Characters / Avatar: The Last Airbender - Team Avatar

aka: Avatar The Last Airbender Toph Beifong

Avatar: The Last Airbender Main Character Index
Team Avatar (Avatar Aang, Prince Zuko) | Mentors | Allies | Fire Nation | Fire Nation Royal Family (Princess Azula) | The Ember Island Players | Other | Comics

This is Team Avatar or, going by the Fan Nickname, the Gaang. For their older selves in The Legend of Korra, see that character page.

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Character-Specific Pages

• Founding Members:
  • Aang
• Joined in Book 3:
  • Zuko

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Team Avatar

From left to right: Sokka, Suki, Toph, Katara, Zuko, and Aang.

"Enough with the 'Team Avatar' stuff. No matter how many times you say it, it's not gonna catch on."

— Katara (to Sokka), "The Drill"

• Badass Crew: A group of skilled and clever children. Most of them are incredibly strong benders (one of which is the Avatar) while the two non-benders end the series as highly skilled combatants.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Suki (Beauty), Katara (Brains) and Toph (Brawn) respectively. Suki is a She-Fu practitioner wielding fans as weapons, is openly flirtatious with Sokka and her secondary outfit bares her midriff. Katara is the Team Mom of the Gaang who is self-educated on Waterbending and healing and can come up with clever solutions to various problems. Toph has the most aggressive combat style thanks to her earthbending and metalbending skills and is always determined to get things done no matter the cost.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Team Avatar might consist of 12-16-year-olds who are all compassionate and caring kids at heart — but cross them and you'll regret it. These child prodigies are some of the most competent warriors of the age, capable of weaving massive fire vortexes, calling up huge tidal waves, rising miniature mountains, and kicking around a small-scale tornado or two. Plus they have two very capable Badass Normals on their side, fully prepared to do whatever they can to help in combat. Bottom line? Don't mess with them.
• Birds of a Feather: Several pairs within the Gaang:
  • Aang and Katara. Both are extremely optimistic people who keep that outlook while also becoming more realistic due to Character Development. They are child prodigies in their own field (Aang in Airbending and becoming the youngest Fully Realized Avatar, Katara becoming a Waterbending master at only 14). They have a Chronic Hero Syndrome tendency, are incredibly nice individuals, but can be terrifying when pushed too far. They even share a similar trait of being more selfish when it comes to a personal topic.
  • Katara and Zuko are passionate, determined individuals willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals, whether it be capturing the Avatar or helping him, are kind-hearted and heroic but have a darker, more ruthless side. Both are also shown to be pretty evenly matched in terms of bending abilities, and the few times they are actually on the same side/not angry at each other they work very well together.
  • Zuko and Sokka in a platonic example. Both are overshadowed by a super-powered younger sister, use swordplay in combat, can sometimes lack social skills and have a mutually poor track record with relationships.
  • Sokka and Suki. Both are competitive and practical warriors, take on the burden of leadership and had to become protectors at a young age (Sokka of the Water Tribe and Suki of Kyoshi Island).
• Blue Oni, Red Oni:
  • Snarky, cynical Sokka and caring, emotional Katara.
  • Sokka and Zuko, with Sokka (the plan guy) known for being strategic and logical, while Zuko ("never think things through") is impulsive and hot-tempered. Lampshaded in The Boiling Rock, when their roles are reversed.
• Child Prodigy: Applies to Aang, Toph, and Zuko:
  • Word of God states that Aang was better than kids twice his age when he was six, better than his masters at ten, and an airbending master at twelve. He maintains his status of Child Prodigy throughout the show, managing to master waterbending, become a skilled earthbender, and get a good grasp on firebending over the course of a year.
  • Toph was an earthbending master by the time she was twelve, having mastered the basics of standardized earthbending and expanding off of that to form her own unique style that was more suited to her blindness. She also invented metalbending within hours, and is seen creating actual moves for it in the comics.
  • Zuko was a master swordsman by the time he was around twelve, having been trained by Piandao since he was a small child. This was while he was maintaining his role as crown prince, and mastering firebending as well.
  • It's implied that Sokka and Katara would've also been this, had they been given the proper circumstances. As it is, Sokka had already mastered using a boomerang as a young child, and Katara had already taught herself some waterbending moves, and later became an Instant Expert in her brief stint of training with Pakku.
• Child Soldier: They're seen in numerous combat situations throughout the show, and since their ultimate goal is to end the hundred-year war...well, being a soldier kind of comes with it.
• Classical Elements Ensemble: In its final iteration, Team Avatar is a Five-Man Band of Aang (an Air Nomad, though as the Avatar he is associated with all elements), Katara (a waterbending master), Toph (an earthbending prodigy who also discovered metalbending), Zuko (the prince of the Fire Nation), and Sokka a Non-Elemental, something that Sokka himself lampshades. Suki, who is a peripheral character and member of the crew is a Sixth Ranger.
  Sokka: Team Avatar is back! [series of dramatic zooms] Air! Water! Earth! Fire! [grabs some large leaves for himself and Suki] Fan and sword!
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Every member of Team Avatar deconstructs Free-Range Children; the reason why a bunch of preteen and teenaged kids can travel around the world is because all of their parents are either dead, abusive, or busy fighting the war. They are all also Child Soldiers, whether or not they have Elemental Powers, because the series takes place during a global war and they have to know how to fight to survive the hundreds of combat situations they're forced into. They also have to know how to fight since their ultimate goal is to end the hundred-year war, and because Fire Lord Ozai has made it clear he won't end his reign of terror on the world, they have no choice but to use violence to take him down.
• Designated Parents: Katara and Zuko fall into this role in book 3 as Team Mom and Team Dad respectively. Becomes most prominent in the season finale and things are getting increasingly dangerous.
• Dysfunction Junction: They all have fairly sad backstories thanks growing up in the midst of a war. Aang's entire people were wiped out and he wrestles with the pressure of being The Chosen One. Katara was forced to take on a parental role from a young age and is still consumed with grief over her mother's murder. Sokka struggles with insecurities over his lack of bending powers and being left behind when his father and the other men went off to fight. Zuko suffered horrific abuse from his father who punished him for showing anything resembling weakness or kindness. Toph's parents were relentlessly controlling, driving her to run away. Suki is probably the best off of the group - and even she's a Child Soldier forced to protect her people against the Fire Nation.
• Elite Four: The benders, in this case. By the end of the series, they're each definitive masters of their element, with power and skill rivaling the masters who taught them. This makes them some of the most dangerous benders in the world, and a very formidable fighting force.
• Family of Choice: Sokka and Katara tell Aang he's a part of their family from Season 1, and Toph, Zuko and Suki are all adopted in over the series. Their closeness isn't surprising given that most of their parents are absent or abusive, and they've all had to cope on their own from a young age.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: A couple iterations.
  • For the original trio in the first season, Sokka is the Fighter as the Badass Normal who uses a boomerang and club in combat, Katara is the Mage due to her waterbending powers which can be used for healing, and Aang is the Thief because airbending tactics are primarily built around evading an opponent and redirecting. By the finale Sokka and Aang have switched places due to Aang mastering more elements and Sokka's smarts coming into the forefront.
  • The girls in the latter half of Season 3: Toph is the Fighter as earthbending is about standing your ground with open and direct movements, Katara is the Mage again, and Suki is the Thief as the non-bender and Stealth Expert.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: In late Season 2 and early Season 3, Team Avatar formed this dynamic.
  • Aang is the Sanguine, being a fun-loving and optimistic goofball and having the most youthful and childlike disposition.
  • Katara is the Phlegmatic, being the thoughtful Team Mom and the most consistently levelheaded of the group.
  • Sokka is the Melancholic, being snarky The Strategist of the team and switching between being an Only Sane Man and Plucky Comic Relief.
  • Toph is the Choleric, the most rebellious and independent of the group, sarcastic and Brutally Honest.
• Free-Range Children: Deconstructed. A bunch of kids can travel around the world because, with the exception of a few characters, all of their parents are either dead or busy fighting the war. It doesn't help that every one of the kids is essentially a Child Soldier.
• Freudian Trio: The Gaang in the early seasons before Toph joined. Aang is the Id, before his Character Development he often acts like a hyperactive, mischievous kid with some Cloudcuckoolander tendencies (They traveled to Omashu because he wanted to take rides on the chute mail delivery system). Katara is the Ego as the sensitive Team Mom who keeps Aang grounded. Sokka is Superego, generally focused on more logical and practical courses of action.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: By the end of Book 3, Team Avatar consists of three girls (Katara, Toph, Suki) and three boys (Aang, Sokka, Zuko).
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: While hiding out in Zuko's summer home in Sozin's Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King, the crew finds the picture of a smiling baby and tease Zuko about it. But to their dismay, Zuko reveals it's not him — it's a picture of his abusive father. The gang is left baffled on how this innocent-looking boy became the warmongering madman they're now up against.
• Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: They often find themselves worrying about food or cash because Walking the Earth isn't exactly a job.
• It Will Never Catch On: See the page quote. Hilariously by the time of the sequel series, the new Avatar and her friends are proudly calling themselves "The New Team Avatar".
• La Résistance: The whole premise of their existence—one small group of kids rebelling against the Fire Nation. This is even more prominent in Book Three, by which time the Fire Nation has just about won the war.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Aang is the Feminine Boy to Toph's Masculine Girl. Toph is a bullheaded and casually violent brawler and former Professional Earthbender who is about Aang's (mental) age while Aang is an easygoing, energetic, and non-confrontational Martial Pacifist. Toph lampshades this in "The Ember Island Players," where Aang is played by a dainty female actor and herself by a large and bulky male actor. She doesn't really think there's anything wrong with it.
• Morality Pet: Aang and Katara keep each on the right path in tough times. When Aang unleashes divine wrath in times of emotional turmoil (i.e. learning he's the last airbender, Appa's kidnapping), Katara is there to give him Cooldown Hugs and stop his rampage. They switch roles when Katara becomes obsessed with killing her mother's murderer, and while Aang doesn't force her to stop, he does give her advise on the wrongness of revenge that keeps her on the right path.
• Multinational Team: By Season 3 they have representatives from all four nations - Katara and Sokka are from the Water Tribe, Toph and Suki are from different parts of the Earth Kingdom, Zuko is from the Fire Nation and Aang is an Air Nomad. Notably, they're the only complete multinational team in the series as there are no other Airbenders left.
• Official Couple: Sokka and Suki in Season 3. Aang and Katara by the end of the show.
• Parental Issues: Oh boy, all of them to a certain extent. Sokka and Katara's mother is dead and their father has been off fighting for years, Aang's Parental Substitute was killed by the Fire Nation, Zuko was horrifically abused by his father and sister and Toph ran away because her parents were so controlling. It's unconfirmed what happened to Suki's parents but they're never seen or mentioned.
• Perpetual Poverty: They just barely manage to scrape by, even when they're almost always hard up for money and supplies. Some episodes do focus on them trying to get money for supplies.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: All of the benders apply, though Toph and Aang to a greater extent than the others. They're all freakishly powerful and leagues better than people twice their age, but not one of them is a day over sixteen.
• Power Trio:
  • The original three members, Aang, Katara, and Sokka.
  • Aang, Zuko and Katara - the three most important characters of the story according to the creators. Zuko and Katara both share the role of deuteragonist (with Zuko being an antagonist at first) to Aang's protagonist. Zuko serves as the cynic, Aang the optimist and Katara the realist. Both Zuko and Katara also act as Team Dad and Team Mom respectively to the Kid Hero Aang and the rest of Team Avatar, making a classic The Hero, The Lancer, and The Heart trio by the end.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The responsibility of defeating the Fire Nation and saving the world rests entirely with a 12-year-old goofball of a Messiah and the various other children he picks up along the way. These include a fourteen year old untrained water-bender, a fifteen year old wannabe warrior, a twelve year old spoiled runaway earth-bender, the angsty banished prince of the enemy and Suki the face-painted Kyoshi Warrior.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: While the goal is to topple the Fire Lord, they do their hardest to make sure this is true, making sure they stay as principled as possible and to make a better future after they defeat the Fire Lord.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Katara and Sokka. She's optimistic, a victim of Chronic Hero Syndrome, and very emotional while he's cynical, a Heroic Neutral in helping others, and very logical.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Aang and Katara's cuddling and petnames give Sokka 'oogies' in The Promise and The Search.
• Supporting Leader: The team is rarely led by Aang, with The Leader role usually going to Sokka as The Strategist or sometimes Zuko in Season 3.
• Teacher/Student Romance:
  • Katara was Aang's (second and main) waterbending instructor and they became a couple in the series finale.
  • Suki was the first person outside of Sokka's family to teach him how to fight, and their chemistry was immediate.
• The Team:
  • Season 1 was a Power Trio with Two Guys and a Girl: The Hero Aang, The Heart Katara, and Sokka who wore the hats of The Lancer (a cynic to the others' optimism), The Big Guy (the muscle and most physical member) and The Smart Guy (making innovative use of tools).
  • In season two Toph joined the roster as the Big Guy (of the Pint-Sized Powerhouse variety), and Sokka's role shifted more heavily towards The Smart Guy (especially The Strategist as his leadership skills developed).
  • In season three Aang was The Hero, Zuko became The Lancer, Sokka was solidified as The Smart Guy, Toph and Katara retained their Big Guy and The Heart roles, and Suki joined as the Sixth Ranger. Also a rare case of The Smart Guy being The Leader, as Sokka became the field leader in combat.
• Teen Genius: Pretty much all of them. Aang was a bending master at twelve. Toph invents a bending style at the same age. Katara struggles at first, but after she's given proper tutelage under Master Pakku, becomes his greatest student. Sokka is smart enough to help invent submarines while mastering sword-fighting. Zuko, after learning from the dragons, becomes a definitive master and is able to duel his prodigy sister Azula on even ground—all in the space of two to three episodes, which is the same amount of time it took for Katara to become a competent waterbender.
• Token Trio: From a Water Tribe perspective, Sokka is majority male, Katara is majority female, Aang is minority male.
• Took a Level in Badass: Besides Aang becoming a fully realized Avatar, all of Team Avatar somehow leveled up in their skills by the series finale:
  • Katara became a fully fledged Waterbending Master, and learned Bloodbending.
  • Sokka became an inventor, strategist, and competent swordsman.
  • Toph invented Metalbending, and learned Sandbending.
  • Zuko learned Lightning Redirection, and alongside Aang learned true Firebending from the Dragons.
  • Suki became more skillful in unarmed combat, and eventually Chi Blocking.
• Town Girls: Katara (Femme), Suki (Neither), and Toph (Butch).
• True Companions: By the four-part series finale, they each consider one another like family.

Founding Members

Katara

Katara (卡塔拉)

Voiced by: Mae Whitman (English)^{Click to see other languages}Jessica Toledo (Latin American Spanish); Julia Kaufmann (season 1-2) and Tanja Schmitz (season 3) (German); Ilaria Latini (Italian);Joanna Pach (Polish); Sapir Darmon (Hebrew); Luisa Palomanes (Brazilian dub), Eva Marie Saint (The Legend of Korra), Sabrina Fest (Quest for Balance), Jessica Matten (Aang: The Last Airbender)

"I will never, EVER turn my back on people who need me!"

^{Click here to see her in her Season 1- 2 garb.}

A compassionate girl who is the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, Katara has accepted the responsibility of looking after her brother Sokka after their mother died and their father left to fight in the war. Despite her many hardships, she never lost faith that the Avatar would one day return to save the world. After finding Aang in the iceberg, Katara acts as the Team Mom while also being Aang's Waterbending teacher and love interest.

