Avatar: The Last Airbender: 5 Reasons Katara Is The Better Sibling (& 5 Why It’s Sokka)

Sokka and Katara are the first two characters the audience meets in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Though the Water Tribe siblings are very different, they also love each other  – and their friends – fiercely. Even if Katara can bend water and Sokka needs to resort to weapons, they are both prepared to defend what they love and save the world.

Regardless of the attributes they share, they have their differences, too. Sokka is a much better comedian, while Katara makes up the heart of Team Avatar. Even if Sokka is the “meat and sarcasm” guy, as he paints himself, and Katara can get a little too emotional at times, they both have positive qualities to bring to the group.

10 Katara: Bending

Katara is the last waterbender in the South Pole, and she spends much of the first season learning and practicing. According to Pakku, she has achieved Master status by the end of the first season, which equals some true dedication on her part. Agreeing to teach Aang is one of the best things Katara did throughout the series.

Katara puts her bending to great use throughout the rest of the series, using it to attack, defend, and heal herself and her friends. Bending is a large part of her personality and acts as her primary weapon. Unlike Sokka, she doesn’t need to worry about carrying her weapons around before a fight since they are always with her.

9 Sokka: Boomerang And Sword

Sokka isn’t blessed with bending, but he is still able to make his mark with weapons. Before the series begins, he has learned how to use a boomerang, while season three sees him learn the art of swordsmanship.

Throughout the series, Sokka practices his physical fighting skills – and he improves. His boomerang often reappears at the exact right moment. Even if he more often uses his strategic skills to plan a fight, his physical skills with the boomerang and the sword are not to be underestimated.

8 Katara: Stubborn Nature

Katara’s stubborn nature helps her get done what she wants to accomplish. She doesn’t let anyone stop her from doing what she feels is right. She starts a revolution early on for the imprisoned earthbenders because she knows that their situation is fixable and no one else is doing anything to help.

For the most part, Katara’s stubbornness serves to get her out of trouble – or to clean up injustices. Her moral center guides her actions throughout the series, even when her friends disagree with her. On the other hand, Katara’s goodness and sense of what is right always brings her back to herself when she starts to go down the wrong path, such as when Hama forces her to bloodbend.

7 Sokka: Strategic

Sokka’s strategic nature isn’t focused on that much at the beginning of the series, but as he is the one who mainly plans the invasion during the Day of Black Sun in season three, we can tell that he grew and improved a lot as the show progressed. Sokka goes from one measly watchtower to an entire invasion plan, after all!

Sokka’s strategy is a skill no one else has, and it’s mainly due to his being a non-bender. Since all he has is weapons, he is forced to think ahead of time. What if he loses his weapons in the middle of the fight? Benders always know that they have their elements ready, close to hand. Sokka doesn’t have that luxury. When strategizing, Sokka becomes quite good at planning what others will do in the meantime.

6 Katara: Processes Her Emotions

Even if it takes her a while, Katara learns how to process her complicated feelings towards the war, her father, and her mother’s death. For the most part, Sokka already has this sorted, but Katara is a great character from which to learn about accepting feelings and dealing with them in a healthy way. She forgives Zuko after much character development on both sides, for example, and though she doesn’t forgive her mother’s killer, she does come to terms with her death.

Katara is a perfect audience avatar in these moments, as she reminds the audience that these children are in a war they never should have been in and must learn to act accordingly. Others are counting on them to save the world; how do they deal with those expectations, as well as all the trauma that came before? Katara deals by having conversations when she’s upset, and crying when she needs to. She learns to make peace with her emotions.

5 Sokka: Funny Guy

Sokka’s humor is one of his shields against the world – but it makes him a great character, not to mention a contrast to Katara, who can’t tell a good joke to save her life. Sokka’s humor diffuses the tension during dark scenes and helps take the sting out of several of the awful situations the group gets into.

Katara’s main fallback is sincerity, and though that has its place, Sokka’s comedy often works better. When he gets loopy off of cactus juice in the desert, it takes the viewers’ minds off the fact that the group is in the extremely hot desert with no transport out of it – at least for a while. Overall, Sokka’s comedy distracts everyone for a useful amount of time before the problem’s solution turns up.

4 Katara: Great Teacher

Katara is an incredibly good teacher and is particularly attuned to Aang’s needs. This is most obviously shown when she tries to instruct Toph in finding a better way to teach Aang earthbending. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, but points for trying?

Katara proves herself a master waterbender both because she has mastered the forms, but also because she can explain them in her own words and pass them onto an eager pupil. Iroh takes a similar tack with Zuko when teaching him how to redirect lightning, except that Zuko isn’t ready the way Aang obviously is. Though it helps that air and water are similar – and thus waterbending is easier to learn for Aang – let’s not discount that Aang learns the entire art of waterbending in a few months. Many Avatars take years.

3 Sokka: Accepting

Though initially against girls who can fight, Sokka quickly overcomes his prejudice (in an inspiring moment with Suki) and accepts women as warriors. This laidback attitude continues throughout the series. Unlike Katara (who initially doesn’t get along with Toph and Zuko), Sokka is fairly affable and gets accepts just about everybody.

Sokka’s easygoing nature helps him make friends wherever the team ends up. He’s accepting of many personalities and aspirations; this helps him solve problems rather than start them. For example, despite the Mechanist’s odd nature, Sokka gets along with him really well; they proceed to build very effective weapons together which saves the day. Overall, Sokka’s easy acceptance of others is a major asset for Team Avatar.

2 Katara: Heart Of Team

Katara is the team’s heart and moral center. Her emotions and sense of injustice do tend to get her into bigger situations than she imagined at the beginning, but her sense of right and wrong steer her in the correct direction. Sokka has the tendency to use humor to treat issues flippantly, but Katara takes the time to look at everything very closely and find the right solution. She has her heart in the right place. Even if that means that it takes her longer to come to a decision (such as forgiving Zuko), she feels confident that she made the right one.

1 Sokka: And Accepted

Even if Sokka is self-deprecating about the fact that he doesn’t have bending abilities, he does know he’s an accepted, valued member of the team. He’s confident, self-assured, and doesn’t have any self-esteem issues, which might be expected considering just how talented all of his teammates are. Instead, Sokka is accepted as the strategist and the one who makes the others laugh when the moment is right. He is a necessary part of Team Avatar, as is shown when he goes to train as a swordsman and everyone misses him almost instantly.

About The Author

Noemi Arellano-Summer
(83 Articles Published)

Noemi Arellano-Summer is an arts and culture journalist working in the Los Angeles area. Armed with a BS in Journalism from Boston University, she has published work at the following publications: Boston Globe, Crime Report, Ancient World Magazine, Screen Queens, BU BUZZ, BU Quad, Mindfray, Catalyst.cm, the Boston Hassle, and the Celebrity Cafe. She is excited to share film, history, and the arts with people.

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