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The fate of The Southern Water Tribe is in his hands. It’s because he’s fifteen.
Sokka is just short of being old enough to fight a war when the men leave. This causes him to fight his own war within himself. He doesn’t understand why he was left behind. A small part of him feels like maybe him being too young was just an excuse to be abandoned by the chief—his own father—and the other men. While he might have been the youngest, he was ready to lay down his life if it meant protecting his people. He knows from example that this is what all warriors do.
Now Sokka is, without a doubt, the best warrior left in the South Pole. He’s also the only warrior. At this point, the second oldest boy in the tribe is only seven. While he tries his best to teach the younger boys all about what it means to be a warrior (something he never fully got trained for himself), Sokka knows that when in the face of danger, the safety of the tribe will be his responsibility and his only. It’s a lot of pressure to place on a teenager’s shoulders, but it is just the way things are and nothing can be done about it. So, Sokka doesn’t complain.
After some time, the young tribesman has grown to understand his place in the world and in the war, just as his father promised he would. While at first he might have been unhappy about not being able to join the other men in battle, and while a part of him might still feel the same way now, he also knows that staying in the South Pole with his family was the best decision that could have been made for him and for everyone else. Katara and Gran-Gran need someone to look after them, after all. The tribe needs someone to look after them. They need a man now that the tribe is solely composed of women and children.
Sokka does not count himself as one of the children. He doesn’t have that luxury anymore. He takes his role as a protector seriously. He patrols the area and guards the icy border and waits for enemies to appear. He looks out at the horizon from the watchtower he made out of snow, built with his own hands, and hopes that he’ll soon see his father’s fleet returning with news that the war is over, that the Fire Nation has paid for their sins, and that things will never feel incomplete again.
That never happens though, and Sokka is smart enough to not get his hopes up for good news.
When Prince Zuko arrives looking for the Avatar, Sokka fights the firebender with all of his strength and all of his wit—alone. He is obviously lacking in skill compared to the enemy, almost embarrassingly so, but if there’s one thing that the prince has to give the Water Tribe boy credit for, it’s for getting back up when he’s knocked down and trying again.
And again, and again.
Sokka doesn’t give up. He can’t. He’ll lay down his life if it means protecting his people, the ones he loves most. It’s what a warrior has to do.
He knows that this is precisely the reason he’s here.
He’s the leader of their ragtag team of fighters. It’s because he’s fifteen.
As the oldest amongst their group, Sokka has easily fit into the role of a leader. Of course, part of this has to do with his brain and his ability to come up with clever ideas. He is the plan guy, after all, and the title wasn’t given to him for no reason (even if he is the one who gave it to himself). Sokka, as always, takes his role seriously because he feels like he has to. Nobody has asked him to be leader, and nobody has ever really agreed that he’s leader anyway (Katara had made fun of his voice cracking when he’d tried to proclaim himself as such), but Sokka knows he has to step up and take responsibility for the others. It’s because they’re just a bunch of kids and they need someone to look out for them. As an older brother and as a warrior, Sokka is good at that. He knows this is why he’s here.
Their group changes over time. What started off with just a pair of siblings and the Avatar has now expanded to include a blind earthbender. They pick up others along the way. Some of the people they bring with them are even younger than Aang and Toph. Some of them aren’t. Suki, for example, is Sokka’s age. She’s a little older than him, and while she’s fully capable of protecting herself and the others, Sokka still thinks of himself as a leader regardless. Suki is important to him and he’s already lost too many people that are important to him, so he vows to protect her too. It’s what a leader does.
And then comes Zuko, you know, after he’s done chasing them around the world and all. Like Suki, Zuko is fully capable of taking care of himself and doesn’t really need protection or guidance like some of the others might. Still, Sokka thinks of himself as a leader. He’s the one that the others turn to when they need a plan, and fast. Naturally, he vows to protect the banished prince too. He doesn’t care that he’s not the oldest anymore.
He is a warrior. He is a man. This is his place and he will never forget that.
Sokka needs his mother and father. It’s because he’s fifteen.
War has been unkind to them all. A lucky few in the world remain untouched by its brutality. Hakoda has seen grown men break down in the middle of war meetings. They have seen awful things, done awful things, and have had awful things done to them, to their homes, and to their families. Hakoda is a chief and leads by example. He doesn’t want to show his fellow warriors that he’s struggling too, but it’s an unspoken truth that the men all share with just a look or a sigh or a hand placed on someone else’s shoulder. It isn’t easy being on the frontline, trying to end a war they didn’t start, but it’s what has to be done and so they’re doing it. A warrior doesn’t complain. A warrior just does what needs to be done and that’s it.
It isn’t fair. Not to anyone, not to any of Hakoda’s men, but especially not to his children.