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• Achilles' Heel: Katara, while being one of the most powerful benders in the show, is extremely reliant on her waterbending, to the point of being helpless without it. This is mostly due to her Crippling Overspecialization, which makes her sole form of combat waterbending.
• Action Girl: In terms of combat skills, Katara started off as incompetent but as the series went on she graduated to Master Waterbender and developed the skills to back up the title.
• Action Survivor: At the start of the series, when she's only just growing into her bending and lacks Sokka's fighting skills to compensate. She starts to improve a lot after acquiring the waterbending scrolls; by the midpoint of season one she's regularly participating in the team's battles, and by the time the story reaches the North Pole she's evolved into a bonafide Action Hero.
• Adrenaline Makeover: Katara begins the series as the Team Mom, dressed practically in a parka, but as the series progresses and the seasons/latitude/climates change, she literally lets down her hair, and she goes from the frumpy parka to more action-oriented clothes with a slimmer fit and waterskins for ease of waterbending.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • Subverted. Katara liked Jet for his Robin Hood persona (though his bad boy-esque roguish aloofness seemed to help), but was very put off after learning of his "KILL ALL THE FIRE NATION AT ALL COSTS" attitude.
  • There's an instance in the episode "The Great Divide" where Aang tells the "true" story of Jin-Wei and Wei-Jin in order to have the two tribes make peace (which they do). However, once they're gone, Aang admits with a devilish smile on his face that he made the whole thing up just to get them to stop all the fighting, Katara notes "That is so wrong!"... with a very flirtatious look at Aang and in a voice that sounds kind of aroused. Maybe a little harmless rule-breaking does bend her element a little.
• All-Loving Hero: Downplayed. While Katara is an extremely compassionate person, willing to help anyone in need, and is against Jet's "everyone in the Fire Nation should die" attitude, she herself holds grudges longer than any of her friends, can be petty when significantly angered, and has come very close to the She Who Fights Monsters ideology.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: She can be this to Sokka, but not without good reason. Sokka admits this in The Search, but says that at least she's not as crazy as Azula.
• Badass Adorable: A cute 14-year-old. And an extremely skilled waterbender, naturally talented healer, one of the few strong enough to use Bloodbending.
• Badass Pacifist: In "The Desert" as Aang has become emotional and harsh after Appa's kidnapping, Sokka hallucinating over cactus juice, and Toph unable to see clearly in the sand, Katara uses all of her patience and sheer will to get them out of the desert and to safety.
• Badass Teacher: Katara becomes Aang's Waterbending teacher after season 1.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Bloodbending is a real bad thing, but Katara is on the side of the good guys.
• Battle Couple: With Aang in the comics that continue on from the series (since they don't hook up until the end).
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: In her Fire Nation disguise, she dons a midriff-baring top and skirt combo, while the more tomboyish Toph and all the boys wear shirts that cover their tops completely. This is also the case for her swimming attire.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: In addition to being a very pretty young girl, Katara is also a kind, loving soul who is deeply passionate about helping people in need.
• Betrayal Insurance: She warns Zuko that she's watching him in "The Western Air Temple" and he can't hope to use his charm or tragic backstory this time to weasel his way out if he betrays her or Aang again. Katara tells him that one slipup or hint that he'll be returning to Azula's side, and she will end him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Katara is the most reasonable and mature member of the team, always holding everybody together by managing their feelings, and is willing to give just about anybody they meet a chance. But if you hurt her friends, or god forbid betray her trust, she will hold a grudge that would rival all the hatred in the entire Fire Nation. While the rest of the gang may be wary around traitors like Jet and Zuko, Katara is the only one who will threaten to kill any of them before getting to "Hello." You can also skip the "threaten" part and go straight into the "killing" if Katara thinks she's dealing with the man who killed her mother.
• Blood Magic: During a full moon she can manipulate the water in peoples' blood to turn them into People Puppets, but those who use it are known to develop homicidal tendencies. Thankfully, she doesn't let bloodbending corrupt her, as seen by her being a loving and gentle grandmother in the sequel series.
• Blue Is Heroic: Wears blue like all Water Tribe members and is one of the main heroines of the series.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: Katara bonds emotionally with Haru and Zuko by sharing the experience of her mother's death.
• Braids of Action: In the first two seasons, Katara has her hair in a long braid and gradually becomes a fierce waterbending master.
• Break the Cutie:
  • The death of her mother haunted Katara for the rest of her life, as detailed in "The Southern Raiders."
  • Jet's betrayal in "Jet" as well as Zuko's betrayal and Aang's near-death in "The Crossroads of Destiny" greatly reduced Katara's naivete.
  • "The Puppetmaster" ends with Katara sobbing under the full moon, because she's given in to Hama and become a Bloodbender.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Does this to her own father, who asks for forgiveness and gets it.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: A mixed example. She has some of the best snarky one liners in the show, but couldn't spontaneously come up with a joke to save her or Aang and Toph's life in "Sokka's Master".
• Character Development: Katara turned from an eternally optimistic and sweet girl into someone much much more pragmatic and hardened by the difficulties of war, though she still maintained her positive and compassionate outlook.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Zigzagged with Aang. They met when he was 12 and she was 14, but Aang is technically older than her, as he was born 100 years earlier than her and only kept his youth because he was frozen in ice. Even so, they would later become an Official Couple, marry, and have three children.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: To the point where she sabotaged the mission to defeat Ozai by pretending Appa was sick so she could stay and help a village on a polluted river. States as much in that episode, "The Painted Lady":
  "No! I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me... I'm going down to the village. And I'm going to do whatever I can!"
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Downplayed. Katara may not be ridiculously jealous, but she shows a constant mild irritation at girls showing an interest in Aang.
• Combat Medic: A very capable healer in addition to her combat skills.
• Combat Tentacles: Used this fighting style with water a few time in Season 3 and in the Season 2 finale. She also taught Aang the "Octopus Form", which is basically a ring of multiple water tentacles situated around the user to allow maximum coverage.
• Commonality Connection: First starts to trust Zuko when they bond over their Missing Moms in Season 2, and they forge a proper friendship when he takes her to confront Kya's murderer in Season 3.
• Compressed Hair: Nowhere near as bad as some, but she keeps an elbow-length mane in that braid. It comes down as part of her Fire Nation disguise.
• Cool Big Sis: To Toph when she's not trying to be maternal. It worked in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se", but not so much in "The Runaway".
• Cosmic Motifs: The moon, being the source of a Waterbenders power and being credited as the original Waterbender.
• Costume Evolution: Gets a long, blue pair of fingerless gloves in Season 3. They also have a protective covering on them.
• Crippling Overspecialization: A bit too reliant on waterbending when it comes to fighting, to the point of almost never actually physically dodging incoming attacks and instead using water walls to neutralize them. Justified both in that her homeland didn't teach women to fight and that she spent the entirety of the show mastering and polishing her waterbending skills, and as such didn't have time to learn unarmed combat and weaponry.
• Cuddle Bug: Katara is usually the first member to offer hugs and other forms of reassuring gestures to those in need.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Katara manages to hold her own and impresses Master Pakku with her waterbending and fighting abilities, but she still has no real chance of defeating a true Master of the craft.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Along with Sokka — mother killed in a Fire Nation raid when they were little, and their father and all the men of the tribe left two years prior to the show's start. This left Katara with abandonment issues, and Sokka feeling that he wasn't good enough as a warrior. It catches up to them later on (Sokka risks his ass breaking into a Fire Nation prison, Katara has her dark night of the soul tracking down her mother's killer).
• Dark Shepherd: Threatens to kill Zuko should he ever have doubts about his loyalties again. Fortunately, for friendship's sake, the Fire Prince gains back her trust in "The Southern Raiders", and even when Zuko attacks Aang at the beginning of the finale, she never even considers that he's betraying them when she'd threatened him for it only a few episodes ago.
• Deadpan Snarker: Katara's normally The Comically Serious, but she's almost as witty as Sokka when she's pushed to it. For instance, when she was sleep-deprived and exhausted in "The Chase", she gets a few good ones at Toph, when she almost never does that for the rest of the series. In "The Waterbending Scroll", she snaps at Aang of all people out of sheer frustration and jealousy. And when she's still intensely angry at Zuko, she snarks at him several times in "The Firebending Masters". The only person she seems to be able to freely mouth off to any day, any time, is Sokka.
• Demoted to Satellite Love Interest: In the comics, she is really nothing but Aang's arm candy. The 'North and South' trilogy attempts to remedy this.
• Deuteragonist: Shares this role with Zuko. Katara gives the opening narration in every episode, is the anchor to the main protagonist, and goes through a character arc just as significant, if more subdued, as Zuko.
• Does Not Like Spam: Katara once stated that she hates papaya.
• Dude Magnet: Within two seasons, Aang and Jet have openly romanced Katara, while she's been ship teased with Zuko and Haru.
• Easily Forgiven: When she gets angry, she tends to be very cruel in her remarks, mocking Toph's blindness, telling Sokka he didn't love their mother as much as she did for not wanting to go on a suicide mission into the heart of the Fire Nation, shouting at Aang when he tried to help her with her waterbending, and taking advantage of Zuko's guilt-induced silence as an opportunity to repeatedly scorn him. Aside from the initial reactions of her target, these instances are never mentioned again and the characters continue on as if it hadn't happened.
• Elemental Motifs: Water, being the element of change, is fitting for someone who can switch between the soothing Team Mom off the battlefield and the deadly Lady of War on it.
• Elemental Personalities: As Iroh said, water is the element of change. It can be calm and peaceful like a river bank or harsh and violent like a tsunami, whatever is necessary in a given situation. Katara has two major sides to her character; she is the soothing and empathetic glue to the group, uplifting them when they're down and fully prepared to give a Rousing Speech. She's also a formidable fighter who's unapologetically passionate, dropping everything to defend the innocent even if it derails a mission. While she is kind, she can make some acutely sharp and hurtful comments. While she is loving, she can hold a huge grudge. Katara is a dynamic character with contradictions in her nature, just like her bending element.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Katara starts wearing her hair down from her trademark "hair loopies" as part of the Fire Nation and (probably because Aang said he liked it) kept it down after dropping the disguise. Though she DOES go back to the "hair loopies" style; she merely wears her hair down instead of in her massive braid.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones:
  • It’s true that Katara is an incredibly sweet girl who'll lend a hand to anyone in need, but she’ll hold a nasty grudge against you should you wrong her. Look at Jet, who almost wiped out an entire village of innocent people and manipulated Katara into believing him over her brother. The next time she saw him, the normally patient Katara switched into attack mode before he got a single word out. Better yet, look at Zuko, who Katara watched almost make a Heel–Face Turn promptly afterwards assist in the near-assassination of Aang. When Zuko joined Team Avatar, she made it crystal clear that should he make a switch back to villainy, she’ll kill him.
  • She hates Yon Rha, the Fire Nation general who killed her mother, and refers to him as a monster. When she finally finds him, she is fully prepared to impale him with dozens of icicles, and the only reason she doesn't is that after seeing how sad and pathetic he is in his current state, she decides that letting him live the way he is would be a Fate Worse than Death.
• Fanservice Pack: Katara goes on to expose more and more skin as the series progresses. In the first season, she wears a parka that covers everything up to her neck (justified, she comes from a place with very cold climate). In the last season, she wears a Fire Nation dress that leaves her arms, shoulders and midriff bare.
• Fatal Flaw: Katara is known to hold grudges to the point where she could kill someone, especially if she was betrayed or if her loved ones are put in danger. When she runs into Jet after he had betrayed her trust, she immediately attacks him. She flat out tells Zuko that if he gives her one reason to think he might try to hurt Aang, she will personally kill him. And when she confronted the man whom she believed killed her mother, she uses bloodbending on him, something she had previously refused to do and that would eventually come to violate international law. In short, mercy to the cruel is not one of her virtues.
• First Girl Wins: She's the first person Aang sees when he wakes up after being freed from the iceberg, and though their relationship has its ups and downs, they do fall in love by the end of the series. The Legend of Korra reveals that they later married and had three children before Aang died twenty years prior to the beginning of that series.
• First-Person Peripheral Narrator: Katara narrates the intro despite Aang being the protagonist. Downplayed in that Katara takes an active role in the story as one of the deuteragonists.
• Flanderization: A little. Season 3 paints her as The Comically Serious despite the fact that she gets several of the wittiest remarks throughout Seasons 1 and 2, playing up her motherly attributes. It could be that she's only capable of making fun of Sokka.
  Sokka: How do we put a lid on hot air?
  Katara: If only we knew...
• Foe-Tossing Charge: After Azula shoots Aang with lightning and is falling to the ground, Katara rides a gigantic wave over a swarm of Mooks to catch him.
• Foil:
  • To Azula. They're both 14-year old bending prodigies who lost their mothers at a young age, but the different environments in which they were raised put them on very different paths. Their relationships with their families highlight this ^note  Katara's relationships with Sokka and Hakoda have their ups-and-downs, but it's clear that the family does love each other. Azula, on the other hand, obsessively seeks her emotionally-abusive father's approval and views her brother Zuko as, at best, another pawn to manipulate , as does their final battle in the series being against each other.
  • With Zuko. They're masters of opposing elements, have been raised on opposite sides of the war, initially, Katara is Aang's main protector while Zuko's trying to capture him, and are each other's main opponents in combat. However, they're both shaped by losing their beloved mothers at a young age, are impulsive and driven by their emotions, have Chronic Hero Syndrome when it comes to protecting the vulnerable, become the Designated Parents of the Gaang and it's revealed Zuko's outward aggression hides a kind-hearted nature, while the normally caring Katara has a violent and ruthless side. They end the series fighting the Final Battle side by side and helping to end the war together.
• Force and Finesse:
  • The finesse to Zuko's force, being a Waterbender that uses graceful movements for varied options in combat on contrast to the Firebenders more straightforward and aggressive offense oriented style.
  • Is also the finesse to Toph's force, being a graceful Lady of War whose Waterbending is all about adapting and working with obstacles in contrast to the tomboy's preference for overwhelming physical force with her Earthbending.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The Phlegmatic. Katara is the most consistently levelheaded member of Team Avatar, caring for each member of her group and generally having a very kindhearted and patient personality.
• Friend to All Children: She had a soft spot for children. When aiding in baby Hope's birth, she stated that she helped her grandmother deliver many babies in their tribe, and in Jang Hui, she gave a portion of her food to a little boy. She even went as far as to care for and defend Tom-Tom, Mai's little brother, despite the fact that he was from the Fire Nation and that everyone else, with the exception of Aang, was distrustful of him for it.
• Genocide Survivor: After wiping out the Air Nomads, the Fire Nation launched a campaign to get rid of all the waterbenders in the Southern Water Tribe because the Avatar was expected to reincarnate as a waterbender. As a result, Katara is the only waterbender left in the entire South Pole. Throughout the first book, she struggles to learn waterbending on her own until she reaches the Northern Water Tribe and finds a teacher. In Book 3, she meets Hama, another waterbender from her tribe who had been captured many years ago, but managed to escape and start a new life in the Fire Nation. They bond over their shared culture and Katara is excited to learn the traditional southern style of waterbending from Hama. That is, until she learns that Hama has been using bloodbending to kidnap and imprison random Fire Nation citizens as revenge for what happened to her.
• The Gift: Katara is a naturally gifted Waterbender and, despite having no one to teach her for most of her life, was able to slowly learn how to use her bending on her own. After learning from Master Pakku at the Northern Water Tribe she quickly became his best student, with him even remarking that she has learned his techniques faster then any other student he has ever taught. Her talent is to good that, once she learns some formal techniques from a master, she quickly surpasses Aang as a Waterbender and is given the responsibility of being his permanent Waterbending teacher.
• Girly Bruiser: The most feminine of Team Avatar and after she Took a Level in Badass, the deadliest.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Motherly and feminine as she might be, Katara is not afraid to go beyond her feminine looks and way of being to achieve what she wanted. When she and Toph were denied entrance to a rowdy pub because the both of them were girls, they dressed up as boys. Katara, in particular, showed her masculine side when wanting to ride the pub's mechanized bull; being even willing to start an all-out brawl with some of the men there who mocked her ability to stay on the bull. The whole thing ended with Toph dragging Katara away before things came to a head. The two later went to a spa and reflected on how being a girl was not so bad at all.
• Go-Getter Girl: Becomes the first combat-trained female water bender in centuries among the Northern Water Tribe and levels up to Bending Master in just a few weeks.
• God Guise: Disguises herself as the Painted Lady, in order to attack a Fire Nation outpost and inspire the locals who used to look to the spirit as a patron and guardian. Though she's eventually exposed, the villagers forgive her. Unusually for this trope, she didn't need to fake any powers and just needed an outfit.
• Godiva Hair: Has this during her bathing scene in 3x7, "The Runaway", used in conjunction with just staying underwater.
• Good Is Not Soft: While Katara is normally quite trusting towards others upon first impressions and will try to help them in any way she can, she doesn't extend this out to those she knows are a threat to her friends, and the worst possible outcome for anyone on the receiving end of her wrath is that she will either go as far as killing or bloodbending you or hold a grudge against you for seemingly forever. The only ones who got lucky enough to get her trust back were her father and Zuko.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • A pretty big case in "The Waterbending Scroll", where she gets jealous of Aang learning Waterbending faster than her. It soon causes her to steal the titular scroll of the episode, but it lands her in trouble with Zuko and some pirates.
  • A mild case of this in "The Headband" and "The Warriors of Kyoshi", where she gets a little annoyed at a couple of girls flirting with Aang.
• Harmful to Minors: When she was little, she witnessed a man threatening her mother (and the implication of finding her corpse afterward).
• Heal It with Water: She spontaneously manifests the ability when she dips her burned hands in a stream and later trains up to become such a Combat Medic that she can use water from a sacred spring to basically bring someone Back from the Dead.
• Healing Hands: She has healing powers. Something to do with chi and the water in the body...let's just say "magic" and leave it at that.
• The Heart: Katara provides the anchor every member of Team Avatar needs and has a natural inclination to help people. This is best showcased in the episodes "Imprisoned" (where she gets herself captured to help her friend Haru and all the other Earthbenders on the ship get to freedom), "The Desert" (where she holds her entire team is incapacitated and she must use her patience and leadership to get them out of the desert),"Crossroads Of Destiny" (where she's willing to heal to scar of Zuko, who has been chasing them from the beginning of the series), and "The Painted Lady" (where she derails the mission of defeating the Fire Lord to help an impoverished Fire Nation village). She gets a vengeful streak in Season 3, aimed towards Zuko and her mother's killer, but she's still the most compassionate member of the team, encouraging Aang to get some rest in "Nightmares and Daydreams" and encouraging Zuko to join the group hug in "Sozin's Comet, Part 1 - The Phoenix King".
• Hyper-Awareness: Not quite to Sherlock Holmes levels, but Katara can be very observant. When Aang once invents an Unpronounceable Alias on the spot, she picks it up immediately and has no trouble seamlessly going along with it.
  Aang: (in disguise) Name's Bonzu Pipinpadalopsicopolis... the Third, and [Sokka and Katara] are my grandkids.
  Katara: (hesitates for just an instant, then smiles sweetly) Hi! June Pipinpadalopsicopolis. Nice to meet you.
• An Ice Person: Since she's a waterbender, Katara can turn liquid water into solid ice.
• Identical Granddaughter: She looks almost exactly like her grandmother, Kanna, did as a teenager.
• If You Ever Do Anything To Hurt Him: Says this to Zuko when he first joins the Gaang, with Aang being the hypothetical victim in question.
  "...then you won't have to worry about your 'destiny' anymore, because I'll make sure your destiny ends. Right then and there. Permanently."
• I'll Kill You!: Look at the quote above when she threatens Zuko.
• Improbable Hairstyle: She keeps up a pretty high-maintenance-looking hairstyle throughout all kinds of trials (although it does fall out of place during one duel).
• Innocent Blue Eyes: She has deep blue eyes, signifying her Water Tribe heritage and the general air of innocence and naïveté she has at the beginning of the story.
• Instant Expert: Katara goes from being so poor at waterbending that she accidentally freezes her brother to being one of the world's greatest waterbenders in one season to the point where she is entrusted with training the Avatar. She did this in under 4 months ^note She starts learn waterbending from a scroll after the winter solstice, achieves mastery under Pakku at the end of Season 1. We learn it's spring in Season 2., while Waterbending is described as something that can take years to master. Further, she and Aang spent the same amount of time training with Pakku, and by the end she was qualified to complete Aang's training on the go as his master rather than just a training partner. It's implied that she has always had a lot of innate talent as a waterbender, but since she was the only one left in her tribe, there was no one to teach her how to use her skills properly.
• Irony: Despite being one of the more compassionate members of the group, Katara was one of the least willing to let go of a grudge, especially against those who she felt had betrayed her trust.
• It's All About Me: Rarely, but when she gets angry she tends to dip into this. Most notably at the North Pole when she challenged Pakku to a fight after he insulted her and in "The Southern Raiders".
• Jerkass Ball: Katara was not a stranger to this trope in the earlier Books, but she holds it most often in Book 3. She has a meaner disposition at times and lets her emotions get the best of her, culminating in her telling Sokka that he didn't love their mother as much as she did when he tries convincing her not to go after their mother's murderer. Her treatment of Zuko, while slightly justified due to his initial failure to pull a Heel–Face Turn in the second season finale, is still rather nasty and blatantly mean-spirited. She begins to recover after confronting her mother's murderer, including forgiving Zuko.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Her not trusting Zuko in Book 3 would be meaner if not for the fact that all her points were legitimate:
  • Katara tells the Gaang in private that Zuko is a person that makes you reveal your vulnerable side, and then takes advantage of it to ambush you. In fact, that's what happened when they were locked in the Dai Li prisons and when he betrayed her in favor of Azula. She says that they can't trust him since he used her weakness to help Azula conquer Ba Sing Se, and more than one person paid the price. Sokka agrees with her on this one, recounting that this is the same brat that would have burned down their village to get his hands on Aang.
  • Toph says that Zuko's not that bad considering how messed up his upbringing was. Katara sarcastically responds, "Sure, let's go find him and give him a medal: the Not-As-Much-A-Jerk-As-You-Could-Have-Been Award!" While Toph is arguing that for pragmatic reasons, she can't refute that remark.
  • Zuko asks Katara why she's being hostile to him after everyone has started to trust him. While they're on the run from Azula, who is chasing them because Zuko helped initiate a jailbreak from the Boiling Rock and was gunning to murder him. Katara reminds him that it's his fault they're on the run in the first place because he allowed Azula to complete her coup in Ba Sing Se, betraying Katara when she was the first to trust him. Zuko is in Stunned Silence for a moment, before he meekly asks how he can make it up to her.
• Jerkass Realization: In "The Waterbending Scroll", she jealously snaps at Aang when he bests he at waterbending, driving him to tears. Thankfully, she quickly realizes her mistake and apologizes.
• Kid with the Leash: Aang's Avatar State is essentially a natural disaster. But as it retains Aang's heart, she can walk right up to him during one of his panic attacks and administer a Cooldown Hug to shut it down. Notable in that she hates the damn thing, as it's essentially an outpouring of all the pain and loss he's suffered over the course of his life.
• Lady of War: While she's not on the same level as Mai or Suki, Katara is a formidable fighter that tries to maintain an air of grace and poise both on and off the battlefield.
• The Lancer: Shared this position with Sokka towards Aang in the first season. She later becomes The Lancer to Zuko after Aang disappears in the finale.
• Letting Her Hair Down: In Season 3, she unbinds her nearly-unnoticeable elbow-length braid into an elbow-length mane as part of her Fire Nation disguise. Even after dropping the disguise, she leaves it down.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Katara and Azula, respectively. Katara is the gentle and kindhearted caretaker of her group, representing the wife archetype of The Three Faces of Eve. Meanwhile Azula is more of the seductress archetype, being great at manipulating people, valuing perfection, and maintaining an aura of grace and poise.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: She's the quadratic wizard, Sokka is the linear warrior. Except Sokka is also The Strategist...
• Living Emotional Crutch:
  • Shares this role with Appa for Aang. In regard to the latter, she gives him hope for the future.
  • "The Runaway" has Katara also being this to Sokka, and, to an extent, Toph.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: She has the longest hair of Team Avatar, reaching down to her waist when let down. She is also the most motherly, nurturing and feminine of the cast — in addition to being the Love Interest.
• Love Revelation Epiphany: An indirect example. Aunt Wu mentions Katara's future husband would be a "powerful bender". After Aang saves Makapu Village, Sokka states how much of a powerful bender the young Avatar is. At the mention of this, Katara has some sort of realization that Aang could be her future husband in Aunt Wu's prophecy. She turns out to be right.
• Lunacy: Like all waterbenders, her powers are fueled by the moon.
• Mage Born of Muggles: Katara is the only waterbender in her non-bending family, and the first one born into the Southern Water Tribe in generations.
• Making a Splash: She's a waterbender, so she can telekinetically control water, and even turn it back and forth into ice and mist/fog, and it grants her Healing Hands. She joins every battle against the enemies once she mastered her bending skills.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Wow. Ship Tease to the max, mixed with an equal amount of Team Mom. This confusion and ambiguity probably stems from the original plans in the I.P. Bible; Aang and Katara's relationship was never part of the initial proposal, but evolved as the series was produced. Notably, Aang approved of (and perhaps even shared) Katara's infatuation with Jet, as opposed to his later jealousy of Zuko.
  • She suggested kissing as a way to escape "The Cave of Two Lovers", but both are too embarrassed to discuss it afterwards.
  • She and Aang have a sweaty Mating Dance (complete with bedroom eyes and ending in a dip) in "The Headband", but again, both Cannot Spit It Out.
  • She passively accepts a Now or Never Kiss from Aang (and is left with a Luminescent Blush) in "The Day of Black Sun, Part 1: The Invasion", but she avoids the topic when he brings it up in the "Love is a Battlefield" comic.
  • She tells him she's confused in "The Ember Island Players", but then at the very end of "Sozin's Comet, Part: Avatar Aang" Katara initiates a passionate kiss on Aang with no explanation since the last conversation they had before this was an argument.
• Mature Younger Sibling: She's generally a lot more serious, motherly and authoritative compared to Sokka, who starts off the series as a childish goof. Sokka even comments that her Team Mom role in his life since their mother died has gotten to such a point that he can only recall Katara's face in place of his mother's.
• The McCoy: The most willing to go out of her way to help people, even at the expense of the primary mission at hand, contrast to Sokka's more grounded view of the matter.
• Meaningful Name:
  • In Arabic, Katara means "water droplet."
  • A cataract is a section of river.
  • The alias she uses in the Fire Nation, Sapphire Fire, makes sense, since one imagines her parents could easily have given her that name for her sapphire-like blue eyes (which are rare in that country). It might also be a case of Refuge in Audacity, since it deliberately draws attention to her unusual (for the Fire Nation) racial type.
• Moral Myopia: She's appalled at Jet's vengeful resentment towards the Fire Nation as a whole, but develops similar urges with regards to the Fire Nation's officers, especially Zuko. Fortunately, she stops herself from crossing the line when she confronts her mother's true killer and forgives Zuko.
• More Deadly Than the Male: She has shades of this. While she doesn't have the raw power of Aang, and she and Zuko are equals in terms of bending power, she can be downright terrifying when angry. Most notable when she's on the receiving end of chauvinistic comments (things tend to break around her) and when hunting for her mother's killer (where she used bloodbending).
• Ms. Fanservice: Downplayed, but Katara is one of the prettiest girls in the series, and literally exposes more of herself as the series progresses (see Fanservice Pack).
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • In "The Waterbending Scroll", after she yells at Aang for being better at Waterbending, she sees him start to cry and immediately apologizes.
  • This happens again in "The Southern Raiders" when she and Zuko are looking for her mother's murderer. When they look on a Fire Nation vessel, she eventually comes to the assumption that the captain is the one who killed her mother, and when she confronts him, she BLOODBENDS him — something she would have outright refused to do to anyone else no matter how much she hated them.
• Nepotism: Essentially why Pakku eventually agreed to teach her waterbending. She performed admirably after she challenged him to a duel, but Pakku still refused to teach her until he found out her grandmother was Kanna. Sure enough, he started to recall why Kanna left in the first world place, and didn’t want to repeat the mistake again.
• Nice Girl: Even with her low points (e.g. occasional hot temper and a tendency to act self-righteous), Katara is generally a warm, kind, mature, caring, compassionate, nurturing and encouraging person with a fierce determination to aid others and a great sense of morality.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Of the three girls who become part of Team Avatar, she's the "Nice" to Toph's "Mean" and Suki's "In-Between". Katara is the most kind-hearted and affectionate of the main female characters, acting as The Heart of Team Avatar and showing an almost limitless amount of compassion for anyone else in need of help.
• Oblivious to Love: Aang had a crush on her from the word "Go", but she didn't notice it for awhile. Not even after she had something of a Love Revelation Epiphany in "The Fortuneteller" did she seem to catch on that Aang had eyes for her. When she does find out thanks to a Now or Never Kiss, it leaves her super-confused for (almost) the rest of the series.
• Only Sane Woman: For most of the series, Aang is learning to embrace his responsibilities as the Avatar and on occasions lets his more childish tendencies get the better of him, while Toph is a rude, rebellious and snarky Boisterous Bruiser, and Zuko spends most of his time being ill-tempered and angsting over his problems. Even Sokka, who acts as the "Idea Guy" of the group and is quite commonsensical when it comes to focusing on the long-term goal, has a few visible vices of his own — at his worst, he can slip into Insufferable Genius territory, and due to being the Plucky Comic Relief of the group, he also has a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander side, and not to mention the fact that he starts off early on in Book 1 as a somewhat bigheaded chauvinist. While Katara isn't perfect herself, she's usually a fairly sensible and levelheaded girl who tries to take things into account before making a decision. Her status as the Team Mom of the group often involves her trying to keep her friends grounded and preventing them from coming to blows with one another.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Since they first met, Katara has been Aang's main defender and very loyal to him. But, when the young Avatar revealed he kept the message of where her and Sokka's father was, she leaves Aang to go with Sokka to find their father. Really shows how hurt and disappointed she was of Aang's betrayal.
  • Katara is normally a compassionate and friendly young woman who would never harm someone unless provoked. So, her giving a cold death threat to a newly reformed Zuko shows how much she's hurt over his betrayal in the season 2 finale and that she doesn't trust him.
  • If you see her bloodbending, she's far more vengeful than she usually is. It’s stated that people who practice blood bending develop homicidal tendencies.
• The Paragon: She is considered one in giving others hope and inspiration. In one instance, she inspires earthbender prisoners to stand up against their Fire Nation oppressors. In another instance, she helps a fishing village in the Fire Nation that suffers pollution and abuse from military officers in order to encourage them to fend for themselves.
• Parental Substitute: To Aang, who lost his people and father-figure in the Air Nomad genocide. Toph admits that she views Katara, only a few years older than her, as a mother figure, as Toph's own parents weren't particularly good. Even Katara's older brother Sokka expresses the same emotions.
• Parenting the Boyfriend: Alternates between a Ship Tease with Aang and mothering him.
• Platonic Life-Partners: By the end of the series, she and Zuko have this in spades, to the point where some, such as June, accuse them of being romantically involved. Both of them typically back each other up on two-man missions (such as Katara's hunt for her mother's killer and the plan to defeat Azula) and fully trust each other with their lives.
• Plucky Girl: Oh so much, especially in Season 1. She does take a level in cynic as the story progresses, but Katara retains her determination and optimistic outlook throughout the series.
• Princess for a Day: In one of the later second-season episodes, she poses as an Earth Kingdom noblewoman so she can attend the royal ball and (hopefully) speak to the Earth King.
• Promotion to Parent: After her mother died, Katara took on this sort of role in looking after her family. It's also gotten to the point where Sokka has trouble remembering his actual mother, since Katara has replaced his mental picture of motherhood.
• Raised by Grandparents: Downplayed. Her father and mother were present in her life but both were gone due to different reasons by the time she was still a litle girl. Her mother was killed and her father went to fight against the Fire Nation. As such, Katara and her brother were left in the care of their paternal grandmother.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She has this dynamic with almost every other member of Team Avatar, generally as the Blue Oni:
  • Like Aang, she is generally a friendly, kind and positive-minded person who is welcoming towards strangers and cares greatly about helping them. However, she's definitely far more level-headed and mature than he is, and not as naive and energetic. If ever Aang starts acting excessively childishly or irrationally, Katara is normally the one to put him back on the right track and have him approach the situation in a more sensible way.
  • Right down to their colour schemes, this dynamic is also present with her and Zuko. Katara is normally a calm, gentle, patient and optimistic person who only gets angry if the situation is appropriate, and has the graceful and elegant style associated with waterbending. Zuko, on the other hand, is more abrasive and pessimistic, spends the vast majority of the series in near-perpetual violent anger, with only a few sparse gentle moments in-between, and is a firebender, an occupation known for its raw, headstrong and aggressive movements.
  • Zig-zagged with Sokka. In most casual situations, she's the sensible, serious Team Mom, always trying to keep everyone from going out of control, while he spends much of the time being the hammy, zany comic relief of the group. In regards to focusing on the mission, however, Sokka tends to fixate more on the long-term goal and tries not to distract himself with too many side-quests, while Katara is more prone to letting her Chronic Hero Syndrome get the better of her and jumping into help others even if they aren't directedly related to the primary mission.
  • Alongside sharing the Tomboy and Girly Girl dynamic, she and Toph also fit here. Katara is polite, gentle and soft-spoken, always provides her friends and others with loving encouragement, and has a poised and refined fighting style, while Toph is rude, loud, boisterous and sarcastic, frequently being brutally honest with her friends and always ready to harshly criticise them whenever she thinks they're behaving irrationally, and has a fighting style which is more boorish and direct.
• Rejected Apology: No matter how sorry her mother's killer was, she brutally tells him that she will never forgive him for that, leaving him living with his guilt forever.
• The Resenter: To Aang's talent in waterbending before learning from Pakku.
• Revenge: Wants revenge towards her mother's killer. She gets a chance at it, but decides he's not worth it.
• Sarashi: Part of her swimwear.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Not that she isn't unattractive or not groomed normally but anytime she dresses up (like "City of Walls and Secrets") or even dons a simple fish line necklace, you can expect Love Bubbles and a Luminescent Blush from Aang.
• She Who Fights Monsters: She show early signs of this through her treatment of Zuko in mid-Season 3 when he joins her and her friends, from threatening to personally execute him for betraying them again in the future once he first joins to using him as an outlet to vent out her heated anger towards the Fire Nation, who caused her so much pain in her life. This comes to a head when she confronts the man who murdered her mother, and considers skewering him with a rain of icicles.
• Shipper on Deck: She seems to ship her brother with Suki, if her smile when Sokka asks about Suki's whereabouts while on Kyoshi Island during Avatar's Day" is any indication. She also smiles and call them cute when they kiss during their reunion in "Imbalance".
• Sibling Rivalry: Averted. Katara and Sokka have one of the most consistent relationships in the series due to years of growing up with each other and coping with the same losses. As such, while they'll occasionally butt heads (as most siblings do), they never seem to be in a competition with one another. Their most notable arguments tend to be over what roles of men and women should be and over who is supposed to do what task. Compare this to to Zuko and Azula's violent, dysfunctional power struggle.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: In season 1 and 2, Katara wears typical Water Tribe clothing that also represent her naivete to the outside world. By the third season, she's now wearing pants and boots, to symbolize her growing skill and knowledge.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: While there was an episode in Season 1 in which Katara was attracted to the thuggish Jet, she quickly realized her mistake at the end of the episode. She crushed on Haru, who helped his father fight the Fire Nation. The rest of the series then proceeds to develop her relationship with Aang. Naturally, they end up together in the end.
• Sole Survivor: At the start of the series she was the only Waterbender left in the Southern Water Tribe as everyone else had either been captured or killed during various Fire Nation raids over the years.
• Sour Supporter: Mid Book 3. She's really not very happy with Zuko when he tries to join the Gaang, and watches him as Betrayal Insurance. Justified by Zuko's past in the Avatar hunting business and his betrayal at the end of Book 2.
• Species Surname: Used for an alias. When infiltrating the Fire Nation, Sokka and Katara pose as the native-born citizen Wang Fire and his wife Sapphire.
• Squishy Wizard: Katara is a waterbending master, but she's defenseless without her waterbending and very easy to physically overpower.
• Stone Wall: Waterbending is mainly a defensive art, so she is mostly this. That said, she has taken some pointers from watching Toph and Aang earthbend, and has adopted earthbending poses in conjunction with her waterbending for more offensive techniques.
• Tareme Eyes: She has round eyes.
• Team Mom: Katara had to fill in the place of her mother after Kya was killed by the Fire Nation. As such, she acts as a nurturing, soothing figure for all of Team Avatar - even towards Zuko, though to a far lesser extent than the others.
• Tears of Joy: At the end of "The Serpent's Pass" after Hope is born, Aang goes out of Heroic Safe Mode and tells her that seeing so much love between Hope and her parents reminded him of how great his love for both Appa and Katara is. Upon hearing this, Katara is so happy that she cries.
• Teen Genius: When it comes to waterbending, she can master, in a year, techniques that take others years to learn. This ends up making her Aang's Waterbending Master by the time Book 2 comes around.
• To Be a Master: Her goal throughout the first book is to master Waterbending, in which she succeeds.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Katara's role as the Team Mom and Lady of War fighting tactics mean that she often clashes with Toph's more laid-back, One of the Guys mannerisms.
  • Earlier, in season one, Katara is eager to learn how to fight, frustrated that only men are expected to be warriors. Yue, on the other hand, is the well-mannered and refined princess of the Northern Water Tribe.
• Took a Level in Badass: After she gets some training from Pakku, she becomes good enough in a fight to hold off multiple Dai Li agents, Azula, and many others. Her (forced) training by Hama to bloodbend only makes her even more lethal (although she tries to avoid going for the kill unless she can't avoid it or she thinks the person she's targeting is deserving).
• Took a Level in Cynic: Katara spends the first two seasons giving inspirational speeches about hope and love. After "The Crossroads of Destiny," Katara loses a lot of her initial naiveté and becomes more pragmatic with strangers, and when Zuko is finally accepted onto Team Avatar after being initially rejected, she gives him a rather unsettling death threat.
• Town Girls: After Suki joins the team, she becomes the Femme (Lady of War, and Team Mom), for Toph's Butch (The Lad-ette, and One Ofthe Boys) and Suki's Neither (a Nice Girl, but not stop being a Kyoshi warrior).
• Tragic Keepsake: Her necklace is her only memento of her deceased mother.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Is a firm believer in this, and is the one member of the Gaang most likely to take any form of betrayal the hardest. She attacked Jet on sight when they met again in "Lake Laogai," and is the last of Team Avatar to accept Zuko's Heel–Face Turn.
• True Blue Femininity: Wears blue Water Tribe clothing throughout the first two seasons and can manipulate the very blue force of water. As noted throughout this trope page, Katara is an extermely girly and maternal character.
• Tsundere: She acts as a Type B (deredere). Oddly enough she acts like a typical type A to Zuko (hatred followed by friendship) but he's not her love interest. It's downplayed in the third season when her real love interest, Aang, wants to start a relationship.
• Undying Loyalty: Katara is always going to be by Aang's side, even threatening a newly reformed Zuko that she will kill him if she thinks he'll hurt Aang.
• Uptown Girl: Zigzagged. She's from the Water Tribe which hasn't been doing well and are considered peasants while Aang is the Avatar, a position possibly beyond royalty. However, since Katara is the daughter of the Southern Water Tribe Chief, that makes her a princess.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: If you try to hurt Aang, she'll do whatever it takes to stop you. If she even thinks you might hurt Aang, that's enough to get you a menacing death threat.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Katara's maternal and group-oriented personality often clashes violently with Toph's rebellious and independent one. Despite this, Katara cares a lot for Toph and Toph appreciates Katara's genuine kindness.
• Water Is Womanly: The only waterbender in Team Avatar as well as the most feminine member, using her waterbending to heal as well as being the caring Team Mom.
• We Help the Helpless: She stands strong by this belief. She will never leave behind those in need, as shown in The Painted Lady.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Particularly during the first season. She becomes more prone to anger and violence as the series goes on but retains quite a lot of her natural idealism.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: From a very young age, she has had to act as a mother to her family and her brother, and her actions and reactions throughout the series reflect this very strongly. Though she occasionally has "childish" instances (half the time just to make a point), the series treats her as the group's mother figure and caretaker. Take this dialogue from the very first episode (and considering Katara's background, that line becomes particularly poignant and bittersweet):
  Katara: (while penguin sledding) I haven't done this since I was a kid!
  Aang: You still are a kid!
• Woman Scorned: Katara does not take any kindly to being betrayed by her love interests. Just ask Jet who got an ass whooping and ended up frozen in ice against a tree and abandoned for lying to her.
• World's Best Warrior:
  • Iroh, who is probably on top of the list of the strongest non-Avatar benders in the original series, himself considers that Katara is the best bender of her generation, and considering her talents and skills, she more than earned that title. She starts off as having already achieved a passable degree of mastery over waterbending despite having no teacher due to the Southern Water Tribe's masters having either been killed or captured by the Fire Nation long before her birth, was good enough to pass on some of those skills to Aang, and through her sheer talent and grit, she was able to master every technique contained inside a lost waterbending scroll to where she was able to put up a fight against Paaku, the foremost waterbender in the Northern Water Tribe. Within just the few time she and her team were able to spend on the Northern Water Tribe, she became a full-fledged waterbending master, who casually took out dozens of Royal Earthbending Guards and even managed to single-handedly reach Aang while knocking down Zuko and an entire group of Dai Li agents to ultimately escape with the Avatar once Iroh came to her aid. After having less than a day to master what Hama, a much older, seasoned waterbending master who came from the Southern Water Tribe, had to teach her, Katara not only managed to curb-stomp her, but was able to restrain the controlled Aang and Sokka within moments before she used Hama's own technique of Bloodbending to subdue her.
  • She repeatedly managed to take out dozens of Fire Nation soldiers without breaking a sweat, not only while fighting alongside her friends, but also, at one point, single-handedly taking out an entire ship of the Fire Nation, even if she did the latter with the help of the full moon. Most notably, Katara is the only person to ever defeat Azula in a fair fight, which is no easy feat, considering that Azula has defeated Aang when he had Airbending, Waterbending, and Earthbending, and even Zuko at his full potential was only ever able to fight her to a draw: In their first fight, she had Azula on the ropes and was moments away from beating her until Zuko interfered, and in their second fight, despite Azula having the Sozin's Comet on her side, Katara was able to fight back against Azula's much superior power with just pure skill and ultimately outsmart her to restrain her. Note that even Azula herself seems to begrudgingly acknowledge Katara's skill, even if she did it while ranting to her mother, which speaks volumes considering she's never vocally expressed respect for anyone aside from her father.
• You Go, Girl!: Of the second variety. Sort of. While she lost to Pakku in their duel, she managed to impress him...just not enough to make him change his mind...until he learns that Katara's grandmother is actually his long-lost love.
• You Killed My Mother: To the retired Fire Nation commander that killed her mother ten years previous under the impression that she was a Waterbender. Though she elects not to kill him.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: When Hama complimented her use of Bloodbending in "The Puppetmaster".

