Sokka HCās (trauma edition)
just some stuff that I think is true abt Sokka idk
I havenāt watched ATLA in literal years so please correct me if some of my info is wrong
Some of these are probably obvious but I just wanted to give my take on them lol
Ever since the night of the fire nation raid, heās terrified of fire and even more scared of the smell of bodies burning and the sight of ash. Because although fire is what took his mother and a lot of the tribe members away, the smell of bodies burning and the sight of ash reminds him of the sight he saw that night, and how he was useless to do anything about it, that now burns forever in his memory. Because while Katara is traumatized at seeing the death of Kya, Sokka is traumatized of seeing his tribe members killed and burned in front of him. Heās the kind of guy to break down after the fact of whatever just happened, so he can still fight fire nation soldiers and everything. But the minute he gets off of the battlefield and the adrenaline wears off and hes alone? He makes some excuse about āneeding to plan where theyāre going next in the peace and quiet because fucking toph and aang make it hard to focus with their earthbending lessonsā he breaks down, sobs racking his body and an inevitable panic attack coming as he relives the worst night of his life over and over again for hours, acrid smoke and burning flesh all heās able to smell, screams of pain and heartbreak all heās able to hear. (when Zuko comes along it gets a little bit better because he can remind himself the Zuko is a fire bender and hes safe and warm and would never do anything to hurt me. So he just kind of melts into his best friendās boyfriends arms and it becomes a routine for them. More on that on the zukka post i will get to writing..eventually)
He has abandonment issues because of how unexpectedly Kya died and left him to take care of Katara while she was grieving, and then Hakoda left him to take care of the entire tribe by himself. This is probably why in that one episode (i dont remember which one and im too lazy to find it) Sokka was so adamant about refusing to let Katara go and try to save Haru and his dad, because he was scared that she wouldnāt leave until she got everyone off of the ship, eventually get captured, and spend the rest of her days there, leaving him behind.
(This ones cannon I think but hereās my take on it) He has self-worth issues because of his constant expectations that have been set on him, by himself and by other people. A lot of people reading this are gonna be like well yea he had to take care of the entire tribe by himself! Which, true! Not exactly the best move Hakoda, but whatāre you gonna do i guess. But i think his self-worth issues stem more from his need to be the perfect āchiefā. What i mean by that is that if heās doesnāt catch enough fish for the tribe (even if they probably have enough to survive because always working too hard) he hates himself because he isnāt doing enough and they look so skinny and its all my fault because i just canāt catch enough fish. And if the people are cold, or if theyāre sick, they expect him to take care of them, but they dont see that heās a 16 (or younger, he was acting as chief for a couple years before Aang came along i think) year old boy trying to do everything himself with no help. Every day he hears the same thing: āSokka, we donāt have enough ______! Can you please get more?ā So he never ever thinks heās good enough no matter what he does because thereās just never enough. even if he catches 100 fish for the whole village to eat, heāll still beat himself up about it because sure they were able to eat today, but theyāre not eating enough and he still needs to get more furs for everyone because the winter is only getting colder and theyāre getting sicker and theyāre all going to die because heās so useless and canāt do anything right
because of him having to do everything himself, he absolutely hates being offered help. He refuses it practically every single time, because heās so used to people younger than him counting on him to do something, and if theyāre counting on him that means that he cannot fail, and asking for help (to him) is one way of failing. If he asks for help that means he couldnāt do the one thing Hakoda asked him too. Itās super simple Sokka, just take care of the village of like 15 people. And he canāt even do that.
Heās an absolute control freak and micromanages everything, and Katara (the hypocrite, smh) hates it. He needs to be in control of everything because that means that nothing can go wrong unless he makes a mistake. (Which he knows he will make a mistake but at least its his fault and he can find a way to fix it) If he relies on other people that means theyāll make mistakes which means something that needed to get done wonāt and heāll fuck up again and heāll be worthless, because planning and fixing and engineering and fighting is all he has, all he thinks hes good for. He would rather be solely blamed for not being good enough and screwing up than letting someone like Zuko or Katara or Aang be told that. He was never in control of the war or his motherās death of Hakoda leaving or anything, so he find some kind of solace or coping mechanism in being able to at least control the village and having some semblance of control (idk how else to explain this! Im so sorry!)
Also because he doesnāt trust anyone else to do it right lol. Heās been taking care of the whole village for such a long time that thereās a very specific way you supposed to do this Katara! It took him such a long time to finally get a rhythm going, get used to how to take care of 15+ people at a time, so any little change to his routine pisses him off and makes him panic because heās lost the control of the situation and now heās in an unknown territory where he doesnāt know how to do anything which makes him a liability.
(Iāll probably continue to update this post because im probably not done, and/or make a pt 2 if yāall wanna see that. Wonāt be restricted to just trauma next time!)
