sokka attempted to restore his honor by risking his life in order to rescue his father from a highly secure prison known as 'the Boiling Rock'.

Innovations and abilities
Unusual for an inhabitant of a mystical world, Sokka prefers mechanistic science and is something of a jack-of-all-trades. He seems naturally adept at creating weapons from any available material and adapting them to various purposes, as when he used explosives to simulate Firebending or optical illusions to help his sister Katara imitate Earthbending. Alongside the Mechanist, Sokka devised a system of control for an experimental hot air balloon and partly began the design of waterbending-powered submarines. Sokka also demonstrated advanced mathematic skills and a talent for geometry towards the end of the series; but is whimsically depicted in the epilogue as a poor draughtsman.

In addition to his engineering skill, Sokka shows a remarkable talent for poetry in The Tales of Ba Sing Se, wherein he competes with a local instructor in a haiku contest, and holds his own at length before mistakenly adding an extra syllable to the end of a haiku. Sokka writes with his right hand, but draws with his left hand, and may therefore be accounted ambidextrous.

As the only non-bender in Aang's group, Sokka is often overshadowed by the bending skills of his friends; but his skill in martial arts improves as the series progresses, and it is sometimes he who devises victorious strategy. Alongside his trademark boomerang, Sokka is shown wielding clubs, a machete, spears, and a black jian capable of cutting through solid metal, identified as his "space sword". Sokka also receives a white lotus Pai Sho piece from his master, an important symbol to the secret 'White Lotus' Society notable for disregarding traditional rivalries and hatreds between the nations.

Appearances in other media
Sokka's character has appeared in three THQ video games for the show, which are Avatar: The Last Airbender video game and Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth. and Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno. Like Aang, Sokka also appears on some Avatar T-shirts sold by Nick, as well as in Tokyopop's films comic (sometimes referred to as cine-manga).

Film
Jackson Rathbone stars as Sokka in the feature film The Last Airbender and significant criticism was pointed at the character difference.