Tropes that apply to her in The Legend of Korra

"The mind can be a powerful ally, or your greatest enemy."

Widow to Avatar Aang, Katara is a master waterbender. She directly helped to win the Hundred Year War of the original series and maintained peace afterwards. A native to the Southern Water Tribe, she personally oversaw Korra's training, and developed a strong bond with her. She sees a lot of herself reflected in the young Avatar and encourages her to start her journey to Republic City.

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• Babies Ever After: Had three children with Aang in between the Time Skip.
• Back for the Finale:
  • Katara comes back for the Book 1 finale to examine Korra after Korra was debended.
  • She comes back in the Book 2 finale to take care of Jinora while her spirit is trapped in the Spirit World.
  • Strangely, she doesn't appear in the Book 3 finale, even though her granddaughter's master airbender ceremony and Korra's terrible ordeal would be two very good reasons to have her show up. That is saved for Book 4, allowing them to dedicate more attention to it.
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Wears the beaded bun and braids of her youth, and a large, patterned parka.
• Cool Old Lady: The only member of the White Lotus who seems to respect Korra's wishes and needs.
• Doting Grandparent: Katara has a loving relationship with her grandchildren Jinora, Ikki, Meelo, and Rohan, who refer to her as Gran-Gran. All of the children, sans an unborn Rohan, were happy and excited to visit their grandmother at the South Pole, especially Jinora, who stated that she had been reading all about Katara's old adventures. Katara was happy to see them too, smiling enthusiastically when they were talking to her. She is also this to Korra, having overseen her training for her entire life and understanding what she really needs (even if she is her late husband reincarnated).
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Toph mentions that like her, Katara's too old to get involved in the fighting too much - both have significant raw power (demonstrated by Toph, implied with Katara), but they lack the stamina to take part in a prolonged fight, which is why Katara stayed out of the Water Tribe Civil War.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Katara wears her hair in the fashion of her youth, only slightly modified.
• Iconic Item: Still wears her mother's necklace well into old age.
• Identical Granddaughter: Katara looks much like her own grandmother in her advanced age.
• I Was Quite the Looker: A bit of a variation in that she never says it, but we knew because we watched the original show. We also do see what she looked like when she was an adult through photographs that her family has.
• The Medic: She's described as the best waterbender healer in the world, and thanks to her advanced age, this is her main contribution to the Water Tribe Civil War.
• Mentor Archetype: She is Korra's Waterbending master. She also had a close personal relationship with Korra and didn't believe her student had to be locked away for her own good, unlike the other White Lotus members.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Has grown much shorter than in her youth.
• Neutral Female: She never fights and instead sits on the sidelines. She doesn't get involved in the Water Tribe Civil War or even stop her children from arguing - though in the latter case, she encourages them to spend more time together and make up. They are, after all, all at least in their 50s at this point.
• Older and Wiser: She was one of main characters from the first series, and she's gotten much more laid-back and less up-tight in her old age. She's a member of the White Lotus and was one of Korra's teachers before Korra left for Republic City.
• Old Master: An ancient member of the Order of the White Lotus, she wears a pendant to mark her status as one of the most powerful benders in the world.
• Passing the Torch: Katara knows full well Korra can never be and must not be who Aang was as an Avatar. Korra must become the Avatar of this era to help shape and guide the world through changing times.
  Katara: Aang's time has passed. My brother and many of my friends are gone. It's time for you and your generation to take on the responsibility of keeping peace and balance in the world. But I think you're going to be a great Avatar. Goodbye, Korra.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She is less stringent with Korra's training than the White Lotus, and sends Korra on her way with a farewell embrace when she tries to steal away in the night.
• Refusal of the Second Call: Despite being The Heart of the original series, she is not involved in the dispute between the Water Tribes that took place in the city where she was living and ended up causing a civil war.
• Retired Badass: One of the main reasons Katara didn't partake in the Water Tribe Civil War is because of her old age.
• Seen It All: While everyone else was amazed at Korra's feat of re-bending Lin, Katara just smiled warmly like she knew better.
• Stepford Smiler: She usually appears calm and happy but is still hurting badly from the loss of her brother and her family hardly seeing her anymore.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: She doesn't appear at all in Book 3 which includes participating in her own granddaughter's mastery ceremony. The closest she got to appearing in there is by a brief mentioning by Bumi. She does, however, reappear in Book 4.
• World's Strongest Woman: Much like Toph, Katara is all but explicitly the most powerful Waterbender alive, and is likely one of the most powerful benders in the world (alongside Zuko and Toph). The only thing stopping her and the rest of the original team from being more active is their advanced age.

Sokka

Sokka (索卡)

Voiced by: Jack DeSena (English)^{Click to see other languages}Sergio Aliaga (Latin American Spanish), David Turba (German), Corrado Conforti (Italian),Jonasz Tołopiło (Polish seasons 1-2), Filip Kowalczyk (Polish season 3) , Um Sang-hyun (Korean), Assaf Avidan (Hebrew season 1), Daniel Magon (Hebrew seasons 2-3), Caio César (Brazilian Portuguese) Chris Hardwick (The Legend of Korra), Roman Zaragoza (Aang: The Last Airbender)

"I'm just a guy with a boomerang... I didn't ask for all this flying, and magic..."

Katara's older brother, Sokka took it upon himself to protect the Southern Water Tribe. As a fairly serious non-bending warrior, Sokka is often irritated by the more mystical and nonsensical aspects of the world of Avatar. Nonetheless, he makes up for it by being the team's "idea guy." And besides, where would the Gaang be without his comic relief and BOOMERANG!?

