okay THAT SAID it’s not simply that he’s an antisocial pathetic loser who doesn’t know how to talk to people, either. i keep seeing ppl say this in the tags, and it’s like, no, you’re thinking of ZUKO. sokka isn’t aang-levels of outgoing and charismatic and lovable, but he also isn’t nearly as awkward and socially inept as zuko is. you can see this most clearly in “the boiling rock,” when they both pose as guards and must rely on their ability to deceive and improvise. zuko has no such abilities, and thus struggles to hold a natural sounding conversation with his fellow guards, panics in a moment when another guard tries to enter suki’s cell, needs to be held back by sokka before he impulsively jumps to chit sang’s defense and blows their cover, and gets caught almost immediately. sokka, on the other hand, is shown to evade suspicion specifically because he is actually a skilled manipulator, as demonstrated by the scene where he convinces a guard to let all the prisoners into the yard during a lockdown. (i suppose there is that one moment where sokka says “the only thing we’re hatching… is an egg?” but i maintain that line should’ve gone to mr “takes everything too literally” “silver sandwich” anyway.) so my point is, sokka is actually good at manipulating people when he operates with the intent to deceive. even when sokka says earlier in the episode “i have to regain my honor,” he isn’t outright manipulating zuko, but he is nonetheless putting his situation into terms zuko can understand, telling him what he wants to hear.
sokka is good at reading people; azula may claim that she’s “a people person,” but sokka’s vibe detector genuinely has like. a 95% success rate. and he knows how to effectively communicate with others, he knows how to deceive, how to flatter, how to manipulate. but he very often just doesn’t. when he meets new people while traveling the world, he’s usually blunt as shit, honest to a fault, ruthlessly critical of every perceived flaw. and sokka holds everyone (including and especially himself) to an impossibly high standard of excellence (because he assumes he’s average, and that actual average people are in fact below average) and is thus extremely aggravated when most human beings fail to meet his standards. and he makes that known, because, like i said, he is a miserable little hater, and judges people like it’s his job. that said, he will soften his words and choose them carefully when he knows he’s in an emotionally delicate situation, especially with the rest of the gaang. he is hyperaware, for example, that aang’s quote-unquote “innocence” is a precious commodity, and thus barely puts up a fight when aang insists on saving zuko, or generally refrains from talking about death, such as when he catches himself before saying “we don’t know if bumi’s even still………around.”
so it’s not that he’s an asshole loser because that’s fundamentally who he is. zuko tries really hard to be good, but simply cannot get past his own limitations a lot of the time. he could obviously learn better social skills, because that is a skill you can develop, but he has a naturally obsessive mind and lacks tact or a filter. sokka has other issues going on, for sure, but he does have tact, he knows how to modify and comport himself for the benefit of others, how to convince and manipulate and even, on occasion, charm. but most of the time, he simply chooses not to. he could easily be just as charming and likable and outgoing as aang, and in moments where he is making an effort to get on someone’s good side for whatever reason, he is, and a lot of people remember that about him as if it’s his most common modus operandi. but it’s not. it’s the exception. most of the time, he’d rather judge everyone he meets and pinpoint all their weaknesses and generally be a massive bitch. like aunt wu said, his future is full of struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted. freak.
