Sokka grew up in his village as an aspiring warrior-in-training of the Southern Water Tribe. Forced to mature quickly when his mother was killed in a Fire Nation raid, he cultivated his warrior skills with a militant zeal, while his sister Katara did chores and practiced waterbending.[4] When he was thirteen, his father and the other village men left to fight alongside the Earth Kingdom in the war against the Fire Nation, leaving him and his sister to look after their tribe with their grandmother, Gran Gran. As the oldest male left in the South Pole, Sokka came to assume a semi-leadership role by the time he was fifteen, fiercly protecting the village from any possible outside threats while trying to train children to be a new generation of defenders.
While on a spearfishing expedition, Katara and Sokka discovered Aang in suspended animation inside an iceberg. After Katara freed him, Sokka initially believed that the Airbender might be a Fire Navy spy, and he eventually grew xenophobic enough to banish him from the village. Upon discovering that Aang was the Avatar, destined to master all four elements and bring peace to the world, Sokka relented, realizing that they had a common enemy -- the Fire Nation. He then set off with Katara and Aang on their journey to find a waterbending instructor at the North Pole, determined to hone his warrior skills by way of fighting a few Firebenders along the way.
In Sokka's Master, Sokka expresses self-doubt and worry that he is not contributing as much to the group as his bender companions are. Inspired by his friends' encouragement, he seeks out a master from whom he could learn the art of the sword. Rather than fighting with brute force and flawless technique, Sokka's creativity and thinking-outside-the-box approach to things are the cornerstones of his technique, and his master notes that in time Sokka will be a superior swordsman. As he departs, Piandao has his butler Fat give Sokka a White Lotus tile, simply saying that its something to remember him by.
Skeptical, abrasive, and sharp-witted, Sokka is detached from Katara's and Aang's pursuit of the bending arts. Not gifted with bending abilities himself, Sokka instead prefers the ways of the warrior and the scientist, and he takes his responsibility as protector very seriously. He is also very intelligent and good at coming up with ideas--even if said ideas are not always very good.
Patriotic and long to hold a grudge, he strongly wants to exact vengeance for the Fire Nation's decimation of the Water Tribe and the death of his mother. He holds little interest in the mysticism surrounding bending and prefers to solve problems using his strength and his wits. He tends to be rash, however, and his pride often leads to embarrassment. Despite his obvious cleverness, Sokka sometimes acts very silly if not outright stupid. His sarcastic and absurd behavior can sometimes carry over into important decisions.
A passionate carnivore, Sokka has demonstrated his love of meat on multiple occasions and is the main hunter in the group. Sokka also has a habit of using sarcasm. In the episode "Bitter Work," Sokka shouts at karma in the heavens vowing to give up both meat and sarcasm for assistance, agreeing to consider himself no longer "Sokka, the meat and sarcasm guy", but willing to be "Sokka the veggies and straight-talk fellow". By the end of the episode, however, he has given up neither meat nor sarcasm.
Under the guidance of swordsmaster Piandao, Sokka expresses various unorthodox procedures when undergoing his training. In one exercise, when told to stamp his identity onto a sheet of paper, rather than simply writing his name, Sokka smears ink all over his face and presses it onto the paper. As he presents Sokka with his blade, Piandao relates that though his skills were hardly impressive, he displayed much creativity, versatility, and intelligence. All were traits that go beyond mere skills and defined a great swordsman.
Sokka writes with his right hand, but draws with his left hand. He is possibly ambidextrous, although his left-handed art is ugly and rudimentary, although this could just be due to a limited drawing ability.
For an inhabitant of a mystical world, Sokka shows a remarkable proclivity towards science. 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 Katara fake the ability to Earthbend. Working side by by side with fellow technologist, the Mechanist, Sokka has managed to engineer a system of control for an experimental hot air balloon as well as conceptualise the design for waterbending-powered submarines. Alongside his trademark boomerang, Sokka is proficient in a variety of weapons, including clubs, a machete, spears, and the newest addition, an all-black sword.
In addition to his engineering skill, Sokka has shown a remarkable talent for poetry. In The Tales of Ba Sing Se, he stumbles into a poetry reading and goes toe-to-toe with the instructor in a haiku contest, and holds his own. However, his hubris gets the best of him and he gets thrown out for accidentally adding an extra syllable to the end of a haiku.
As the only non-bender in Aang's group, Sokka is often overshadowed by the bending skills of his friends. However, it is usually Sokka who comes up with a plan for victory. He has assumed the important role of gathering intelligence for the group, collecting data and maps that could help them defeat the Fire Nation, often becoming the navigator and choosing the route to follow despite other's objections. His skills as a fighter have also noticeably improved as the series progresses, though it is usually his persistence rather than skill that often allows him to get a shot in against opponents of superior skill, such as Zuko in "The Avatar Returns" and Ty Lee, in "The Chase." Sokka employs the element of surprise in defeating larger enemies in "The Library" when he knocked out Wan Shi Tong by attacking him from above. In that particular encounter, Sokka's wit succeeded where Aang and Katara's bending failed. It was also Sokka who found out about a solar eclipse's ability to incapacitate firebenders and his idea to inform the Earth King in Ba Sing Se.
Sokka has come to learn the art of swordsmanship in order to improve his contribution to the team. Under the tutelage of the Fire Nation swordmaster Piandao, Sokka undergoes various activities, including sparring matches with the butler Fat to hone his swordwielding skills as well as arts such as painting, calligraphy and rock gardening to sharpen to his mind. Eventually, when instructed to make his own sword, he uses fragments of a meteorite that fell the night before to collect the metal needed to forge his blade. Sokka's sword, like his master's, is patterned on a Qing Dynasty jian, but unique in that due to the properties of the alien material used for its creation, the blade retains an unusual all-black appearance. The sword is also able to slice through the toughest materials, including regular metal.Although Sokka proves unable to defeat his master in heated battle and must leave to continue his training on his own, Piandao states the belief that Sokka retains traits which one day could very well come to make him an even greater swordsman than he is.
Beginning in the the third season, Sokka also on occasion assumes the persona of Wang Fire, a Fire Nation citizen in good standing. First done to pass as Aang's father (with Katara as his wife, Sapphire Fire), he subsequently dons an oversized beard for comic relief as in Nightmares and Daydreams and pulling scams in The Runaway.