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His sword is made of some sort of crazy space metal. It can cleanly slice both stone and metal without having much weight put behind its strikes, including while being thrown.
• Action Hero: By Book 3, after Piandao's training, Sokka definitely Took a Level in Badass and becomes this.
• Adrenaline Makeover: Compare Sokka's first season look◊ to his third season look.◊
• Agent Scully: Despite the fact that he lives in a world with Avatars and spirits and magic bending, he still tries to find a scientific explanation for everything. He accepts the bending and the spirits eventually, though he was freaked out when first encountering them. Still, he prefers to find a mundane way to explain happenings without trying to invoke the mystic until its involvement becomes directly evident.
• All for Nothing: Sokka planned the Invasion of the Black Sun as a change of plans instead of Aang learning all the elements, but that didn't turn well as not only Ozai wasn't in the room they were trying to find, but also got some of their allies arrested when the invasion happened (though they were able to rescue some of them before Sozin's Comet arrived and the rest of the troops were released after Ozai's defeat. The worst that came from discovering the solar esclipse was with Wan Shi Tong. Because Zhao tried using Tong's library for evil, this soured his relationship with humans, and when Sokka wanted to use the eclipse to stop the Fire Nation, it made it worse for Tong, which made him sheltered his library for any human to use. Not only that, but this would bite Aang's successor Korra later as her uncle Unalaq wanted to unleash Vaatu.
• Amazon Chaser: Sokka seems attracted to Suki in part because she's such an excellent fighter.
  Hakoda: [after Suki takes Boiling Rock's warden captive] That's some girl!
  Sokka: [lovestruck grin] Tell me about it!
• Animal Motifs: The Wolf. He's a cunning planner and wears a wolf helmet briefly during season 3. His main hairstyle is called "Warrior's Wolftail". Also, when Bato unknowingly helped Sokka (and Katara) return to Aang, it was because they heard a wolf who had been separated by its' pack.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Sokka remains skeptical in a world of magic and spirits, even after his first girlfriend turned into a spirit. The second season episode "The Swamp" is one good example, in which he refuses to believe that the swamp called forth spirits. When Katara points out that Aang has contacted spirits regularly (and he was once kidnapped by one and stuck in the spirit world), he dismisses it with "That's Avatar stuff; it doesn't count."
• Badass Normal: The only non-bender of his friends (except for Suki), but makes up for it with his brains and swordsmanship.
  • While his technical know-how and clever planning tend to get the job done, Sokka also knows how to throw down. While still being a teenager, at 16 he is still the most physically capable person in the group before Suki comes along. Case in point, he holds off two pirates at once, with one of them in a double leg bar before getting thrown off. Then he knocks another pirate right off the boat they're on—all without any weapon.
• Badass Bookworm: A talented and clever swordsman with an knack for ingenuity in both inventions and battle plans.
• Battle Boomerang: Sokka uses his trusty boomerang and he's devastated when he loses it in the series finale. He later adopts to using a sword.
• Battle Couple: With Suki towards the end of Book 3.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He may be a goofball most of the time, but he's ruthless when it comes to taking down the Gaang's opponents and is the brains behind the team. As the key strategist, he defeated the Fire Nation's attack on the Northern Air Temple, leads the invasion in the Day of the Black Sun and takes out the Fire Nation's entire airship fleet in the finale.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • If you harm his sister, he WILL hurt you — even if it was just an accident. When Aang tried Firebending and accidentally burned Katara's hands as a result, Sokka tackled him and chewed him out. Don't publicly vilify her, either. Sokka will defend her actions, even if he just spent an entire episode criticizing them.
  • Milder example towards Aang himself, though it takes him awhile to develop into this. He tries to comfort him after Aang discovers the death of Gyatso, runs out to help him against a massive spirit, and defends his initial decision not to let Zuko into the group because of his history of trying to hunt down the Avatar.
  • He's also this towards Toph, especially during Sozin's comet where he immediately used his body to shield her in order to keep the ship debris form hitting her and held her hand to guide her around since she couldn't see her surroundings.
• Big Eater: Although the play has exaggerated everyone's traits, Sokka does seem to like food more than the other main characters, as seen when he couldn't go a moment without thinking about food.
• Black Swords Are Better: His space sword, forged from metal found in a meteorite.
• Blue Is Heroic: Wears blue clothing like the rest of the Water Tribe and is one of the main heroes.
• Bodyguard Crush: He has feelings for Yue even before he is assigned the task of protecting her. His failure to protect her becomes a burden that he keeps for the rest of the series.
• Brainy Brunette: Keeps his jet-black hair in a warrior's wolf knot and is Team Avatar's "idea guy", regularly coming up with creative solutions to problems and accounting for the team's time and movement during Season 3.
• Breakout Character: Was originally going to have a smaller role, but he's just so darn awesome they had to keep him in. That and the directors really loved Jack DeSena's voice acting.
• Break the Haughty: The beginning of the series showed Sokka's had a sexist mentality, who haughtily thinks he's a capable warrior. Thus, he challenges Suki, a Kyoshi warrior, to a fight with the belief he'll win. He doesn't. Afterwards, Sokka is humbled by the defeat and not only drops his sexism but also realizes he needs more combat training.
• Butt-Monkey: If something unpleasant isn't happening to Zuko, odds are it's happening to Sokka or the people he cares about: His (well-executed) war plan got his father and all of their allies captured, his second girlfriend's possible torture was used to taunt him, he has insecurity over his combat ability due to his inability to bend, he's the most likely character to be incapacitated, disarmed, or fall sick... And of course, his first girlfriend turned into the moon, but that particular instance makes him more of The Woobie.
  Zuko: That's rough, buddy.
• Can't Catch Up: In terms of pure combat, he is this and he is quite aware of it. However, he's also essentially the Captain America of Avatar: his battle plans are actually the only thing in the world more dangerous than the Avatar State, so it pretty much evens out.
• Carry a Big Stick: One of his main weapons is a club until he replaces it with a sword.
• Character Development:
  • In the beginning, he had a cultural Stay in the Kitchen mentality, up until he challenges Suki to a fight in fact. From then on, he completely abandons this way of thinking very quickly and has a 180 in terms of mentality, as he is possibly not only Toph's biggest fan when she invented metalbending and enjoys her Boisterous Bruiser personality, but he is also quite the Amazon Chaser in his relationship with Suki and does not treat the females in the series any different than the males.
  • Sokka also developed from his original comic relief role, and overcame his insecurities to become a Badass Normal and tactician.
• The Chew Toy: Is most frequently the target of Amusing Injuries.
• Chick Magnet: Suki, Yue, Ty Lee, Toph, and an entire class of poetry students all want a piece of him. The comics add Penga, an unnamed Earth Kingdom girl (but only because she thinks he's the Avatar), and a Fire Nation girl named Ming-Ming when he poses as a "Monster Slayer".
• Cock Fight: With Hahn, Princess Yue's betrothed whom she doesn't care for (and it's mutual from his part too).
• Combat Pragmatist: Has no problem attacking opponents from behind (which might be more effective if he didn't yell, "SNEAK ATTACK!" first...), or doing whatever else it takes to gain an advantage.
• The Comically Serious: Sokka started out as a stern, down-to-earth, warrior-in-training, but his Comically Serious moments, as well as improvisations from his comedian voice actor, soon turned him into a goofy Plucky Comic Relief. Also see him trying to work with a bunch of out-there "nomads" in "The Cave of Two Lovers".
• Companion Cube: His boomerang and later his sword, though moreso the former than the latter.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Averted. Sokka complains about everything. He's right about half the time, and most of those times, it's on matters of vital importance.
• Cool Helmet: For the invasion he has a very badass wolf shaped helmet.
• Cool Sword: After learning swordsmanship he forges his own sword out of a fallen meteor.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: At first he seems like a guy who wants to be a capable warrior but is constantly outstripped by the others. Then, as the series goes on, he turns into a Gadgeteer Genius with a space sword and is a much more capable leader and a skilled fighter to boot, who has gone toe-to-toe and won with such deadly foes as Mai, Wan Shi Tong, and Combustion Man.
  Sokka: "That's called Sokka Style. Learn it!"
• Cultured Badass: Yes, actually. He plays the flute well, can improvise haiku extemporaneously, and is literate and quite learned, especially by the standards of a polar tribe.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Along with Katara — mother killed in a Fire Nation raid when they were little, and their father and all the men of the tribe left two years prior to the show's start. This left Katara with abandonment issues, and Sokka feeling that he wasn't good enough as a warrior. It catches up to them later on (Sokka risks his life breaking into a Fire Nation prison, Katara has her dark night of the soul tracking down her mother's killer).
• Deadpan Snarker: Probably the biggest one in the series. When he's not panicking in the face of danger, he's usually making dry, sarcastic remarks to the various eccentricities of the people he meets along the way.
• Defrosting Ice King: Sokka is initially overly-sarcastic and cynical, but eventually becomes a warmer character and more open-minded to the supernatural.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Sokka defeated Wan Shi Tong — the spirit of knowledge — by hitting him in the face with a book.
    Sokka: "That's called Sokka Style! Learn it!"
• The Dissenter Is Always Right: Zig-zagged. It varies whether he's right to dissent from the group or not. Basically, if the thing being discussed is a trivial matter, Sokka will almost always be wrong, often for comedic effect. If it's something plot-relevant, he's almost always right. This is prominently displayed in the episode "The Fortune Teller": at first, Sokka's skepticism towards the eponymous fortune teller is played for laughs. As the episode goes on, however, his complaints about the town's blind trust make more and more sense.
  Villager: Can your science explain why it rains?
  Sokka: YES, IT CAN!
• Ditzy Genius: He's one of the goofiest characters, but when he does engage his brain the plans that fall out of it are usually epic.
• Elemental Motifs: Water, like his tribe of origin. While not a bender, Sokka displays many characteristics associated with the element, being adaptable and quite resourceful when needed.
• Endearingly Dorky: His moments of over-enthusiasm may be the farthest thing from cool, but his goofy nature makes him incredibly beloved. He's the biggest Chick Magnet in the series, and even Piandao recognises his creativity and versatility over his actual skills.
• The Engineer: In Book 3, Sokka becomes quite knowledgeable in this area, which allowed him to create his "Meteor Sword".
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Unlike Jet, Sokka knows that even the Fire Nation has innocent people and won't attack them. He refused to beat up an old man even though he had Fire Nation ancestry and warned a town occupied by the Fire Nation that the Freedom Fighters were going to flood the town, allowing everybody to escape unharmed in time.
  • He also sided with Aang when Katara wanted to borrow Appa so she could find their mother's murderer.
• Excellent Judge of Character: He's usually the first (and sometimes, only) person in the Gaang to tell if someone has bad intentions or not, and he's often brushed off as a result. An example would be with Jet.
• Failure Knight: His inability to protect Yue continued to haunt him throughout the series.
• Fantastic Racism: He's not the Fire Nation's biggest fan, for much the same reasons as his sister, but he still recognizes that are innocent people within the Nation as a whole.
• Flanderization: He was subdued and serious in the early episodes, but overtime the creators have said he took on more influence from his voice actor (a comedian) and they expanded his role as comic relief. This becomes somewhat downplayed as the show goes on and he grows into a more competent leader and warrior, reaching a happy medium between serious and comedic relief.
• Flat-Earth Atheist:
  • In "The Fortuneteller," Sokka had no qualms about calling fortune-telling a big bunch of hokey, citing that there is always a scientifical explanation for everything. Even though he goes about it in a rather annoying manner, eventually, the villagers admit that he's somewhat right, but still cling to their beliefs that their local fortuneteller can predict the future.
  • In "The Swamp", he refuses to believe there might be a mystical explanation to the visions, despite all he's been through with Aang.
  Sokka: That's Avatar stuff. It doesn't count.
• Foil: To Aang. Where Aang is initially flighty but idealistic, Sokka starts out over-zealous and cynical. Aang is The Chosen One who has to train very hard to become the most powerful person in the world, while Sokka is just a regular guy who has to train very hard to stay even remotely relevant in the company of increasingly skilled benders. And of course Aang is a vegetarian, while Sokka is "the Meat and Sarcasm Guy."
• Gadgeteer Genius: Since Sokka is The Mechanist's protegee, count him in. He came up with the idea for a submarine!
• Giftedly Bad: The only way to characterize his attempts at drawing. He's not just ordinary bad, he's so terrible it's nigh impossible to tell what he was trying to draw at times.
• Giver of Lame Names: Has a habit of doing this. Some examples include Wang Fire, Sapphire Fire, and Sparky Sparky Boom Man (which was later changed to Combustion Man, which is not much better).
• Good Is Not Dumb: Sokka has proven to be Team Avatar's main strategist, which have often been the reason for their success.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: When he does fight, he usually forgoes the fancy stuff. For instance, after an owl spirit brags about how he's studied every style of Waterbending, Sokka responds by bashing his face in with a book.
• Guile Hero: He's very good at reading people, which he's used to the Gaang's advantage more than once. For example, he outs Aang as the Avatar in "The Waterbending Scroll" in order to play to the greed of the group of pirates who had them captured and uses the ensuing scuffle with Zuko's soldiers as a get-away plan.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He often loses his cool when frustrated and will often respond in a Angrish tone.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: He's a hero who uses a sword by Book 3.
• He's a Friend: Sokka needs to do this for Prince Zuko in season three. Twice.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Sokka starts off rather casually sexist, though he grows out of it after being humbled then trained by Suki & the Kyoshi Warriors.
• Hidden Depths: Sokka at first appeared to be nothing more than the Plucky Comic Relief. Over the series it's revealed he's a good fighter despite his lack of powers, is an excellent strategist and engineer, and loves poetry.
• I Call It "Vera": He calls his boomerang... Boomerang.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: "The Waterbending Master" gives him a literal example, in a gender-flipped version towards Princess Yue.
• Iconic Item: His boomerang is essential to his identity.
• I Just Want to Be Special: He wants to be a useful as his Bending friends, so he takes up the sword.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: To Princess Yue. Because he was in charge of protecting her, he blames himself for her death.
• Important Haircut: Grows his hair out in Season 3. Seems to be a trend with the Avatar boys, isn't it? Then he gets back his Season 1 haircut in the end.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: While rarely highlighted, it should be noted that Sokka always hits his target when he throws his boomerang. This was only subverted once, when he missed Mai in "The Chase". Once.
• Improv Fu: He frequently comes up with battle plans on the fly, including creating bombs to try to simulate fire control, spreading perfume to confuse a creature with super smelling senses, discovering a moment where the Fire Nation would lose their powers and planning invasion on that day, and taking over a Fire Nation blimp on the fly and using it as a projectile against other blimps... just to name a few. His ability to improvise plans was part of the reason the master Piandao accepted him as his student.
• Insistent Terminology: He does not have a ponytail. He has a "warrior's wolf tail."
• Instant Expert: Became a decent swordsman in a matter of days/weeks and was able to forge his own sword despite never having even hinted at knowing anything about swordsmithing.
  • Somewhat justified: Sokka already had fairly extensive training and experience as a warrior, his duel makes it clear he's very far from the level of a master, and Piandao was overseeing the entire swordsmithing process.
• Interspecies Friendship: Sokka has a subtle but exceptionally close bond with Momo, though he also alters with offering up Momo as food/bait/a sacrifice. They often work as a comedy relief duo.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Despite his sexist inclinations in the first few episodes, his sister was the only person closest to his age in his tribe, and it shows. He's often seen with his hands on his hips, he's concerned with things like his belt matching his bag, loves poetry, takes pride in his "warrior's wolf tail" (basically a glorified ponytail), and shopping always cheers him up: he even does the little fast clapping and yelling "Shopping!" He also wore a full-on dress and makeup in "The Warriors of Kyoshi".
• Inverse Law of Utility and Lethality: When he was just using a war club he got several shots in on the occasional Villain of the Week. Once he got his sword his usefulness in combat dropped to approximately zip. Made up for it with his tactical skills though.
• It's All My Fault:
  • He blames himself for letting Yue die, despite her willingness to give her life to save the Moon Spirit. His guilt causes him to be very overprotective of Suki in the second season.
  • His emotions caused the Gaang to miss their opportunity to confront Ozai during the Day of the Black Sun. It also results in most of the rebels being imprisoned by the Fire Nation. Doubly so when he of all people pointed out that Azula was just stalling for time, and Sokka still fell for it when she pressed the right buttons.
• Jerkass Ball: In "Bato Of The Water Tribe", he ditched Aang without at least hearing out his reason for it, even ignoring Bato when he started to suggest that he at least try to hear Aang out.
• Jerkass Has a Point: At times:
  • His initial distrust of Jet was partly motivated by a hint of jealousy at his Badass Normal qualities, but he turns out to be right that Jet is using questionable tactics.
  • After Team Avatar helps save a village from an angry forest spirit in "Winter Solstice, Part 1: The Spirit World", Sokka immediately leaps onto the village head's offer of a reward by asking for some supplies and money. He correctly points out to Aang and Katara that they really need the supplies and that they shouldn't pass up on somebody willing to give it to them out of gratitude.
  • Although he had a Jerkass Ball moment in "Bato Of The Water Tribe", mainly from ditching Aang with Katara without at least hearing him out as Bato tried to suggest, his harsh What the Hell, Hero? towards Aang was justified in a way as he really was acting dishonestly towards his colleagues, plus it also does not help that this took place when Sokka was still distrusting and skeptical of Aang early in Book One from the first episode to this one.
  • Sokka attacks Aang for burning Katara's hands. While it was an accident, Sokka was definitely in the right to call out Aang for playing around with a dangerous element, especially given how Jeong Jeong and Katara had warned him to take the training more seriously.
  • He words it as gently as he can to Yue, but pointedly notes that she doesn't love or even seem to like her fiance. She doesn't even bother denying his claims. And when he does meet her jerkass, Gold Digger fiance, Sokka angrily but truthfully states that said fiance is a jerk.
  • While he's not being sensitive about Aang's obvious distress, Sokka isn't wrong about how without Appa, the team would have a very hard time traveling.
  • Calling Katara out on her Chronic Hero Syndrome in "The Painted Lady", and how this jeopardizes the team's important mission behind enemy lines, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. While a knight in shining armor will, of course, fight the Fire Nation soldiers and save the oppressed villagers, this is not the wisest thing for an undercover agent to do.
  • Sokka's distrust over Zuko's genuine Heel–Face Turn is hard to argue with, given how the latter was a main enemy to Team Avatar and even betrayed them. Both Aang and Katara agree with him.
  • The finale has him bluntly tell Aang that he has to kill Ozai or else the Earth Kingdom will perish. While Sokka's advice on killing was somewhat harsh, he wasn't wrong in that Aang needed to face Ozai.
• Jerkass Realization: He gets this after remembering how painful it was to be left behind after leaving Aang behind.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's sarcastic, pragmatic when it comes to helping strangers, and can be an Insufferable Genius. He's also fiercely loyal, protective to his friends, and the Plucky Comic Relief of the show.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Shares this role with Zuko. Sokka is typically the most resistant when it comes to helping every Character of the Week with their problems, as he views it as a distraction from their main mission. He's also the most cynical in a group of idealists (again, with the exception of Zuko).
• Large Ham: While posing as a Fire Nation citizen named Wang Fire.
• The Leader: Alternates between him and Zuko - a rare case where the position is held by The Smart Guy or The Lancer instead of The Hero.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: He's the linear warrior, Katara is the quadratic wizard. Except he's also The Strategist...
• Love at First Sight: Towards Princess Yue.
• Machete Mayhem: Although he does not use it in combat often.
• Master Swordsman: Averted. By the end of the series, he's more than capable of taking out Fire Nation soldiers with his swordsmanship, can hold his own against Azula with Zuko's help, and defeats Piandao's bodyguard, but when up against true masters, like Piandao and Zuko, Sokka is easily defeated. Piandao is confident that he will someday become one, though.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His name is Japanese for "I understand"; a perfect name for the team strategist.
  • In Zulu, his name means "loverboy", a reference to him being a Chick Magnet and his romantic, loving side to his girlfriends.
• Moment Killer: Butts in on Aang and Katara more than once.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: Yue's death haunts Sokka during the beginning of Book 2, leading to a sub-plot in "The Serpent's Pass", where he refuses to accept Suki's advances out of fear she will die just like his former lover. At the end of the episode, he overcomes his trauma and gives Suki a passionate kiss, thus officializing their status as a couple.
• Mr. Fanservice: Like Zuko, both in and out of universe, but on a smaller scale.
• Mushroom Samba: In The Desert, desperate for water, he drinks water from a cactus. Said water turns out to have a funky effect that makes him lose it several times with strange behavior and cartoony art style for the whole episode.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Though he doesn't say it in "Bato Of The Water Tribe", but when he hears Bato tells about how he had been left behind due to being injured, he remembers being left behind too. And after how he yelled at Aang for hiding his father's map, he was probably thinking this.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • Sokka blames himself for not keeping Yue safe.
  • To a lesser extent, he blames himself for wasting the time on the Eclipse on Azula even after telling the others that she's just there to buy time.
• Noble Bigot: Sokka is a bit sexist for the first few episodes, believing that women should Stay in the Kitchen and out of the fighting. After getting to know a group of female warriors firsthand and realizing their fighting capabilities, he realizes that his views were incorrect and learns to respect women and girls. After that, it's gone.
• Non Sequitur: Expect Sokka's dialogue to consist primarily of this whenever he's sick or under the influence of something (i.e. cactus juice). Even without outside influence, though, he has a tendency to say random things - like at the North Pole, when the Gaang is trying to decide how to transport a captured Zuko, the first thing Sokka says is about the quality of rope Zuko had with him.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, he had once gotten a fish hook stuck in his thumb. So he tries to get that out...with another fish hook.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: He fails to recognize when Suki is talking about him.
  Suki: I lost someone I care about. He didn't die. He just went away. I only had a few days to get to know him, but he was smart, and brave and funny.
  Sokka: Who is this guy? Is he taller than me?
  Suki: No. He's about your height.
  Sokka: Is he better looking?
  Suki: It is you, stupid!
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Everyone else in the team, even the animals, can either control nature itself (Aang, Katara, Toph, Zuko, Appa), fight unarmed better than him (Aang, Suki), fight with melee weapons better than him (Suki, Zuko), or fly (Aang, Appa, Momo). Sokka has his brains and his boomerang. They're not flashy, but he gets a lot done with them.
• Playing Pictionary: Sokka's drawings are so bad that this trope ends up occurring every time he attempts to draw something.
• Plucky Comic Relief: One of the main sources of the series' comic relief.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Sokka is pretty sexist for the first few episodes, believing that women should Stay in the Kitchen and out of the fighting. It's somewhat understandable as his father, the chieftain, left him behind with the women and children when all the other men went to war. To comfort him, he told him that it wasn't because he was too young but because someone would have to stay and protect the village and he should be honored to be entrusted with this important duty. After finding out that the Kyoshi Warriors have actual training and experience as soldiers and are much more skilled than him (with Suki literally beating some respect into him), he starts to adjust his views. Sokka also starts out as the member of the Gaang with the most prejudice against people from the Fire Nation, but quickly snaps out of it, to the point of standing up against Jet to save Fire Nation colonists occupying an Earth Kingdom village. His longest held prejudice is his dismissiveness towards benders, primarily shown to be out of an inferiority complex and not any actual dislike.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: Sokka always manages to hit his target with his boomerang, either on the initial throw or the return trip.
• Properly Paranoid: Doubles with The Complainer Is Always Wrong. His suspicions of Jet and Hama are proven right.
• Raised by Grandparents: Downplayed. His father and mother were present in his life but both were gone due to different reasons by the time he was still a young boy. His mother was killed and his father went to fight against the Fire Nation. As such, Sokka and his sister were left in the care of their paternal grandmother.
• Real Men Eat Meat: He even labels himself "the meat and sarcasm guy" in the episode "Bitter Work".
• Real Men Wear Pink: Sokka is a strong warrior, likes to eat meat, and has a way with the ladies, however, he enjoys softer things like poetry and shopping. Case in point, he once was happy that a bag he bought matched the Earth Rumble championship belt Aang won.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives this to the villagers in "The Painted Lady". When they decry Katara from impersonating the Painted Lady, he snaps at them, saying that she saved them and they should be grateful.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: While he has a tendency to be blunt and rather snarky he is more logical and focused on the mission at hand, while Katara's actions are mainly fueled by her emotions, making him the Blue Oni to Katara's Red.
• Religious Russian Roulette: He bargains with the powers that be to give up meat and sarcasm in exchange for getting him out of a hole. Of course, as soon as he's out, he forgets about his promise immediately.
• Retail Therapy: In the episode "Sokka's Master", Sokka feels depressingly disengaged from the action because of his inability to bend like the rest of the Gaang. He copes with this by shopping.
• Sad Clown: Sokka shows signs of this, as well. While usually a complete goofball in groups or around Katara, when confiding in friends or by himself, he shows that he's actually very insecure and sad; his mother died when he was a child, his father left to fight a war a few years later, he's (initially) the only muggle in a group of superpowered warriors, and even he believes that he might be too goofy to be of any real help. As he gains more confidence during the series, his jokester tendencies become slightly less pronounced and he becomes more easy-going than lazy.
• Sanity Ball: Despite being the brains of Team Avatar and being fairly competent at coming up with good solutions on how to handle certain situations, Sokka has a very prominent goofy streak — he often finds himself being on the butt end of certain misfortunes and at times can be a bit melodramatic and over-the-top. However, he does have a fair share of instances where he gets to be the Only Sane Man of a situation:
  • In "The Fortuneteller", he has a hard time trying to convince the villagers, who are adamantly confident that the volcano will not erupt and the village will not be destroyed, that the volcano is erupting. Unfortunately, the villagers don't believe him, purely because he'd spent most of the episode trying to get them to believe that Aunt Wu, a professional fortuneteller, is wrong. In defence of the villagers, though, most of the predictions Aunt Wu gave them have turned out to be true, and seeing that Sokka doesn't have the same occupation as her, it's understandable that they wouldn't believe him.
  • In "The Cave of Two Lovers", he begrudgingly acts as the only smart presence among the group of hippie nomads who are overly convinced that The Power of Love is the only thing can get them out of the cave.
  • In "The Chase", he is the only member of Team Avatar to not engage in any of the fights between Aang, Katara and Toph, and rather bluntly calls out Aang and Katara on their behaviour when it causes Toph to briefly leave the group.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Primarily in Season 1 and somewhat in Season 2.
  Sokka: If I can just get out of this situation alive, I'll give up meat... and sarcasm. Okay? Ow! That's all I got. That's pretty much my whole identity: Sokka, the meat and sarcasm guy. But I'm willing to be Sokka, the veggies and straight-talk fellow. Deal?
• Screams Like a Little Girl: As noticed by Toph in The Promise, when Sokka calls her out on her tendency to use her earthbending to send him down slides:
  Sokka: You've really been into slides lately!
  Toph: I enjoy hearing your girlish scream.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • The sarcastic, grounded Manly Man to Aang's sweet, playful Sensitive Guy. He even tells Aang "Don't answer to Twinkle-Toes! It's not manly!"
  • But is the joking, romantic Sensitive Guy himself to Zuko's tough and snarly no-nonsense Manly Man when they end up working together.
• Shipper on Deck: He subtly shipped Aang and Katara. Sokka realized rather quickly that Aang had feelings for Katara and took delight in mocking him a bit.
  Sokka: Smoochy, smoochy! Someone's in love!
• Shopping Montage: At a weapons store, but still has the demeanor of a teenaged girl with daddy's credit card.
• Small Name, Big Ego: In Book 1, Sokka saw himself as the epitome of a warrior when in reality he was the least combat-capable member in the group after Katara learned waterbending.
• The Smart Guy: Whenever things can't be handled with brute force of either bending or personality, he's almost always in charge. He's also the only member of the Gaang who can read a map.
  Sokka: Why are you all looking at me?
  Aang: You're the idea guy.
  Sokka: So I'm the only one who can ever come up with a plan? That's a lot of pressure.
• Species Surname: Used for an alias. When infiltrating the Fire Nation, Sokka and Katara pose as the native-born citizen Wang Fire and his wife Sapphire.
• The Spock: In Season 1 to Katara's Kirk and Aang's McCoy. Sokka is the most grounded, and is reluctant in helping others on his journey, not out of cowardice, but logic and keeping a low profile.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With Princess Yue.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Sokka plays it straight until he gets Character Development after meeting Suki. The next time he meets her, he now has an overprotective attitude, since his last girlfriend turned into the moon. As it turns out, the only reason she came along in the first place was that she had the same attitude towards him.
• The Strategist: His main role is to think up strategies to defeat the enemies. This possibly gives him the highest kill count in the series when one of his plans takes out an entire airship fleet in the Grand Finale. Aang's Koizilla rampage might match it, but Sokka competes with nothing but brains. Airship slice!
• Straw Misogynist: Early in the series, particularly in "The Warriors of Kyoshi", he displays a downplayed version of this where he makes a snide comment about gender roles to Katara and scoffs at the possibility that the all-female Kyoshi Warriors are actually, well, fighters and not dancers. It is implied that this is due to his own insecurity about having to be the 'man' of the tribe, and he comes around when Suki makes a fool of him and gives him basic training, acknowledging that women can be warriors. He thankfully grows out of this trope.
• Straw Vulcan: When they're trying to help people he's cast in this light, but subverted in "The Fortuneteller"
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: With Suki. Sokka is The Smart Guy always in charge to come up with ingenious inventions and battle plans, while his eventual girlfriend Suki is a tough Lady of War and the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: He started out having no respect for Katara's waterbending, but once Toph joined, he eventually took up sword-fighting so he could feel like he had something to contribute to the team.
• Supporting Leader: Despite being the sidekick to Aang's hero Sokka develops into The Leader of the gang as the main strategist, battle commander and ideas guy.
• Team Dad: Katara normally handles things as Team Mom, but Sokka steps into the Team Dad role to look after Aang and Toph when she's struggling with her own issues, notably when he schedules the gang's adventure leading up to the Day of Black Sun. Zuko takes over the role in Season 3.
• The Team Normal: The only non-bender on the Team Avatar for most of the series. Lampshaded in Book 3's fourth episode, where it's shown that Sokka has some angst over how he's the sole non-bender of the group and wants to be consistently useful.
• Teen Genius: He's only 15, and is already a considerable tactician.
• Terrible Artist: His drawings are so terrible that people end up Playing Pictionary.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: In the finale, he loses his space sword for good when he throws it at a catwalk on a Fire Nation airship and manages to slice clean through it. What kind of rock was that meteorite made of?
• Throw the Book at Them: "That's called Sokka style! Learn it!"
• Thunderbolt Iron: His Cool Sword, which he forged himself out of a meteor, is made of this.
• Took a Level in Badass: Sokka started off as an untrained would-be warrior who couldn't handle a fight without help. Over time, he becomes a keen strategist and decent swordsman.
• Took a Level in Idealism: Team Cynic Sokka for a short while after the Gaang finally get Appa back because he feels like their life is finally looking up, and he actually agrees with Aang's plan to talk to the earth king. Naturally this gets lampshaded by the rest of the cast and the episode ends on an ominous note.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Sokka still keeps his sarcastic tendencies, but he really changes a lot by the series finale. He lost all of his sexist beliefs, grew to love Aang over time (just think back to their first encounter), and was just a generally more nicer person.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sokka likes any form of meat - particularly blubbered seal jerky.
• Undying Loyalty: To Katara. Even when he completely disagrees with what she's doing, he still has his sister's back. Best exemplified in "The Painted Lady" where despite being infuriated by every action she's taken all episode, he still immediately supports her plan even after they've had a fight.
  Sokka: Wait... I'm coming too.
  Katara: I thought you didn't want to help.
  Sokka: You need me. And I will never turn my back on you.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Gender-flipped. Don't insult or hurt his girlfriends. The Suki one is particularly strong, as he knew Azula was trying to provoke him and fell for it anyway.
• Vocal Evolution: In the opposite direction of his sister Katara. Even his voice acting starts out deeper and more mature, until roughly about "The Kyoshi Warriors".
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • In a World…, where most of the main characters can control the various elements he's still the most Normal of the Badass Normal characters. To deal with that, Sokka often uses strategies and his weapons to bring down his enemies. He's also very resourceful and a fast learner - see 'Sokka's Master' and how quickly he picks up swordsmanship having not been shown to have any prior experience in that particular weapon. He has also grown up in a tribe that relied on non-bending forms of combat for decades and picked up a lot on his own before being formally trained. That would have helped a lot when he met Piandao, who acknowledges he didn't select Sokka for his skill, but rather for his heart, honesty, courage, and smarts.
  • Lampshaded in the comic "Swordbending". While Sokka is an impressive swordsman, Zuko, the swordsmanship Teen Genius of the show, pretty much schools him in every round of their Sokka-dubbed "Swordbending Kai".
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Fortunately, his father is already very proud of him and he just needed to hear it.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Occasionally sounds like he's trying to fast-talk the DM.
  Sokka: Suki! You know about sea monsters, you talk to it!
  Suki: Just because I live by the Unagi doesn't make me an expert!
  Sokka: [picks up Momo] Oh great sea serpent, please accept this humble and tasty offering!