When he first reunites with Sokka, he is shocked to see how much he’s grown. Puberty has made him taller, has made his voice a little deeper, and he looks more like a young man now than a little boy. While Hakoda is proud to see his son growing into an honorable warrior, a part of him dies inside realizing how much of that growth that he hasn’t been witness to. He’s missed a lot in the years that he’s been gone and that is time he will never get back. It might have been necessary and it might have been what was right, to go on without his children at the risk of never being able to see them again, but it’s the only thing that Hakoda wants to complain about. A father should be there for his children, to protect them and to teach them, but also to observe them in their journey to adulthood. It is the greatest pleasure any parent has, to see their baby take their first steps and see where those steps eventually lead them.
It’s like a slap in the face when he realizes that his children no longer exist.
In their place, he finds a warrior and a waterbender that are brave enough to join the Avatar in a war against the Fire Lord. Neither of them complain about that. They complain about missing him, about having concerns their efforts won’t pay off in the end, but never about this being their reality. Sokka and Katara both embrace their roles in the universe with such tenacity that Hakoda feels he could burst from pride being able to call them his, but another part of the chief aches because this is their reality. It’s a reality that neither of them deserve.
As grown as they are now, Hakoda still can’t stop thinking of the children he left behind. He’s grieved them every day since the moment he left, as if they were dead in the way that their mother was. They might as well have been with the way it felt to part with them. In both instances it had been sudden. He had been mentally and emotionally unprepared for each of those goodbyes. In a way, the war has killed a piece of them all. In a way, one has to wonder who the actual unlucky ones are—the ones that now peacefully slumber, or the ones that are left to remember them after they’ve gone.
Hakoda remembers the old Sokka. Hakoda doesn’t stop grieving for him even when he’s beaming from ear to ear in admiration for the young man that has now taken Sokka’s place. He’s made his father and his tribe proud, there is no doubt about that, but that doesn’t make the pain of losing his son any easier. With every accomplishment comes regret. These are accomplishments he wishes he could protect his son from, but he can’t. As a chief, this is his greatest failure. The ones he loves most are the only ones he hasn’t been able to protect. He wants to promise to protect his children from any future danger or hardship, but it’s impossible to make promises so empty in the middle of war. So, instead, he promises to never forget.
And it’s impossible to forget when Sokka finally breaks down.
Hakoda isn’t surprised when it happens. Sokka has been tense all day, in a way that is to be expected of a fifteen year old in war. While he’s taken everything seriously when necessary, Sokka has also shown his colors in the way of laughter and puns and contagious smiles. Hakoda has cherished those glimpses into a past life with a son who still was cocooned in a shell of innocence. Slowly, he has observed the shell cracking. He has observed his son lose strength. He has observed the smiles fading and the laughter quieting into a deafening silence. Hakoda observes his son crumbling beneath the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He doesn’t forget to thank the spirits that he’s here this time to pick his child back up.
“I’m sorry,” Sokka says, having the audacity to apologize for showing weakness. He wipes at his face with dirty hands, trying to brush the tears away. He wants nothing more than to prove to his father that he made the right choice leaving him behind. He wants nothing more than to prove to his father that he is the warrior he’s always been expected to be. Warriors are not supposed to cry or complain, though, because a warrior does what is expected and that is that. So, he apologizes.
“Don’t be sorry,” Hakoda says, wishing he could cry too. “It’s okay. You can let it out.”
“I don’t want to let it out.”
“But you have to, Sokka. Even the bravest warrior needs to let it out at some point.”
And so he does.
Sokka cries on the floor, there where nobody but his father can see him. Hakoda kneels beside him, rubbing circles into his back, waiting patiently for the moment to pass. It destroys him to hear his son crying for the first time in years. It’s a sound no father ever wants to hear come from his children, no matter their age, but it’s a sound he’s ached to hear nonetheless.
For a moment, Hakoda feels like he never left. For a moment, the missing time seems to be put back into place. Hakoda isn’t comforting just another warrior he’s led into battle. Hakoda is comforting his own son, the little boy that he once knew and loved more than anything in the entire world. It is heartbreaking in the worst way imaginable, but it is his new most cherished moment because he’s longed for a child to need him in this way, and he’s longed to be there to make sure their needs are finally met. Like Sokka, he’s been hoping for a day when things no longer feel incomplete. He hopes that his presence now, as insignificant as it might be in the grand scheme of things, is enough to make Sokka’s world feel a little more complete even if just for the few minutes they’re there together, in their own world, fighting their own battles separate from everyone else’s.
It is the battle of a warrior. It is the battle of men.
It is a battle that Hakoda will never forgive himself for allowing his child to face on his own.