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thinking abt how in “bitter work” when sokka sees aang and he’s immediately like “do you have any meat.” like obviously the answer is no. aang is a vegetarian. why would sokka ask that? it feels kind of obvious to just say “well he was hungry and desperate,” but honestly, that explanation doesn’t really sit right with me. sokka spends that episode stuck in a hole, and he occupies his time by bargaining with the universe. he’s basically doing an extended bit for his own amusement. when he asks a vegetarian monk if he has any meat moments after swearing to become a vegetarian himself, he isn’t really asking aang; no, he’s making that joke for himself, and for god.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you read a lot of sokka’s jokes as self-aware bits that he is performing for his own entertainment out of boredom (or letting himself be the butt of the joke for the entertainment of others) everything else about his character starts to click into place too. there are definitely areas in which he lacks self-awareness (his own self-worth is a big one), but he has always understood his role in the universe—and if you can’t be the hero, then you may as well be the fool.