Tropes that apply to him in The Legend of Korra

"I once bested a man with my trusty boomerang, who was able to firebend... with his mind."

Katara's older brother. While he is not a bender himself, he fought alongside the Avatar to help win peace, directly helping to win the Hundred Years War in the original series. He later became the Republic City representative for the Southern Water Tribe and its chairman. And later in his life became one of the chieftains of the Southern Water Tribe's Council of Chieftains and Elders.

Sadly, old age took its toll, until like Aang, Sokka's time in this world also came to an end, hopefully reunited with his mother again.

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• Ambadassador: Was the representative of the Southern Water Tribe in Republic City, and apparently didn't lose any badassery even after another thirty or so years - he proved capable of taking on the Red Lotus in his 70s.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Averted, in contrast to his characterization in the original series. In the flashback to Yakone's trial, Sokka, having seen several supposedly impossible feats in his lifetime, takes the testimony of numerous witnesses at face value despite their supposedly outrageous claims.
• Badass in Distress: Like the rest of the courtroom in the flashback when Yakone breaks out the bloodbending.
• Demoted to Extra: Has by far the smallest presence in Korra out of the entire original Gaang. Justified by three reasons: he's dead, none of his descendants (if he ever had any) are present in the series, and he's not the previous incarnation of the current protagonist.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Still has a variation of his wolftail and shaved temples as he did in the original series.
• Made of Iron: The only person in the courtroom who held off Yakone's mass bloodbending for longer than Sokka was Aang.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: He is said to have helped take down the Red Lotus when they tried to kidnap Korra when she was a child. He was about 74 at that point.
• Older and Wiser: Seems much more down to earth than his original appearances.
• Our Founder: In Book 2; we see that Sokka has a statue in front of the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Center, with him holding his beloved boomerang.
• Posthumous Character: Katara specifically mentions that he's passed on before the start of the series. However, it seemed he was still alive when Korra was discovered to be the Avatar, meaning that he outlived Aang by at least four years.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Points out that while they have no proof other than the overwhelming witness testimony of Yakone having extraordinary blood-bending abilities, he's seen a lot of other things thought to be impossible, such as Toph inventing metal-bending and Combustion Man's explosions, and therefore declares Yakone guilty.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: During the trial of Yakone, one of Sokka's examples about how bending isn't necessarily set in stone is his defeat of Combustion Man by way of boomerang. This happened, of course, but it seems Sokka couldn't help but do a little self-promotion.
• Seen It All: Much like Katara, he mentioned how he defeated the Combustion Man with his boomerang, and how Toph achieved the "impossible" by discovering Metalbending, and used those as rationale (alongside overwhelming amounts of eyewitness testimony coming forth) to declare Yakone guilty for bloodbending without the benefit of a full moon.
• Strong Family Resemblance: As an adult, Sokka looks much like his own father, Hakoda, from the original series.
• Took a Level in Idealism: As an adult, Sokka loses the skeptical nature he had in the previous series.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We're not given any details of Sokka's death, though given it happened in his seventies or eighties, it was probably of natural causes.

Appa

Appa (阿柏)

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

Aang's pet flying bison as well as his lifelong friend and companion who was sealed in the iceberg with him when he ran away. Acts as the group's main form of transportation.

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• Action Pet: Not directly involved in most fights, but he has a few Big Damn Heroes moments.
• Androcles' Lion: He tends to become attached to people who have been nice to him:
  • When the Kyoshi Warriors found him, cleaned him up and fed him, he gave one of them a friendly lick and later tried to go back to help them fight Azula and her friends.
  • He also warmed up to Zuko after the banished prince freed him from the Dai Li. Appa licking Zuko is the first clue for Aang to realize his Heel–Face Turn is a genuine one.
• Badass Adorable: Just look at him! He's so snuggly! He also weighs ten tons, so if he hits you, you stay hit.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Appa is sweet, loving and friendly, but he's also as powerful and dangerous as any of the human members of Team Avatar. He was able to take out dozens of Dai Li agents and easily defeat Long Feng. Even after he is kidnapped by the sandbenders and is abused by the Fire Nation circus, his heart remains as full of love as ever.

  Guru Pathik: Oh dear, you've been through so much recently. Hurt and betrayed. So twisted up inside. You're still full of love, but fear has moved in where trust should be.

• Big Damn Heroes: Due to his emotional and spiritual bond with Aang, Appa often comes in time to save the day.
• Big Friendly Dog: While not a dog, he sometimes acts like one when he tackles someone he loves to the ground and covers them in loving licks.
• The Big Guy: Was essentially this for the group before Toph joined. Even (metaphorically) plays the part of being a (semi-)Sacrificial Lion, thanks to his kidnapping arc in Season 2.
• Blow You Away: He can Airbend either by breathing in or out or by creating giant waves of wind with his large, flat tail.
• Break the Cutie: "Appa's Lost Days" practically treats him like a universal chew toy.
• Cute Giant: He's an adorable fluffy animal. Who is also a giant.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Appa's Lost Days" focuses on his journey after his kidnapping by the sandbanders.
• Determinator: Appa proves to have a determined spirit in "Appa's Lost Days", where he travels across the world to find Aang and the others.
• Deus ex Machina: It would be hard to count on even Appa's toes the amount of times he's saved Team Avatar from certain destruction.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: He's quite aware of people's true natures. He growls at antagonistic characters and is affectionate towards heroic ones. Because of this, Aang lowers his guard slightly when he sees Appa licking Zuko, Aang's primary enemy in the first two seasons.
• Expy: By Word of God he was modelled after the Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro, another multilegged fuzzy creature who serves as transportation for child protagonists. His toothy mouth, yawning and ability to fly also evoke Totoro himself from the same film.
• Familiar: Appa is Aang's animal guide.
• Gentle Giant: He really quite a soft-hearted lug when it comes down to it.
• Giant Flyer: Uses Airbending to propel himself through the sky.
• Horse of a Different Color: The team's transportation.
• Human Popsicle: After Aang ran away and before the Air Nomad genocide, he and Aang got caught up in a storm, and Aang used the Avatar State to trap him and Appa in an iceberg for 100 years (until Katara and Sokka found them).
• Last of His Kind: He's the only sky bison seen throughout the entire series and is assumed to be such. Ultimately subverted in The Legend of Korra, as other sky bison herds were discovered (or preserved by dissident Fire Sages).
• Light Is Good: Has bright white fur, and acts as the heroes Action Pet, transportation, and The Big Guy.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Shares this role with Katara for Aang; Appa is Aang's last connection to the Air Nomads, and his kidnapping took a drastic toll on Aang's spirit.
• Mix-and-Match Critters:
  • Originally a bison mixed with a manatee, although the bison part mostly took over in development. Considering the length of his horns and the thickness of his coat, it might be more accurate to describe Appa as a flying yak, rather than a bison.
  • Possibly unintentional, but it's hard to ignore beaver parallels with the way he uses his tail.
• Morality Chain: A non-villainous example. In "The Desert", he is revealed to be this for Aang as after Appa was kidnapped, Aang's Papa Wolf instincts were activated, resulting in Aang becoming hostile and aggressive out of desperation.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: A sleep-deprived Aang hallucinates him as a Samurai with six swords fighting Momo.
• Non-Human Sidekick: He's Aang's spirit companion.
• Papa Wolf: Attack Aang and his friends in front of Appa, be ready for an (at times literally) crushing defeat. Even if you're a wolf spirit that is just as large as him.
• Signature Team Transport: His main role. Since he's a flying large animal, it's useful for Team Avatar to travel long distances in short amounts of time. When he gets captured in Season 2, the team must travel by foot while simultaneously looking for him.
• Team Pet: He's Aang's loyal and loving sky bison and also the team's main transport system.
• Toothy Bird: Played with since bisons do have teeth, but he has more than real bisons do (they don't have upper incisors and canines) and all of Appa's teeth look like molars.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • To Aang. In the Air Nomad culture, sky bisons and airbenders bond for life, so he and Aang have been pratically inseparable since childhood. When he was captured in the second season, he did everything in his power to find Aang.
  • To Suki as well in "Appa's Lost Days", after she saved his life. She had to exploit Appa's fear of fire him to chase him away because he was in no condition to fight.
• Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: Six legs.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Appa's a claustrophobe, which appears to be a natural trait of his species. He later develops a fear of fire after a stay in an abusive Fire Nation circus.

Joined in Book 1

Momo

Momo (模模)

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

A flying lemur found in the ruins of the Southern Air Temple, Momo is Aang's other pet he picked up after being released from the iceberg. A close friend of Appa, he's just around for the comic relief.

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• All Animals Are Dogs: Or rather, cats — despite technically being a primate, he acts a lot like a cat, even licking himself and Aang clean at various points.
• Amplified Animal Aptitude: Despite not being able to understand human speech, Momo has proven time and time again to be a lot smarter than he lets on. He can tie knots around his wrist, unlock cages on his first try, and can even interact with other animals like they're his own species.
• Appropriated Appellation: Weirdly subverted. He gets his name after eating a peach. (Momo is Japanese for peach, as well as being a common name given to pets in Japan.) The creators weren't aware of that at the time and just named him that because it fit.
• Big Eater: He's more obsessed with food than Appa is. In nearly every scene he's in, he's either eating, looking for something to eat, or sneaking towards something to eat it.
• Birds of a Feather: With Sokka. Most of their relationship revolves around comedic relief and fighting over food.
• A Day in the Limelight: While "Tales of Ba Sing Se" gave many characters a feature sequence, the episode ends with Momo's story, which is also Momo's biggest feature in the series. It's a big opportunity to see just how smart and caring he is.
• Expressive Ears: His ears drop when he's sad or ashamed and perk when happy or something startles him.
• Fragile Speedster: Momo can quickly navigate and access spaces, and has a lot of utility outside of battle. However his offensive potential is next to none, and unlike Appa who has bulk and can wear armor, Momo can't take a direct hit at all, so he has to be sent away from battles.
• Interspecies Friendship:
  • The members of the Gaang who Momo is closest to are Aang and Sokka.
  • With Appa. Despite them occasionally fighting over food, and even fighting in a sleep-deprived hallucination from Aang, the two of them were clearly friends. This is best exemplified when Momo goes out searching for Appa on his own in The Tales of Ba Sing Se, and is visibly saddened when he finds his hopes dashed. He's also shown to make fast friends with other species, including the Pygmy Pumas that previously tried to eat him, also in The Tales of Ba Sing Se.
• Last of His Kind: The last flying lemur. In The Legend of Korra the characters find another species (based on ringtail lemurs), but none that look like Momo.
• Leitmotif: A cheerful, silly fast-paced horn theme.
• Meaningful Name: In Japanese, "Momo" means peach, which was what he was eating when Aang first met him in the Southern Air Temple.
• Mischief-Making Monkey: More like mischief-making lemur, but same idea.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: A lemur-Word of God is he resembles a sifaka-crossed with a bat.
• Nearly Normal Animal: Momo is highly intelligent and quick-thinking, fitting since he's part primate. The episodes focusing on him play up this aspect of him.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Momo could very well be considered the animal equivalent of Sokka.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: An adorable flying lemur. No one in Team Avatar can resist those eyes.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: While he's very capable in many different ways, Momo has a tendency to either be sent away for his own safety or simply disappear during fight sequences, especially those involving bending.
• Shoulder Teammate: He's often seen hanging out on the Gaang's shoulders, mostly Aang and Sokka.
• Suddenly Voiced: In "Nightmares and Daydreams", Aang's lack of sleep causes him to hallucinate Momo talk, along with Appa.
• Team Pet: Aang's pet who provides cute comic relief.
• The Unintelligible: Momo perceives human speech as gibberish.

