Idk if you've listened to the new mitski album, but I think it's such a sokka album. There are so many songs on the album that remind me of sokka or sokka and yue like:
heaven and star are such yuekka songs to me or rather yuekka from sokka's perspective where he is both remembering their time together and mourning her death and kinda brings up how her death has fundamentally shaped him forever.
I don't like my mind, the deal and when memories snow makes me think of how exhausting it is to be sokka. All of his many problems that he refuses to (can't) acknowledge and the guilt he feels for those rare times he thinks of not dealing with his many responsibilities.
And finally, I'm your man and I love me after you really make me think of how sokka puts so many people before himself that he is willing to die several times over if it meant the other person's safety. I'm your man especially makes me think of sokka's worship of his dad and how he can't acknowledge that while his father left for the right reasons, it still hurt sokka and katara in very different yet fundamental ways (your father leaving the safety of your sister and entire tribe to twelve year old you will do that).
But yeah it's a good album I think.
Sorry this ask is so long, I just wanted to know your thoughts on this new mitski album + the gaang and others?
yes!! was wondering if/when someone would ask me this lol. i agree that a lot of songs on the album have sokka vibes. i'll go through the album in bullet points (out of order) to elaborate on how i think they fit various characters as i have done with other albums in the past:
"my love mine all mine" is THEE sokka/yue song to me. like the denial of agency/personhood outside of their love which must be hidden and ignored for the sake of duty but cannot be denied!!! and the invocation of the moon is just so potent, of course. if i had time i would make an amv, quite frankly
"star" is such a sokka/yue song from yue's pov specifically she is literally the shining light "burning so you can keep looking up" normally i hate when people compare stars and moons as if they are interchangeable bodies (this is why i cannot enjoy sun & moon dichotomies in poetry i am an insufferable pedant when it comes to astronomy) but i will make an exception in this case because it is just such a beautiful song and really does fit so well.
"buffalo replaced" is such an aang song to me. like not just because of the obvious buffalo (or is it bison?) imagery, but because of the evocation of not being able to catch up to the destructive progress of imperialist nation-building (replacing buffalos with railways, etc.) while simultaneously contrasting it with the liberty and love and freedom of the individual (and that whole verse about how much she loves her cat, that is so real and also so aang) that is so poignant and devastating yet celebratory and warm. maybe that's just my interpretation, but it just feels so aang.
"the frost" is a katara song to me and not just, again, because the imagery is so obviously evocative. there's also some aang themes in the first verse, but the "you're my best friend / now i have no one to tell of how i lost my best friend" lyric really hits because it feels like an address to her mother, but also to sokka. obviously kya was the most important person in katara's life (i assume this is the case for all children with their mothers, i know it's still true for me), but she also lost sokka as a friend when he became her sworn protector. i think katara is grieving the relationship she had with sokka but has no way to communicate it because he's right there, so instead she communicates her grief over kya and rage at the fire nation for taking her family away from her, because it's far easier to verbalize than grief over someone having changed but in a way that seems imperceptible. she calls what sokka does "playing soldier" because the idea that it's just a game to him is far preferable to the chilling alternative that he is prepar[ed/ing] to die. she is losing him in increments and has no one to tell because everyone in her family has either died, left her, or left her emotionally. "it's just witness-less me."
"bug like angel" is a song quite specifically about addiction (alcoholism in particular) but the themes of guilt, regret, and longing do evoke aang and zuko (separately, not as a dynamic) to me. the desire for family, comfort, and for life to revert back to its "original" state before mistakes were made that irreparably altered it (a "sunlit garden" if you will)
"i'm your man" is a sokka song it is also an azula song also a zuko song maybe even an iroh song? it's a song about staking your identity in patriarchal logic especially wrt to one's own father (especially if that father happens to be the leader of a state). it's about the contradictions of patriarchy and selfhood under patriarchy and worshipping at the altar of masculinity even as subsuming its logic destroys you. (will expand on this matter whenever i finally find time to finish my sokka nanami essay. btw)
"i love me after you" is a song that could apply to any number of them but i think it's most poignant if you imagine it as an azula song ("king of all the land" is quite literal, in this case), but also like, a version of azula in the future. it's an azula song someday. eventually.
"when memories snow" is an azula song wrt the line "and if i break could i go on break" and the "thousand hands that clap for me in the dark" but the imagery of memories as snowfall also evokes the black snow that triggers sokka and katara and feels like a metonym for ptsd and trauma. for such a short song, it has a wide range of highly specific applications.
"the deal" can apply to so many characters, as it broadly follows mitski's pattern of existentialist songs such as "abbey" and "door" that can be applied to any range experiences concerning the human condition, BUT, i find it most evocative when considering iroh and his relationship to lu ten and to the spirit world. i'll expand on this more if asked, but for now. just think about it
"i don't like my mind" is such a zuko song especially book 1 zuko who is so obsessively focused on capturing the avatar because he refuses to consider the obvious implications of his situation and is in hardcore denial and avoidance of the blatant truth. he needs this job it is all he has..... please don't take my job from me......
"heaven" IS a sokka/yue song but it's also a sokka/suki song and a mai/ty lee song and really just a universally applicable love song and maybe the most beautiful song ever i dont know. "now i bend like the a willow thinking of you" makes me go crazy every time i hear/think about it probably because i am so othellopilled i think of desdemona and start crying and gnashing my teeth... anyway. on that note!
i'd be happy to expand on any of these, as i recognize that some of my claims were cursory and vague. thank you for asking this and indulging my ramblings :)
