I must be the first person who has read two chapters in the wrong order and only realized it after -_-... Anyways, I already kinda know the answer, but after yesterday's chapters the question popped up in my mind again and I had to drop to your askbox. "Hey, now! If I were going all out on you, you'd be toast, Fire Lord!" "Implying you would ever go all out on me…" So they will fight seriously one day right? And there is also that thing with "going for the kill" but there is also a Sokka who will give his everything to save Azula and go back to her, a Sokka who would give her his life and refused to end a fight with her (Ch96) and thought he would rather let her finish the job and would never dare, bring it on him to ever hurt her like that. Are these scenes implictions? Will he like REALLY go for the kill??
Tbh I have no idea if you're the only one who's mixed up chapters that way xD I know that's a risk with double updates, for sure. Might be another compelling argument to switch to weekly ones instead.
Aaanyway, as for the question you ask, ummm...
My typical phrase is in order: it's complicated xD
You're right, the many implications of how insanely powerful Sokka has become aren't there for no reason, let alone this late in the game. Part 2 is indeed coming to a close, and Sokka is by far at the most powerful we've seen him, atm. The final arc of Part 2 will also showcase his strength further, in two fights that I hope will really drive across how incredibly strong he's become. So... when Azula reflects on how strong he is and how he might actually be able to beat her if there were any reasons for him to fight her, well... it does have some bearing on certain events in the future, yeah.
Like I've been saying all along, Part 3 will bring in a lot of game-changing elements, and part of my work as a writer will be holding up the balance between those elements so that the complex storytelling I'm trying to achieve doesn't fall short of the mark. Sokka does have his heart set on fighting for Azula, to the very end... but this is what we'll know through his POV, exclusively. What of Azula? Does she want him to fight for her in this way? Will she want the same things he wants, at this point?
Each character will have their own motivations and driving forces by the time things in Part 3 reach the heights of their complications. I think Azula's position will be the more difficult one to embrace for most readers, rather than Sokka's. She is going to be caught between a rock and a hard place, figuratively, and she has to make a lot of difficult, perhaps even questionable choices, going forward. I've already written a fair share of Part 3 as I am... and while things with Azula did get a lot better over time (like... 7 arcs in xD), she still will hit a kind of rock-bottom that she never has faced before in all of Gladiator... I dare even say a kind of rock-bottom she never faced in canon. It's heartbreaking that she was betrayed by her friends and family, that all her dreams fell apart, in the show... but what if she finds herself being the one who's forced to betray THEM, in order to "keep them safe", to a fault? What if she's the one who has no choice but to relinquish her dreams in the hopes that someone else, someday, will be able to fulfill them in her stead? What if her only available choice is to commit sacrifice upon sacrifice in the hopes that maybe, eventually, things will be better for everyone other than herself?
It's really complicated, as you may be able to tell already. Things are going to be really hard for Azula, and this huge, world-ending confrontation will only happen as the consequences of her many, many hard choices. Sokka has his own share of struggles to deal with, of course, and has to make a few decisions he knows may not be the finest... but compared to Azula, his path is probably much more straightforward, if plagued with a fair share of complications anyway. So it's not that Sokka will WANT to fight Azula... it's that, perhaps, he may not be given any choice on the matter by, uh...