Joined in Book 2

Toph Beifong

Toph Beifong (北方 拓芙)

Voiced by: Jessie Flower (English),^{Click to see other languages}Ximena Marchant (Latin American Spanish), Marie-Luise Schramm (German), Letizia Campa (Italian), Justyna Bojczuk (Polish), Liana Ayon (Hebrew), Ana Lúcia Menezes (Brazilian Portuguese) Kate Higgins (The Legend of Korra past), Philece Sampler (The Legend of Korra present), Vivian Vencer (Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway), Dionne Quan (Aang: The Last Airbender)

"I love fighting. I love being an Earthbender. And I'm really, really good at it."

As a child, Toph Beifong was thought of as frail due to her blindness and was kept from the outside world by her overprotective rich father. She found an outlet by becoming an Earthbending master, even learning to "see" by sensing vibrations in the Earth. Because of this, she was selected to be Aang's Earthbending teacher. Though she has a bit of an attitude problem out of a desire to prove her independence, Toph makes up for it with her blunt insight and all-around roughness. Also the first metalbender in history, which she's rightfully proud of.

Click here if you want to hear how she would describe herself.

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• Achilles' Heel: She's very reliant on her "tremor sense" to function. Unfortunately, it isn't foolproof, and has quite a few holes in it. First, she can't sense anything in water, and earth is the only thing she can detect in the air. As such, she can't swim and she is extremely vulnerable to aerial attacks. Second, standing on anything other than solid earth will affect her "vision," making her weaker or helpless depending on the circumstances. When she stands on wood, she had to hold Aang's arm while walking. Making her lose her footing or injuring her feet will leave her truly blind until she recovers (such as when Zuko accidentally burned her feet when she snuck up on him, while conversely foot massaging causes what looks like excruciating pain (enough to make her send an assistant flying through a nearby wall.)
• Actually Pretty Funny: More like Actually Pretty Awesome, but she was the only member of Team Avatar who downright enjoyed her portrayal in the Ember Island Players.
• Agony of the Feet: Largely averted as she can walk barefoot on any surface from scorching hot sand to frozen ice and, while weakening her vision, is unbothered by the sensation. She does, however, appear to be in excruciating pain when she gets a foot massage at the spa. And when Zuko burned her feet, causing her to panic, as well as seeming affecting her ability to Earthbend.
• Alliterative Name: Her wrestling name: the Blind Bandit.
• Affirmative Action Girl: She became the second girl in Team Avatar in the second season.
• Animal Motifs: The In-Universe Badgermoles, being the original Earthbenders as well as her teachers in the art. Helps that just like them, she learned to use Earthbending not just for fighting, but expanding her senses.
• Ascended Extra: While Toph has always been a major character since her introduction, this trope applies to her voice actress Jessie Flower. Prior to Toph's introduction in season 2, Jessie Flower was the voice actress of Meng in season 1, a minor character in one episode who fell in love with Aang due to her fortune describing her soulmate to have big ears like Aang.
• Badass Adorable: Just a little girl (though you wouldn't know it from the way she acts) but it's a tossup for strongest earthbender in the series between her and Bumi.
• Badass Boast: She calls herself "the greatest Earthbender in the world" after escaping an inescapable cage, horrifying her captors. Considering she makes this boast right after she makes her first application of her breakthrough discovery of Metalbending (whereas metal was a Weaksauce Weakness to earthbenders before), she has every right to such a boast.
  Toph: I am the greatest earthebender in the world. Don't you two dunderheads ever forget it.
• Badass Teacher: She teaches Aang Earthbending.
• Badbutt: A tiny blind girl who acts like a pro wrestler within the bounds of a kid's show. Director commentary mentions it was hilarious to watch Jessie Flower, an adorable, angel-faced little girl, spout wrestler trash talk during recordings.
• Becoming the Mask: Parodied and Played for Laughs in "Sozin's Comet". When acting as the "Melon Lord" during a practice to take down Fire Lord Ozai and having a blast at it:
  Sokka: [after barely dodging a rock on fire] WATCH IT, TOPH!
  Toph: I AM NOT TOPH! I AM MELON LORD! MWUHAHAHAHAHA!
• Beyond the Impossible: Toph invents metalbending, something that was stated to be impossible for other earthbenders to do so.
• The Big Gal: Not physically, but by personality and by her elemental powers. Lampshaded in "The Ember Island Players" when an actual big guy plays her in the play about written about the Gaang's adventures.
• Bizarre Alien Senses: Her ability to "see" using Earthbending counts as this, as the closest thing to it in real life could be infrasound, which is used by some species (most notably elephants and snakes) to detect low-frequency sounds, allowing them to navigate even if their vision is impaired.
• Black Comedy: Has absolutely no problem exploiting her blindness for a laugh or to make a point.
• Black Magician Girl: A twelve-year-old tomboy and snark goddess who deals mountains of damage to baddies. She also loves dealing out a good offensive smackdown using her earthbending.
• Blind Mistake:
  • While struggling in the water in "The Serpent's Pass", she mistakes Suki for Sokka and kisses her on the cheek. She's very embarrassed when she realizes she kissed the wrong person.
  • She tries to prove she can put up posters despite her blindness, but she puts them up with the blank side facing up.
  Toph: It's upside down, isn't it?
• Blind Weaponmaster: A blind earthbending master.
• Blue Blood: The Beifongs are a well-known family, complete with a family crest. Toph is usually not one to flaunt it, but her aristocratic background has come in handy on a few occasions.
• Boisterous Bruiser: "Yeah! Let's break some rules!" SMASH!
• Break the Haughty: Was a bit of a Bratty Half-Pint and Entitled Bitch when she first joined the Gaang. After being told by Iroh that good friends help one another out, she starts to mellow, but it isn't until she fails to protect Appa from being kidnapped that humility really becomes a significant virtue for her.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Shows affection by punching people.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: When the gang needs to infiltrate high society she says Aang and Sokka would stick out like sore thumbs. When they point out that she's the biggest slob in the group, she fires back that she was a Lonely Rich Kid whose parents forced her to act cultured; she just chooses not to.
• Brutal Honesty: Toph was often brutally honest when criticizing others, especially her friends. She was vocal about her opinions on others regardless of status (the Avatar, Aang) or age (Iroh).
• Child Prodigy: One of the youngest benders we see, yet she is already one of the most powerful non-Avatar earthbenders. She also invented metalbending on the fly while captured, which was believed to be an impossible skill. And by the finale she was able to Sandbend, despite saying that she hated sand in Season 2.
• Compressed Hair: It's not as long as Katara's, but is incredibly thick and voluminous, as shown in "Tales of Ba Sing Se". How she's able to comb it down to where it's restrained by that headband violates a couple laws of physics.
• Cool Crown: By "The Promise" she's switched out her headband for a green tiara; reflecting her new position as head of the Beifong Metalbending Academy.
• Cultured Badass: While she chooses to ignore them, Toph is an expert on how to behave in upper society.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Most battles where her opponents don't exploit her Achilles' Heel end this way.
  • The episode The Blind Bandit features her delivering one of these to the group of professional earthbenders in an underground Earthbending tournament, "Earth Rumble Six."
  • In "The Earth King", she and Team Avatar, easily decimates the palace guards on their way to find the Earth King.
• Cute Bruiser: The youngest and shortest of all of Team Avatar, she manages to dole out the most whoopass of all of them.
• Dig Attack: Toph can do this: since she "sees" through vibrations in the ground, she knows where the enemy is even underground.
• Disability Superpower: Although blindness isn't a requisite for an Earthbender to use her method of "seeing", it did lead her to focus her earth senses to an unprecedented degree, allowing her to perceive things approaching or beneath her in great detail and leading in turn to her invention of Metalbending.
• Disabled Snarker: Mostly at Sokka's expense and she's the biggest snarker in the series after him. Also some of the show's best lines are from Toph, especially when she's talking trash to her opponents. For instance:
  Toph (to Bumi): Look, Pops, just because you're as old as dirt doesn't mean you know how to bend it.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Like every Earthbender.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Given her overbearing parents, Toph hates being babied. This leads to friction between herself and the rest of the Gaang until Iroh gives her some advice, telling her that there's nothing wrong with letting people help her and sometimes they do it because they want to, not because they think she's helpless.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: During Aang's earthbending training, she was tough, critical and used methods like "hold still while a large boulder rolls towards you".
• Dude Magnet: There's Satoru in the comic who took an instant liking to Toph. Then, there's the two men who fathered her daughters, one's name being Kanto.
• Earthy Barefoot Character: Toph is almost always barefoot, since her earthbending abilities require her to constantly be in contact with the ground at all times in order to sense vibrations and "see" properly.
• Emerald Power: She's associated with the color green (like all earthbenders), yet Toph might as well be the most powerful of them all.
• Elemental Motifs: Earth, fitting not just her native element, but her hardy and stubborn demeanour in spite of looking like a frail young girl. She even points out to Aang that he must also adopt a similar mindset if he were to truly become an earthbender.
• Evil Laugh: Played for Laughs in the first part of "Sozin's Comet": she laughs maniacally when acting as the Melon Lord.
• Extra-ore-dinary: She invented Metalbending. On the fly too!
• Eyes Always Averted: Due to her blindness. She also tends to speak to people without even facing their general direction, unlike most visually-impaired people in Real Life (who typically face the speaker to hear them as well as possible).
• The Face: The youngest and yet the one with the most social savvy, due to being raised by rich socialites. Technically, being the Avatar, it should be Aang, but Toph is usually the one doing the talking.
• Foil: In The Rift, she's contrasted with Aang. Their upbringings are quite different, as Monk Gyatso believed in letting Aang be a kid, while Toph's parents forced her to learn tradition and propriety. As a result, Toph wonders if Aang is trying to hold onto his past, while Aang wonders if Toph is trying too hard to run away from her past.
• Friendless Background: Due to being sheltered from the outside world by her extremely overprotective parents, she'd never made a friend before meeting the Gaang. Her integration with the team was integral to her character development. The only friends she had were the Badgermoles.
• Force and Finesse:
  • Is the force to Aang's finesse, employing a powerful, straightforward approach to combat with her Earthbending, often bowling straight over attacks, in contrast to Aang's more agility and evasion based fighting style with his Airbending. Little wonder she calls him 'Twinkle Toes'.
  • Also forms this with Katara, in and out of combat. Toph is One of the Boys, being rough, brutally honest and (especially initially) plays the role of Drill Sergeant Nasty training Aang on contrast to Katara's more matronly role, diplomatic temperament, and gentle approach to teaching Aang. In combat, Toph overwhelms her opponents with well place and hard hitting walls of earth, while Katara's Waterbending style emphasizes graceful movements and switching between offense and defense as needed.
• Forgot the Disability:
  • The rest of the Gaang (especially Sokka) tends to forget about her disability, leading to many of Toph's great one-liners.
    Sokka: It's so dark in here, I can't see a thing!
    Toph: Oh no, what a nightmare!
    Sokka: Sorry.
  • Subverted in the finale when Sokka, Toph and Suki take over a Fire Nation airship:
    Toph: That's a great idea, let the blind girl steer the giant airship.
    Sokka: I was talking to Suki.
    Toph: That...would make a lot more sense.
  • In one episode it happens twice:
    Sokka: Toph, when I was in town, I found something that you're not gonna like. [holds up wanted poster for Toph]
    Toph: Well it sounds like a sheet of paper, but I'm guessing you're referring to what's on the sheet of paper.
    Later
    Katara: What's this? [holds up the same poster]
    Toph: I don't know! I mean seriously, what's with you people? I'm blind!
  • Have a look-see already...Whoops wait!
• The Gadfly: Likes to use her blindness to mess with the rest of the Gaang, such as saying that Sokka's poorly drawn picture of Appa looks just like him, or shouting that she's spotted Wan Shi Tong's Library while the Gaang is flying on Appa's back.
  Toph: There it is!
  [everyone turns towards the direction she's pointing, and one by one, silently glare at Toph]
  Toph: ... that's what it'll sound like when one of you spots it.
  [Toph puts on a big, dopey grin and waves one of her hands back and forth over her eyes]
• Girl of My Dreams: A non-romantic example. Aang sees Toph in a vision before ever having met her. When they do run into her a short time later, Aang is positively convinced that she, and no-one else, is destined to be his Earthbending teacher.
• Good is Not Nice: Toph may be just as heroic, brave, and self-sacrificing as any other member of the Gaang, but she's still a bit of a jerk who rarely opens up to anybody.
• Green and Mean: She's a downplayed case; she's associated with green and is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Handicapped Badass: She's blind but can "see" by sensing vibrations with her feet, which allows her to prevent attacks from opponents and kick a lot of ass. She can also hear better than anybody in the Gaang and never forgets a voice, which helps them out in numerous tight spots. In fact, she's so competent that her friends frequently forget that she's blind.
• Hates Baths: One of the tie-in comics has Katara having to force her to wash herself when she's too dirty.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Toph and Katara's tale in The Tales of Ba Sing Se makes it clear that for all her claims of not caring what others think of her looks, Toph is actually quite hurt by such rejection. It helps drive home the fact that, despite being a badass, she's still a 12-year-old girl.
  • In The Runaway, she admits to Katara that she does feel guilty about running away from her parents, and the episode ends with her sending them a letter with Sokka's messenger hawk.
• Hot-Blooded: There's a reason why the Ember Island Players chose to portray her the way they did.
  Toph: "I am not Toph! I am MELON LORD! MUAHAHAHA!"
• Iconic Sequel Character: Unlike the rest of the Gaang, Toph doesn't debut until Book 2, but she's no less prominent or iconic because of it.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Iroh, but hey, it's Iroh.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As rude as she is, she is right sometimes:
  • When the group were all arguing due to exhaustion, she was the first to point out that Appa's shedding was the reason why Azula and co. were able to keep following them and thus why they couldn't sleep, but she took it too far by blaming Appa (though that could also be due to sleep deprivation).
  • She also called out Aang, Katara, and Sokka on letting their personal experiences with Zuko prevent Aang from finding a firebending master quite bluntly, despite her pointing out that he was being sincere to them and he has done some good, like rescuing Appa. This is rather astounding, because she never cared about these things during her debut, but later on, she sees the bigger picture.
    Toph: You're all forgetting one crucial fact: Aang needs a firebending teacher! We can't think of a single person in the world to do the job. Now one shows up on a silver platter, and you won't even think about it!? I'm beginning to wonder who's really the blind one around here.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her tough exterior, Toph is not above warming up during intimate moments, as evidenced when she repeatedly joined in group hugs with Team Avatar and held hands with Aang at the prospect of friendships lasting more than one lifetime.
• The Lad-ette: The musclebound, belching, spitting hulk that was in the play near the end of the story? That's Toph on the inside.
• Large Ham: A rare little girl variant.
  Toph: I am not Toph! I am MELON LORD! Muahahaha!
• Lessons in Sophistication: Surprisingly, she does this. She was born into Earth Kingdom high society, so she knows how to act like a proper lady, she just chooses not to. She's able to help clean up Katara for a palace party hosted by the Earth King but she doesn't even attempt with Sokka and Aang. They're that hopeless.
• Little Miss Badass: She's only twelve, but she's a One-Woman Army and one of the most badass characters in the entire series. Oh, and she's also blind.
• Little Miss Con Artist: In "The Runaway", she, Sokka, and Aang decides to gain money by exploiting people's notion that since Toph is blind she's no threat.
• Little Miss Snarker: She might be a little girl, but she's brutally honest and you're not safe from her dry wit. Sokka is her most common victim.
• Living Lie Detector: Through her 'vibration sense', although some characters do get away with lying on some occasions. More specifically, she seems unable to detect the falsehoods of the psychopathic or pathological liars, who can say the most ludicrous or subtle lie without it having any kind of effect on their physiology for her to pick up on at all like Azula.
• Lonely Rich Kid: A fact that she dealt with by joining an underground fighting tournament and mopping the floor with anyone who challenged her.
• Magical Barefooter: Her bare feet are able to sense the vibrations from anything around her. She's also an Earthbender.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Played with. In "The Serpent's Pass", the name on her passport reads 拓芙, "supported lotus", which hardly describes Toph herself, but matches her parents' view of her being delicate and helpless. Averted in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" where the transcript of her name temporarily changed to 托夫 "entrusted man", before going back to 拓芙 in "The Earth King".
  • Her name also sounds similar to "toff", a British slang term for an upper-class person, and also the word "tough".
• Muscles Are Meaningless: In Toph's case, this relates specifically to her earthbending. She is clearly very strong for her size and age, often hurting her teammates, no pushovers themselves, with playful punches. However, situations where she lacks earthbending tend to emphasize her helplessness. This is partly because it takes away the Disability Superpower that allows her to bypass her blindness, but she never demonstrates superior martial arts skills when not aided by her earthbending.
• Never Learned to Read: Justified by the fact that she's blind in a world without Braille. As such, Sokka's plan to forge a letter from Toph to help her reconcile with Katara falls flat.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Of the three girls who become part of Team Avatar, she's the "Mean" to Katara's "Nice" and Suki's "In-Between". Toph is by far the most shamelessly rude and sarcastic of the main female characters, tends to never mince her words when expressing her opinions, and is often quite anarchic, having little respect for rules or authority. And while she does care about her friends and provide support for them whenever necessary, she is frequently quite blunt and harsh with them and is never afraid to backtalk them if they forget her blindness or criticise her behaviour.
• The Nicknamer: Calls Aang "Twinkle Toes", as he's very light on his feet — well, compared to the powerful, deliberate stomps of a master Earthbender like herself, anyway.
• No Hero to His Valet: One of Toph's defining characteristics is that she doesn't give Aang special treatment even though he's the Avatar. He may be the student, but she treats him like an equal and friend, to the point where she never fails to vocally criticize Aang to his face when she thinks it's needed.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: She is the only person in the gaang who doesn't end up in a relationship. She does end up having kids with two different men, however, one being unknown and the other being a guy named Kanto, but all the romance happened offscreen.
• Not Hyperbole: When she says that she is the greatest earthbender in the world, you better believe she can back that claim up. This is the girl who duelled King Bumi, who literally had a hundred years of experience on him, and she fought him to a draw! At age 12! Even earlier, she figured out how to subvert a Weaksauce Weakness of Earthbending by figuring out Metalbending, which none in history had done before. In The Legend of Korra, this claim still applies, and almost certainly extends beyond the currently living.
• The Not-Love Interest: Appears to be one for Aang, at least initially. She's a girl his age who he is quite literally destined to meet so she can serve as an aid to him in his quest, a setup which at least hints to her being some sort of romantic interest for him. But her official introduction and subsequent episodes with him make it clear that their relationship is purely platonic.
• Obfuscating Disability: While her eyes honestly do not work, she occasionally hides her Earthbending-linked tremorsense to play up the appearance of a helpless blind little girl.
• One of the Guys: She tends to prefer spending time with Aang, Sokka or Zuko over Katara and Suki.
• Outside-Context Problem: Being both a blind Earthbender and the world's only Metalbender means that most enemies she faces are at a loss on how to counter her. Gets somewhat subverted later on as exceptionally clever enemies are shown outsmarting her, such as Combustion Man throwing her into a wooden cell rather than a metal one.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: In the North and South comic, Toph describes the Beifong Metalbending Academy as "the most prestigious metalbending school in the world". One of her students points out they're the only school, but she sees it as the point since they do something that used to be considered impossible until she learned how to do it.
• Paranormal Gambling Advantage: Toph uses her earthbending abilities to cheat in several ways in several cases to gain money in the episode "The Runaway". A prime example was when she bent a pebble under a specific cup during a shell game.
• The Pig-Pen: A mild case. Despite eschewing most sorts of hygiene, especially where her feet are concerned, she doesn't look it unless attention is drawn to it. She mentions that she picks her nose a lot, and Katara nicely points out that she has dirt and grime on her "everything".
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: This girl is absolutely tiny being a little over 4 feet tall, but her only non-Avatar rival in Earthbending is King Bumi.
• Power Levels: Mentioned in an interview. According to invokedWord of God, she's the strongest bender in the Gaang (though this obviously doesn't count Aang in the Avatar State).
• Precocious Crush: Had one towards Sokka, but only shown in "The Serpent's Pass".
• Prefers Going Barefoot: Justified in that because she's blind, her bare feet are her strongest connection to the world. Anything that's not solid ground (or even moderate bandaging) dampens her "vision". The animators pay special attention to this; whenever she's shown asleep, she has her feet out of contact with the ground as the equivalent of "closing her eyes."◊
• Prophet Eyes: Her eyes are technically green, though a very pale, washed-out shade. Helps to emphasize both her blindness and the enhanced senses that came with it.
• Punny Name: As her Ember Island Player counterpart said: Toph sounds like "tough", and that's what she is.
• Rebellious Princess: Not actually royalty but close enough. Toph rebels against her parents because of how they stifle her freedom due to their overprotectiveness.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Inverted. The Lonely Rich Kid is recruited by the itinerant monk and his two near-penniless sidekicks. However, Toph very much lives as if she's in the gutter, like that "healthy coating of earth" that she cultivates.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The snarky, blunt red to Katara's demure, caring blue.
• Reflectionless Useless Eyes: She has these eyes to show she's blind.
• Running Gag: The show doesn't shy away from making jokes about Toph's blindness, with them being about fifty-fifty sight gags or Toph snarking about how someone who knows she's blind expects her to react like a sighted person.
• Sad Clown: Toph, when all is said and done, has more baggage than a cargo ship: she was always treated as a fragile thing by her parents, ran away from home after they said they'd be even more strict about protecting her (even after she showed first-hand that she was already one of the best earthbenders in the world at TWELVE), is legitimately torn over how she must have broken her parents hearts and makes them worry as a result, feels responsible for Appa having been kidnapped, and is actually terribly insecure about her blindness (despite acting like it's a non-issue normally). Outwardly, she seems like a total snark-bender who doesn't really care about anything, save for her friends.
• Sadistic Choice: Was forced to choose between saving Appa from Sandbenders or saving the rest of the Gaang from a building that was being pulled into the Spirit World. She tried to Take a Third Option, but her Achilles' Heel was active at the time.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: As a member of a powerful merchant family, she flashes her gold-bordered passport and makes up something about "valets" and a "seeing-eye lemur" to get entry passes to Ba Sing Se for herself and the rest of the Gaang from a humorless border official. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well when she later tries to bluff her way into the Earth King's party without invitations.
• Sent Into Hiding: She was this until meeting Aang. Her overprotective parents kept her locked inside the grounds of their home (although she was able to sneak out to work as a wrestler).
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Almost immediately we see the rough wrestler become a well-dressed lady in her intro.
• She Is All Grown Up: A puberty-related (and quite realistic) example. During the months which pass from her first appearance in Season 2 until the end of Season 3, Toph goes from being completely flat-chested to obviously beginning to develop.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: She was raised to be this due to her blindness, but over the years she became much less sheltered thanks to figuring out how to leave the grounds in secret and learning how to earthbend.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: All of Toph's love interests happened to be nice guys.
  • She had a huge crush on Sokka, but dropped it after he and Suki became a couple.
  • The comics has her being ship teased with Satoru, who considers her as his hero; needless to say, his praising of her melted the ice.
  • The sequel series, has her reveals Lin's father — Kanto, who she deemed a "nice man", but their relationship didn't work out for reasons unknown.
• Sore Loser: Prior to Character Development, she doesn't take any losses on her part well since her skills are the only thing she gained on merit (of the group, she's the only one who was never trained by a bending teacher, developing her skills entirely herself) and she's very proud of that fact. So when Aang initally beats her in a bending competition, she's bears a bit of a grudge on him for it and only lets it go when she gets a sucker punch on him later when she joins the group.
• Sour Supporter: Sometimes. She often vocally expresses her doubt in the group's plans, but will help them.
• Stealth Pun: It's only natural that the family symbol of the girl who did the impossible by inventing metalbending would be a winged boar. After all, something like that would only happen when pigs fly.
• Street Smart: Part of why she's the Team Face: she knows how to take advantage of street situations, such as in "The Runaway." And it's more than just the street. At the custom official and for the Earth King's party she was the one doing the talking.
• Super-Senses: Toph can sense the vibrations of the Earth, and is able to sense underground, behind walls and pretty much everything that a normal person can see (and even more). She can also tell whether someone is lying by sensing their heart rates.
• Tailor-Made Prison: In Season 2, she gets trapped in a steel cage, with her captors convinced that she can't escape because Earthbenders can't bend metal. Turns out that it did help her develop her new ability to metalbend. However, in Season 3, when she is put in a wooden cage, this time she really can't escape on her own, as wood is not a bendable substance.
• Tiny Tyrannical Girl: She states that she likes bossing people around, and she's not fooling around.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Katara's role as the Team Mom and Lady of War fighting tactics mean that she often clashes with Toph's more laid-back, One of the Guys mannerisms.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She kicks ass and doesn't take crap from anybody, but she does know high society manners and actually enjoys her spa day with Katara in "Tales of Ba Sing Se".
• Took a Level in Badass: Toph was already a Master Earthbender when the Gaang found her. She could take on most any Earthbender, save Bumi, and win easily. How does she become even more badass? By developing Metalbending, something no one in the history of the world had done before.
• Town Girls: After Suki joins the team, she becomes the Butch (The Lad-ette, and One Ofthe Guys), to Katara's Femme (Lady of War, and Team Mom), and Suki's Neither (a Nice Girl, but not stop being a Kyoshi warrior).
• Trauma Button: Saying that’s just how things are done will give her flashbacks to her oppressive childhood and cause her to become contrarian.
• Tsundere: She shows affection for someone by punching their arm. She's usually at her softest around Sokka but only at certain times, like she missed him but won't admit it.
• Use Your Head: In order to demonstrate to Aang the basic principles of earthbending, she shatters a big boulder with her head.
• Waif-Fu: Subverted. It looks like she has superhuman physical strength, but she's really just using earthbending to lift things around her. When using only her own physical strength she's actually quite weak, as shown when trying to lift a large metal mallet.
• The Watson: Not so much in personality — she actually tends to be the most knowledgeable of the Gaang, who are all Country Mice — but her blindness means other characters will read stuff (all in Chinese or Japanese characters) out loud to her, and thus, the audience.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Wood. It's such a flimsy material, yet effective enough to separate her from any earth.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Toph has a case of this, though unlike Zuko, it's more of trying to get her father to accept her for who she is as opposed to trying to please him.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Her tremorsense isn't limited to what's in front of her, goes right through cover, and has a range of over a hundred meters, so as long as she's part of the Gaang, no-one can sneak up on them. They wrote around this for twenty-six episodes, but the instant she gets her feet burnt, Combustion Man shows up and starts blowing everything to rubble.
  • In "The Library", Toph comments that the desert sand puts her at a relative disadvantage, as the looseness of it messes with the vibrations in the ground and blurs her vision. This ends up contributing to her failure to protect Appa from being caught by the sandbenders. Toph was already struggling to defend Appa because she also had to concentrate on keeping the library from sinking into the ground, but even when Toph tried to attack the sandbenders, her aim would be slightly off due to the shiftiness of the sand. Eventually, Toph realized she had to cut her losses and put all of her efforts into holding up the library, sadly allowing for Appa's capture.
• "World's Best" Character: What Xin Fu calls Toph in regards to Earthbending before she uses her newly discovered and invented Extra-ore-dinary abilities, and then she turns it back on him and claims the title after she traps him and his companion inside a metal box:
  Xin Fu: You might think you're the greatest Earthbender in the world, but even ''you'' can't bend metal!
  [...]
  Toph: I AM THE GREATEST EARTHBENDER IN THE WORLD!!! And don't you two dunderheads ever forget it!
• Yamato Nadeshiko: She can fake it perfectly, as when she shows up in a white dress in her parents' home — except she really, really dislikes it. Before leaving home she moonlights as a pro wrestler, and once she's free of her parents' supervision and can act the way she wants to, she proves to be very crude, aggressive, and unladylike indeed.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: In more serious moments, she refrains from using nicknames.
• Younger Mentor, Older Disciple: Toph is the youngest out of all the people to teach Aang bending who is technically older than most of his mentors anyway. Toph, however, one-ups them by being younger than Aang physically too.

