A recent Variety article has upset many fans of Avatar The Last Airbender hoping Netflix would stay true to the source material. But as with all things made for a modern audience arbitrary and unwanted changes have been made as the actors for Sokka and Katara openly bragged about removing things from the series.
As stated by Ousley, who plays Sokka, and Kiawentiio, who plays Katara, the Netflix showrunners have decided to remove how “sexist” Sokka feels, saying it has no place in their series. While many on X lambasted this absurd change, the problem is so much worse and requires understanding why Sokka’s so-called “sexism” was incredibly important to the story. And we’ll be looking at how doing this dramatically changes the story of Avatar.
While many might find the statement that “Sokka’s Sexism Saved The World” to be very silly… it’s also 100% true! At the very beginning of the story Sokka and his younger sister Katara are fishing and having no luck, when Sokka blames it on taking a girl to hunt for food.
Katara rightfully starts to shout at her brother for essentially being a total loser pretending to be a man and becoming so angry that her waterbender powers cause a glacier behind them to shatter apart freeing Aang from his century-long prison.
However, was what Sokka said to Katara actually sexist? Absolutely not! It’s important to remember this was a show targeted at children and was all about teaching people important lessons. And Sokka needed to learn to be mature if he wanted to be the man his father, his idol, actually was.
Later in the story, the team encounters the Kiyoshi warriors, a group of female soldiers who defend Kiyoshi Island from the Fire Nation. And it’s here that we actually see Sokka put in his place as he has no actual experience fighting others.
He’s left humiliated and understands how wrong his thinking is, eventually apologizing and begging Suki, the leader of the Kiyoshi warriors to show him how to fight. This also causes them to form a very close relationship that is further explored in later seasons.
Now that alone could be written out and it would destroy Sokka’s character, sure, but the entirety of Book One?
RELATED: Netflix DocSeries on the Former WWE Owner-In-Chief Vince McMahon Slated For Early 2024 Release
Sokka’s growth was actually in contrast to the Northern Water Tribe which is the final destination for the end of Book One. There women are not even allowed to practice combat and it’s shown how wrong this mindset is when Katara finally forces the tribe’s Waterbending master to train her.
It’s eventually revealed he’s the husband of their grandmother, making him Sokka and Katara’s grandfather, and it helps him to realize the error in his ways and how it chased his greatest love away.
Avatar was a show made for children that could have random jokes about a cabbage merchant randomly thrown in, to taking an entire episode to rip your heart out as it ends with one of the most beloved characters in the show mourning for his lost son.
It never once treated someone’s flaws as a good thing and took the time to help each of the main characters grow and mature up until the end of the story. And along that journey, their growth affects the people around them and changes the world for the better.
So removing an entire part of Sokka’s character development because the content from a children’s cartoon was too offensive for actual modern-day adults is beyond pathetic to imagine.
Sokka’s character was formed by being the only boy in a village of women who could not teach him how to be a man. So he did what he thought men did until he actually saw how ridiculous that was.
And if that was too ‘Iffy’ for the Netflix showrunners, then just imagine what else has been left on the cutting room floor… What are your thoughts on gutting Sokka’s character and do you think Netflix’s Live Action Avatar is D.O.A.? Make sure to leave a comment!
It proves that Albert Kim doesn’t care about the source material, and is just doing whatever the heck he wants with this franchise. And the owners of this franchise, Nickelodeon, encouraged it.
DOA