Tropes that apply to her in The Legend of Korra

"Nice to see you again, Twinkle Toes."

^{Click here for her Metalbending Police Chief appearance}

Creator of metalbending, founder of the Republic City police force, and current matriarch of the Beifong family. Though blind from birth, she used earthbending to sense the world around her, which led to the ability to bend metal—something earthbenders had never been able to do before. Fought alongside Avatar Aang and his companions to end the Hundred Years War. Mother of Lin Beifong, the current Chief of Police of Republic City, and Suyin Beifong, matriarch/governor of the city-state of Zaofu. She eventually left the force on a search for enlightenment, ending up living in the Foggy Swamp in the Earth Kingdom.

---

• Above Good and Evil: Toph felt the whole conflict of good vs. evil is just pointless, because evil never gives up and the world is always out of balance no matter what. However, seeing her family in danger and seeing the sacrifices they were willing to make, convinces her that there will be a new generation to face each injustice and challenge brought to the world.
• Affectionate Nickname: She continued to call Aang "Twinkle Toes" into his forties, much to her amusement and his aggravation. She addresses Korra the same way when they meet.
• All for Nothing: She notes that no matter how hard she tried, crime in Republic City never went away, and admits that she believes it can never truly be eradicated. She is later convinced that others will step up to stop them, however.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: She is possibly the most powerful character in the world, but she has no particular interest in getting out of the swamp to fight evil; it just keeps coming back - and as she points out, her advanced age means that despite her vast skill and raw power, she can't really fight for long. Neither of these things stops her wiping the floor with an admittedly off-form Korra when training her (and crowing gleefully that she would have destroyed Korra if she was in her prime), or when Kuvira makes the mistake of kidnapping the Beifong family - Toph responds by wiping out an entire squad of earthbenders and Mini-Mecha with one attack, warning Kuvira to back off, or else. For the one out of only two times in the series, Kuvira (wisely) backs down. The second time, it took the destruction of the Colossus, a Korra beatdown, and Korra bending a spirit vine blast into a new spirit portal to convince her.
• Babies Ever After: Toph had two daughters with different men between the Time Skip.
• Back in the Saddle: She does one last dance against Kuvira while trying to rescue her family at the last minute.
• Badass Boast: Claims her daughters never picked up metalbending all that well. Considering that Lin is the Chief of the metalbending police and Suyin is the matriarch of a city of metalbenders, this says a lot about what Toph thinks a true metalbending master should be capable of, and the only one who fits the criteria is herself. And she's capable of backing it up, too. Also, this unforgettable bit:
  Korra: You were tossing me around like a ragdoll all day long.
  Toph: I know! And I'm an old lady! Imagine me in my prime... I would have DESTROYED you!
• Badass in Distress: Like the rest of the courtroom in the flashback when Yakone breaks out the bloodbending. He even forces her to levitate over to him and unlock his restraints; keep in mind that Toph is blind, and her substitute Seismic Sense only works when her feet are touching the ground. Doubles as a Crucified Hero Shot.
• Blind Seer: Now more than ever, especially if her claims of being able to see everything are not exaggerated.
• Blood Knight: Toph's just as much a fighter as ever, greatly enjoying her "training session" with Korra and lamenting she didn't put up more of a fight, while noting in disappointment that "those swamp-benders really can't take a punch." However, she recognizes her age prevents her from going all-out.
  Korra: That was terrible.
  Toph: Ha! Maybe for you. I had a great time! I never realized how much I missed tormenting the Avatar. I wish you were putting up more of a fight, but it was still fun.
  Korra: You were tossing me around like a rag doll all day long.
  Toph: I know! And I'm an old lady! Imagine me in my prime! Ha-ha! I would have destroyed you!
• Boisterous Bruiser: Still the ever loudmouth, arrogant master earthbender.
• Book Ends: The first time we see her in the series is as a vision Aang has in Foggy Bottom Swamp. When we last see her, she's returning to Foggy Bottom, where she now lives.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Toph founded the metal-bending police and sought to eradicate crime from Republic City, while neglecting her children in an attempt to (over)compensate for her own stifling upbringing. Her younger daughter ended up as a getaway driver for criminals and scarred her other daughter while resisting arrest. Lin didn't forgive Suyin for this or Toph for covering up the crime.
• Cool Old Lady: Well into her 80s, but still a powerful earthbender who acts pretty much like she did when she was a kid, in addition to having all the wisdom that comes with a full and productive life.
• Costume Inertia: Still wearing effectively the same outfit she had when she was 12 years old. Averted for her past self, as shown when she was Chief of Police.
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": At the end of Operation Beifong Toph says that she can't continue fighting anymore and admits that the big earthbending move she did threw out her back. Word of God also states that, when she was training Korra, her constant sitting down was actually because she didn't want her ego to be bruised by letting Korra know how much strain she was under while training her considering that she is now pushing ninety.
• Cynical Mentor:
  • Is this towards Korra, lamenting that all her years fighting crime as the police chief don't seem to have made any difference in the long run.
    Toph: Listen, when I was chief of police of Republic City, I worked my butt off busting criminals. But did that make crime disappear? Nope. If there's one thing I learned on the beat, it's that the names change but the street stays the same.
    Korra: So basically, you're saying that everything I've ever accomplished has been pointless. And I thought [Lin] Beifong was grumpy...
    Toph: I'm the original Beifong!
  • Deconstructed in "Remembrances", where it's shown to have done more harm than good. Tenzin and Asami both dispute that it means nothing, but rather insist that just because something new pops up doesn't mean the previous battle wasn't worth fighting.
  • After seeing her family in danger, she realizes there are things worth fighting for after all. Even though she feels too old to continue on, she encourages others to continue those battles.
  • She tries to pull this again in Ruins of the Empire, but Korra twists her own words about the wisdom of the swamp's visions and not wanting to give up the comfort of routine to risk being hurt again in order to force Toph to run for governor of Gaoling.
• Da Chief: The founder and first chief of the metalbending police.
• Dented Iron: After her first real fight in decades, her back hurts so much that she knows she can't help any more.
• Dirt Forcefield: Despite living in a swamp, her hair and clothes are free of mud and dirt. Makes sense because she can earthbend it off.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Toph hates it when Baatar calls her "Mother."
• Doting Grandparent: Her reaction towards Opal showing her affection (not to mention seeing her for the first time in years) is certainly in stark contrast to how she handles affection from others.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Toph may be the greatest earthbender who ever lived, but old age has caught up to her more than she'd care to admit, especially to Korra. That's why she has sidelined herself from most of the fighting, and has only involved herself against Kuvira when the latter was a direct threat to her family.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: As with the previous Avatar, she's taken to training Korra, whom she abuses and tosses around even worse than she did with Aang.
• Fatal Flaw: Her arrogance. She always believed that she made the right decisions and had the right to tell people what to do or not do. Suyin and Lin resent that it meant she never provided them guidance or was an actual mom. While Suyin and Toph talked out their issues, Lin refused to speak to either of them for decades. Toph comes really close to driving Lin away again when Lin reluctantly allies with her to save Suyin from Kuvira.
• Friend to All Children: Downplayed, but she's very fond of Opal, she's surprisingly amiable to Bolin, and she takes a shine to Meelo soon after they first meet.
  Meelo: Wait a minute. Cranky? Old? [waves his hand in front of her face] Blind? You must be Toph!
  Toph: Ho ho, I like this one!
• Former Teen Rebel: More like pre-teen rebel, but she nonetheless went from runaway and con artist to police chief.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger:
  • Toph does this to Yakone (and has six fingers) in a flashback.
  • She also does this to Kuvira in "Operation Beifong" after saving her family.
    Toph: You give Metalbenders a bad name!
• Godzilla Threshold: Despite knowing its time to retire due to her age, she comes out of her solitude when Kuvira poises a direct threat to her family, causing her to join a battle for the first time in many years.
  • Kuvira notably (and wisely) refrains from engaging Toph when the two finally meet face-to-face. Luckily for Kuvira, Toph is only interested in getting her family to safely rather than ending the threat posed by Kuvira (which Toph sees as the responsibility of the younger generations).
• Good Counterpart: To Hama in the original series.
  • Both characters are hermit mentors at a very old age. Their personalities are a contrast. While Hama is evil trying to make others think she's a nice old lady, Toph is good at heart and never shuts away her emotions. Toph may be grumpy by the time she was about Hama's age, but she still cares for others.
  • They both also learned a new bending technique when they were trapped inside a cage at a very young age (Hama learned bloodbending, while Toph learned metalbending) and passed it down to other people. Unlike Hama where she taught bloodbending for evil, Toph taught metalbending for good. In fact, Toph lashes out at Kuvira for using metalbending for evil purposes.
  • Hama never had a family after escaping prison, whilst Toph had one during adulthood and had a better life compared to Hama (though not without some family feuds between her two daughters).
• Grumpy Old Man: A female example. Old and cranky, and as opinionated as ever, not to mention more cynical.
  • Subverted since her grumpiness can't really be attributed to age. Her more cynical views about crime notwithstanding, her personality was pretty much the same when she was young.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Keeps the same hairstyle of her youth, now with a Republic City Police badge in her headband. She even retains this hairstyle in the present. Through all iterations from her youth to her old age, she keeps her bangs (which aren't a visual impediment for her since she doesn't have eyesight to begin with).
• Hands-Off Parenting: In an effort not to be like her overbearing parents, she left her children to their own devices, thinking they would find their own way much like she did. It didn't quite go her way, as Lin ended up emulating her while Suyin went in the opposite direction and rebelled against her. Eventually she couldn't bring herself to prosecute Suyin when she was caught in criminal activities, completely tearing the family apart. Su claims that Toph wasn't happy with the way either of them turned out. Toph, however, admits that they both turned out fine in spite of her parenting.
• Hermit Guru: It's Toph, so she doesn't really have the serenity typically associated with the archetype, but she's nevertheless now a spiritually-attuned mentor living in seclusion in the wilderness.
• Heroic Neutral: Toph eventually took this stance, having grown tired of the seemingly endless struggle against evil during her time as a cop, to the point she sequestered herself away from the outside world by living in the Foggy Swamp. But seeing her family and their friends go up against near-impossible odds inspires her back into action one last time.
• Irony: It's a little hard to fathom this girl becoming a police chief. She was also the girl that hustled many Fire Nation gamblers by cheating.
• It Makes Sense in Context: Sums up her training of Aang as "I threw some rocks at the Avatar, he got all whiny, and then Sokka fell in a hole" and describes the day Ozai was defeated as "It was hot. I was on a blimp. And I think a giant turtle showed up." Those actually aren't entirely inaccurate descriptions of the episodes in question, if lacking in details she wasn't there for and/or couldn't see to describe them. But then Toph never was one for intimate details.
  Korra: Okay, you're terrible at telling stories.
  Toph: You're terrible at listening to them!
• Jerkass Realization: When Lin after decades of estrangement decides to work with her to save Suyin and the other Beifongs, Toph can't tone down her snarkiness or brusque behavior. Lin then hits her Rage Breaking Point and tells her off for being a terrible mother, saying that after Suyin is saved, they're done. Again. Toph is visibly crushed, having a My God, What Have I Done? moment, before saying with a faint waver in her voice that she'll accept Lin's choice.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is a cynical, loudmouth and arrogant master earthbender, but her heart is in the right place. She lets Korra hug her after she successfully bends the rest of poison out of her body, and she stated that she was proud of her daughters and apologized that she wasn't a good mother in "Operation Beifong". In addition, she was willing to answer any question Bolin had, even though he was pretty annoying, and was genuinely impressed by his lavabending, remarking that it's a rare talent.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Revealed to be the reason why she stepped down from the force. She lamented how that no matter what she did there was no real change in Republic City. As she puts it: "The names changed, but the streets stayed the same." Korra strong-arms her into trying again from the angle of politics in Ruins of the Empire.
• Limited Wardrobe: Like Hairstyle Inertia, she wears casual clothes at age 85 similar to those she wore when she was 12. Though as a younger adult and at middle age, she wore police armor.
• Mama Bear:
  • She walked from the Swamp to rescue her family when they were in trouble.
  • In a flashback, she used her position as police chief to protect her daughter from criminal charges, even if it meant destroying an inconvenient police report and tearing her family apart.
• Maternally Challenged: She doesn't seem to have known how to actually raise daughters, possibly due to her own upbringing. Neither daughter really satisfied her and she greatly alienated one by abusing her authority as a police officer to let Suyin get away with a crime and for scarring Lin's face. Further, Lin is incredibly upset that not only does Toph fail to realize why Lin is mad at her, she usually brushes off her concerns and gives the impression she doesn't care. She doesn't have a response for this and sadly accepts Lin's criticisms but they do make up later now that Lin finally has it out of her system.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Like Katara, age seems to have taken off some height from her prime. The artbook notes that despite prior flashbacks showing her at a moderate adult height, the animators wanted her to revert to her 12-year-old height as an elderly woman. Her character designer agreed, so long as it was clear that the height reduction was due to her being hunched over with bent knees, not just her magically shrinking for no reason. This led to a lot of retakes when animators mistakenly drew her as too short without the bent knees or hunched over posture.
• My Greatest Failure: Lin believes she retired from the force out of disgrace for Suyin's behavior, and guilt for having covered it up, though Suyin disputes this. Lin's wrong. The actual reason is that Toph felt that she wasn't actually fixing anything by busting the bad guys. Suyin's behavior probably didn't help though.
• Never Mess with Granny: Like Zuko, she's in her eighties and Walking the Earth. Here, though, it's deconstructed. While she's as powerful and skilled as ever, if not a great deal more so, she no longer has the stamina or suppleness of youth, and one mission has her back ache so fiercely that she decides to pass the torch and sit the rest of the war out.
• Never My Fault: When Toph meets Lin again for the first time in years and learned that she has forgiven Su she takes it as a point of fact that Lin let go of her (very understandable) "issues" and that they can put the past behind them seeming to think that she has also been absolved of her own role in her daughters estrangement. The fact that she doesn't seem to care about why her daughter was upset with her only makes things worse. It's only after Lin gives a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Toph and unloads on her for all her pent up years of aggression that Toph finally realizes her own role in their estrangement and admits to her kids that, while she may have been bad at showing it, she always loved them and was proud of them.
• The Nicknamer: Even after twenty eight years, she still calls Aang "Twinkle Toes". And after over seventy years, Korra inherits the nickname.
• No Badass to His Valet: As with Aang, so with Korra. She enjoys kicking Korra around.
• No Sympathy: According to Lin, this is the root of their estrangement. Lin was hurt by having to grow up without a father and Toph's unwillingness to discuss him, and Toph herself didn't understand why it was important to Lin and therefore didn't care. At least Toph later on apologized for not being the perfect mother for Lin.
• Not So Stoic: Toph is pretty much always in control, but in "Operation Beifong" Lin finally cuts loose with her frustration towards her mother and chews her out for seeming to caring so little about what's important to her children, and finishes with a "once we save the prisoners, we are through." Toph sighs and her voice cracks ever so slightly when she says "if that's what makes you happy, fine." She holds it in well, but it's clear that Lin's words stung and on some level she knew she had it coming.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: To a degree towards Baatar Sr. She doesn't like it when he calls her "mother".
• Old Master: Age has only made her an even more powerful earthbender, and she claims that neither Suyin nor Lin ever learned metalbending to her satisfaction. Adding to this her pilgrimage to find herself and she is likely the greatest earthbender in history. A weakened Korra couldn't even touch her using all her elements, while Toph was only using basic earthbending.
• The Omniscient: Claims she can see everything thanks to the far-reaching roots in her swamp. Though it's unlikely that she can see it all at once.
• One-Woman Army: In "Operation Beifong", she literally sends an entire squad of Kuvira's soldiers (including several Earthbenders and Mini-Mechas) flying with one move when she pulls a Big Damn Heroes on her family.
• Our Founder: Has a solid gold statue of her in front of Republic City's police headquarters, and multiple statues in Zaofu.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: She declares Korra the worst Avatar she's ever trained. She then immediately lampshades the trope by noting she's only met one other Avatar.
• Parents as People: Very much - just because Toph became a mother wasn't going to magically fix her own cynicism or personality issues due to her own problematic upbringing by her overprotective parents (unlike someone like, say, Katara or Zuko, who had well-adjusted fathers in Hakoda and Iroh). While Toph does indeed love them and means well for her daughters, she tried to maintain a free-range approach to raising them, which ended up causing both to have their own issues in their youth. Naturally, this has led the women to have a strained relationship with her and each other, which doesn't get resolved until they're well into adulthood themselves.
• Passing the Torch: Although she is game for one odd adventure to save her family's necks, she points out that she is simply too old to partake in extended fighting and that the younger generation must pick up the torch.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Thirty years later and she's still the shortest of the group. At 86 years old, she's even smaller. She's also still a badass among badasses.
• Really Gets Around: Implied to have had quite the appetite for men in her prime years. Given the whole Super-Senses thing, this does have a certain logic to it...
• Refusal of the Second Call: She's living alone in the Foggy Swamp and, despite the fact that's she tells Korra she's been keeping an eye on things, only joins the main plot for a single episode when the Beifongs are captured.
  Toph: At some point, you gotta leave it to the kids.
• Restored My Faith in Humanity: Seeing her family take on new injustices with sheer determination, she knows that as long as a new generation is there to continue the fight, the world is in good hands.
• Retired Badass: While she's among the most powerful characters in the series, she's also pushing ninety. No amount of raw power or martial arts experience can compensate for the fact that she's too old to join the big fights.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Her attitude hasn't changed with age. If anything, age has only made her more direct.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: When Suyin got herself arrested, she tore up the police report and covered it all up. According to Lin, she felt bad enough about doing this that she retired a year later. Suyin disputes that this was why she retired. It's later shown that Suyin was right (though her behaviour didn't help), and Toph's real reason was more to do with being disillusioned at how fighting crime didn't make it go away, it just changed the names.
• Shoo the Dog: Rather than jail Suyin for a few days to teach her a lesson and prove no one is above the law, she destroyed the arrest warrant and exiled Suyin to her grandparents. Lin was not impressed.
• Smug Super: Old age and experience has not taught her humility. If anything, it's made her more arrogant than ever.
• So Proud of You: She tells this to everyone at the end of "Operation Beifong". Toph makes it known that she's proud her daughters, and later says that although she's too old for the hero game, she encourages them to continue fighting for what's right.
• Stopped Caring: Feels this way due to the unending nature of the battle against evil. In the end, though, she comes to believe that the likes of Korra along with others of her generation will step up to the plate and face said evil.
• Took a Level in Badass: She was already a match for King Bumi when she was a child. Now, her tremor sense crosses continents (augmented by the roots of giant swamp trees), and she's lost her weakness at fighting airbenders. She barely even uses her hands to earthbend anymore. If it wasn't for the fact that the aches and pains of age have caught up with her, plus her lack of stamina due to age, she'd be practically invincible.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Toph was never The Idealist in the first series, but her older self now believes that the Avatar isn't needed because no matter what good he/she does, evil and injustice never gives up. However, seeing her family in danger gave her more hope in those who are willing to continue fighting.
• Unreliable Expositor: She says she retired as Police Chief on realizing that crime would never stop. Lin claimed it was because she felt shame at covering up Suyin's crime. Both options are possibly true, with Suyin's arrest being The Last Straw for Toph's faith that she could stop crime. Because if she couldn't even stop her own daughter, then what about strangers in jail cells? It is oddly coincidental that she resigned a year after she exiled Suyin.
• Vibration Manipulation: To compensate for her blindness, Toph developed the ability to sense even the most minute of seismic vibrations. This ability requires skin contact to the ground, which is why Toph goes barefoot. This ability has been honed to the point that Toph can measure a person's heart rate to tell if they are lying.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Not so much in her daughters' youth as she became more serious as the Police Chief as shown in flashbacks, but by the present elderly Toph is just as fun and easygoing as she was as a child, in comparison to Lin and Suyin who are very serious, especially Lin.
• Walking the Earth: The last time most heard from her, she was on a search for enlightenment. She's eventually found by Korra in the very same swamp that Aang first saw a vision of her in.
• Warrior Therapist: Katara tried to heal Korra through medical waterbending over the course of more than two years, and only managed to fix her physical issues. Toph spent a week beating Korra up for fun and berating her, and got closer to the root of the problem than Katara ever did.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • She started Walking the Earth and disappeared to parts unknown, but in Book 4, it's revealed that she resides in the Foggy Swamp.
  • And after all this time, we find out from Toph who Lin's dad is. His name is Kanto, he was a nice man, but the relationship didn't work out. And that's all that's known about him.
• World's Strongest Woman: By far and away still the greatest earthbender in the world (and, let's be real, is in the running for the strongest person alive, even dwarfing Korra), in spite of her old age. When she's forced to fight against Kuvira to save her family, she ends the battle in one Earthbending attack that immediately disables multiple war machines. It took multiple people, including her two genius-level bender daughters, to even mount a defense prior to her arrival.
• The Worf Effect: In the flashback to Yakone's trial, she suffers this once Yakone breaks out his psychic bloodbending; she is the strongest bender there next to Aang and yet not even she can do anything once he has control of the bodies of everyone in the courtroom, including her. He even goes as far as to use her to unlock his cuffs, taking extra special care to keep her feet off the floor so she won't be able to counterattack, before knocking her and everyone else out. This is to underline and emphasize how dangerous of a bender Yakone was, which is why Aang felt it was best to take his bending like he had with Ozai.
• You're Not My Mother: Lin refused to speak to her or Suyin for about thirty years after Toph exiled Suyin and made her a Karma Houdini.

Joined in Book 3

Suki

Suki (蘇琪)

"I am a warrior, but I'm a girl, too."

^{Click here to see her out of her Kyoshi Warrior uniform.}

Voiced by: Jennie Kwan (English)^{Click to see other languages}Maureen Herman and Loreto Araya (Latin American Spanish); Manja Doering (German); Federica De Bortoli (Italian), Zuzanna Galia(Polish , season 1 and 2 ), Anna Wiśniewska (Polish , season 3)

Leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, Suki served as an early mentor and love interest for Sokka. Although she's dedicated to her job, she does have a soft side that comes out when Sokka's around. After the Yue incident, Sokka became a bit overprotective of her even though she's probably more capable than he is. And for good reason — after running afoul of Azula, she was presumed dead for quite some time. Fortunately, she was alive and became a permanent member of the group just in time for the final showdown.

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• 11th-Hour Ranger: She is the last member of Team Avatar to officially join ^note  though technically, they knew her before Toph and were friends with her before Zuko and only does so in the latter half of Book 3, a mere 4 episodes before the Grand Finale.
• Action Girl: Comes with being The Leader of the Kyoshi Warriors.
• Affirmative Action Girl: Joins Team Avatar in Season 3, giving the team an equal ratio of boys and girls.
• Animal Lover: Makes special time to entertain Momo and Appa when they interact, and shows an excellent understanding of approachability, animal care, and rehabilitation.
• Ascended Extra: A minor character in Book 1, her prominence gradually increases before she finally becomes a main character in Book 3.
• Badass Adorable: She's a cute, adorable warrior who can knock grown men to the ground with ease.
• Badass Normal: To the point of Charles Atlas Superpower. She's not a bender, yet stands as being one of the only people to fight Ty Lee to a draw (Sokka did manage to dodge her blows. Suki just blocks them), and managed to walk away — relatively speaking — from a fight with Azula.
• Battle Couple: With Sokka when she joins the team.
• Bodyguard Babes: After the war's end, she and the other Kyoshi Warriors become Fire Lord Zuko's personal guard.
• Breakout Character: Suki was intended as a one-off character for Sokka's character development, but she was such a popular character that she became an Ascended Extra and even got a Relationship Upgrade with Sokka. And then she became a full-blown 11th-Hour Ranger, actually joining the team on a permanent basis during the second half of Season 3.
• Break the Cutie: Azula hinted to Sokka that she tortured Suki; while she lied, Azula didn't need to try and break Suki's spirit. The Boiling Rock nearly did that, with a fellow prisoner selling out Suki when they work together to tend a clandestine garden for the villagers because Biyu was self-centered and lying to Suki to gain a useful ally. While Suki put Biyu in a precarious position in revenge, threatening to let her fall off an iron railing, she realized it wouldn't fix anything and let her go, before crying in the privacy of her cell. Kyoshi had to come in a vision and reassure Suki that her friends were coming to rescue her.
• The Bus Came Back: In Book 2 she is captured by Azula; we don't see her again until "The Boiling Rock".
• Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: The Kyoshi Warriors become this to Zuko after he becomes Fire Lord.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: By the start of the series, the Kyoshi Warriors are still only defending their home island. Then Zuko follows Aang there and starts burning her village down. She fends him and his troops off, and then takes inspiration from the Gaang and goes on a liberation mission from her home all the way to the outskirts of Ba Sing Se.
• Character Witness: She's a little brusque with Zuko when they meet again as fellow prisoners in the Boiling Rock; when Sokka tries introducing them, Suki says snarkily it's hard to forget the Fire Nation prince that nearly burned down Kyoshi Island. Because Sokka vouched for Zuko, however, Suki is at least willing to work with him.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Suki was a borderline case until "Boiling Rock, Part II" when she ran up a thirty-foot wall without any footholds.
• Combat Hand Fan: While serving as a Kyoshi Warrior, her weapon of choice.
• Cool Mask: Of the "Cool Face Paint" variety. The paint conceals her identity well enough that Sokka didn't recognize her when he met her without it.
• A Day in the Limelight: The comic one-shot, Suki, Alone chronicles her stay at the Boiling Rock.
• Fire-Forged Friends: It's not obvious, but after working with Zuko to battle against the two people they both been wanting to rematch (Ty Lee for Suki, Azula for Zuko), Suki ended up becoming a good friend to him.
  Suki: (regarding Ty Lee) This is a rematch I've been waiting for.
  Zuko: (regarding Azula) Me too.
• Elemental Motifs: Earth, befitting her native Kingdom. While not a Bender, her stubborn nature matches it's strength based philosiphy.
• First Girl Wins: The first person introduced in the show with whom Sokka has romantic chemistry. Played With in that it merely culminates with a chaste kiss on the cheek at the end of their first encounter, whereas Sokka falls head over heels in love with Yue at pretty much first sight later on. That said, it's clear that they still have romantic feelings for each other immediately upon being reunited in Season 2, and Suki becomes Sokka's permanent love interest from that point forward (outside of some very mild flirting Sokka does with Ty Lee in "The Drill" and his attempts to impress some girls in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se").
• Friend to All Living Things: The team pets Appa and Momo quickly take a liking to her even before she becomes a regular team member, and Appa even risks his life and confronts his fear in order to defend her.
• Geisha: The Kyoshi Warriors have the makeup and feminity of those, while still being competent fighters.
• Girl of the Week: She was originally intended to be this, but was brought back and made a permanent love interest due to fandom demand.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Rather than fly on Appa when Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee attacked the Kyoshi Warriors, Suki quickly realized that the bison was the real target of the princess. She waves a burning branch at Appa to scare him away and tells him they'll be fine, just go!
• Hero of Another Story: After Aang and the team inspired her, she leads the Kyoshi Warriors on missions across the Earth Kingdom, only intersecting with Team Avatar and Appa once each. We do see one of those other stories play out in "Appa's Lost Days", however.
• Improbable Piloting Skills: Quickly learning how to pilot an airship between "The Boiling Rock" and "Sozin's Comet" wasn't the improbable part. Successfully piloting one from outside of it was.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: The Kyoshi Warriors, just like their namesake.
• Lady of War: She uses an unarmed fighting style reminiscent of Aikido and wields more ladylike war fans. She looks the part more while in her Kyoshi Warrior uniform.
• Laugh of Love: She tends to laugh when she's with Sokka, and their relationship works out much better than his one with Princess Yue.
• The Leader: Of the Kyoshi Warriors.
• Makes Us Even: While Suki does subtly hold grudges for anyone who defeats her in combat or endangers her crew, she'll consider it even if they get a rematch or they pull a Heel–Face Turn. She thought Sokka was a sexist ass and forgave him when he apologized and humbly asked her to teach him to fight properly. Ty Lee was complicit in capturing the Kyoshi Warriors and using their identities to take down Ba Sing Se; Suki felt she settled her score with Ty Lee by beating her during the Boiling Rock confrontation, and later accepted her as a Kyoshi Warrior on probation.
• Meaningful Name: "Suki" can mean "beloved" in Japanese and is an expression of love. She's introduced primarily as a love interest. It also sounds similar to the Japanese word for moon, "tsuki", connecting her to Yue, Sokka's other (though short-lived) love interest. Also, "suki" in Filipino means a recurring patron or customer (especially of a business). Considering The Bus Came Back, this seems quite apt. As an added bonus, her voice actress is Filipino-American.
• A Mother to Her Men: Or, as the case may be, a mother to her Kyoshi Warriors. She tags along with the Gaang along the Serpent's Pass, then goes back to the other Warriors.
• Multi-Melee Master: While the Kyoshi Warriors' preferred weapon is a metal war fan, taking after their namesake, Suki also has them all learn and use katanas, and collapsible shields. Suki herself is also proficient in hand-to-hand combat, holding the distinction of the only person to hold her own against Ty Lee one-on-one.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: She easily outwrestled the warden at Boiling Rock prison, in spite of his arms being thicker than her chest.
• Nice Girl: Suki may be tough, assertive, and unafraid to speak her mind, but she has a very compassionate and loyal spirit.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Of the three girls who become part of Team Avatar, she's the "In-Between" to Katara's "Nice" and Toph's "Mean". Suki is a firm and no-nonsense warrior who always stands her ground, but she's also kind, level-headed and supportive, and provides her friends with invaluable help if they ever need it.
• Ninja: She's an elite warrior who has trained for many years in the art of stealth.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Goes hand in hand with her being a Hero of Another Story for the first two seasons. These would've included moments like: leading her troops on foot across the entire the Earth Kingdom, stopping to help people along the way; fighting Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, and ending beaten but unburned; and being dangerous enough to get transferred to the harshest Fire Nation prison and holding her own there.
  • Also, when she is separated from her friends in the finale, she single-handedly manages to commandeer an entire airship filled with comet-enhanced Firebenders and uses it to save Sokka and Toph.
• Le Parkour: In "The Boiling Rock", while Sokka and co. are trying to think up a plan to take the Warden hostage, she climbs three stories and kicks all kinds of ass while doing so, and does it all in the span of about two minutes. Three minutes tops. By the time they catch up with her, they're all out of breath, including the trained warriors, and the firebenders who derive their power from breathing.
• Plucky Girl: She leaves Kyoshi Island to help out with the war and manages to hold up pretty well after being captured and imprisoned.
• Pride: It's subtle, but she doesn't respond well to having her failures pointed out. When Sokka insists she admit he beat her in a sparring session, Suki forcibly bends his finger backwards and insists it was a lucky shot. After Suki mocks Team Avatar's win/loss record and Sokka responds by pointing out Azula took her captive, she flatly asks him if he's trying to get on her bad side.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: While she captured the Gaang and accused them of being invaders to the island, Suki relented when Aang apologized for trespassing and revealed that he was the Avatar and Kyoshi's reincarnation. She also took in Sokka as a sparring student after throwing him on his ass several times when he attempted to "show" her his moves, and he humbled himself before her. Meanwhile, there was her taking in Ty Lee as a Kyoshi Warrior on probation; while Suki had more reason to bar Ty Lee from joining given the whole "Stealing the Kyoshi Warrior identity to help Azula take over Ba Sing Se", she agreed on the condition that Ty Lee would be on her best behavior and teach the girls chi blocking so they stood a better chance against benders.
• Second Love: Suki was the second girl Sokka fell in love with, after the ascension of Yue.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: After being rescued from the Boiling Rock in Book 3, she dresses in a Fire Nation outfit that leaves her shoulder blades bare.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Suki starts to show affection for Sokka after he humbles himself and asks her to teach him the Kyoshi fighting style (even agreeing to wear a dress) and apologizes for being rude to her and the other warriors.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: With Sokka. Suki is a tough warrior and the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, while Sokka is The Smart Guy always in charge to come up with ingenious inventions and battle plans. While Sokka does become a capable warrior later on, Suki still has him beat in terms of agility and range of combat skills.
• Tempting Fate: She gets mildly annoyed when Sokka becomes overprotective of her in "The Serpent's Pass," but she understands when he explains that he lost someone he couldn't save, and couldn't bear the same thing to happen to her. Suki reassures Sokka that he won't ever have to worry about her safety. Then she meets Azula and her Girl Posse...
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's a badass leader of an elite team of warriors, but her signature weapon is a fan, she wears make-up and a dress as her battle uniform and is sweetly romantic when it comes to Sokka.
  Suki: I am a warrior. But I'm a girl too.
• Took a Level in Badass: Improved a lot from her debut in Season 1 and being captured in Season 2 to going blow-for-blow with Ty Lee in Season 3. Well, she wasn't exactly a pushover in her debut, but getting curb stomped by Azula and her mooks hurt her credibility before she came back swinging in Season 3.
• Town Girls: After she joins the team, becomes the Neither (a Nice Girl, but also a tough and capable Kyoshi warrior), to Katara's Femme (Lady of War, and Team Mom), and Toph's Butch (The Lad-ette, and One of the Boys).
• True Companions: With her childhood best friend Mingxia and fellow Kyoshi Warriors, which she even considered her sisters, and Suki often remembered their times together while imprisoned at the Boiling Rock in "Suki Alone".
• Tsundere: A very light case of this with Sokka. In her debut episode, when Sokka manages to take her down, a pouting Suki tells him she did it on purpose.
• Tsurime Eyes: She has narrow, upwards arching eyes with her Kyoshi Warrior makeup.
• Twofer Token Minority: She is both a girl and from a Japanese-inspired culture, whereas most of the Earth Kingdom (and even the Fire Nation in the original series, though less so in the sequels) is (largely) Chinese-derived.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • While her decision to help refugees in the Earth Kingdom was noble and she saved Toph's life by leaving Kyoshi Island and going with the Gaang through the Serpent's Pass, Suki also exposed the Warriors to Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai who were hunting Appa and Aang at the time. Azula's decision to capture the Warriors when they pulled off a You Shall Not Pass! to allow Appa to escape would lead to her stealing their outfits and identities, complete with impersonating Suki in Ba Sing Se and taking down the last Earth Kingdom stronghold. Azula also found out about her and Sokka's budding relationship and used it to taunt Sokka at a crucial time.
  • In The Promise, she tells Mai about her concerns about Zuko, leading Mai to leave Zuko. This drives Zuko further into despair and worsens the overall situation.
• Vague Age: Downplayed: while Suki's a teenager like most of Team Avatar, her exact age is never explicitly stated in the show or in supplementary materials. She's notable for being the only human in the main group to never have a confirmed age.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Is the only member of Team Avatar whom we get no mention of or see, either physically or in flashback form, in The Legend of Korra leaving her fate after the end of the series unknown. This has sprung many fan theories, including ones in which she either settled down with Sokka or died in combat. A Q&A the series creators held on the series' wiki had them joke that Suki and Sokka "moved to the suburbs".
• The Worf Effect: She and the other girl warriors, who were presented as competent in their first appearance episode, were defeated by Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee and then locked up in a Fire Nation prison, where she needed Team Avatar to help her escape. By the time of their rematch, however, Suki was a match for Ty Lee even without her fan, sword, or shield.
• We Work Well Together: In Suki, Alone, she believed that a community was more effective that individual and tried to motivate her fellow prisoners to work together to escape by secretly cultivating vegetables, thus giving them better food, however one prisoner betrays her to the Warden, and the rest turns their back.
• Worf Had the Flu: Her earliest appearances showed her fighting defensively to protect someone or some place, and not fighting at her fullest. She only fully takes the offensive in the third season when she joins the team, and even without any of her weapons is shown to be far more effective.
• You Are Not Alone: She constanstly repeated this to herself when meditating in Suki Alone while imprisoned in the Boiling Rock and separated from her fellow Kyoshi warrior sisters, even in solitary confinament after trying and failing to make a rebellion with her fellow prisoners. She almost breaks down from this and cries after being betrayed by a inmate named Biyu and also by remembering her adventures with the other Kyoshi warriors only to see she was now imprisoned in her cell with no one but herself. However Avatar Kyoshi's spirit appears to her to reassure that her friends love her and didn't abandon her and that she's not alone, which eventually comes true as soon Sokka and Zuko arrive and rescue her from the prison. Granted, they came for Hakoda at first, but instantly changed gears when they spotted her.

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