#this is not hate

(Use she/her on Nightmare 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️)

I drew this when I was sort of drunk

I think we all know that Katara and Sokka practically raised each other (Only God knows what Kanna was doing, because she was NOT raising those children) since their mother died and Hakoda left.

We know that Katara was in charge of washing the clothes and feeding Sokka, and we know that Sokka also took care of Katara. Uh, how? We don't know, we only know that he did. Probably by keeping her out of harm's way and hunting for her to cook, although I'm only assuming this because it's never explicitly stated in the series. Only the first few episodes show Sokka being overprotective and hunting.

And I think it's a very bad guess, because while Sokka sees Katara as a maternal figure and throughout the series we see how she feeds him and takes care of his clothes, we only see Sokka hunting (which he is terrible at) and unlike him, she does NOT see him as a paternal figure, much less respect his authority; literally every time he tries to order her around, she just laughs at him.

In the first episode, Katara scolds him, telling him that while she takes care of everything, he plays soldier, referring to when Sokka "trains" the children or practices with his boomerang, because there was never a real threat to the tribe until the Fire Nation arrived. Zuko demonstrates this when he sends Sokka flying with a kick, and Suki demonstrates it again after humiliating him countless times in their fights.

So yes, he was basically wasting his time with his weapons, trying to make himself look like a man while Katara was the real "family man" taking care of him and her. And why? All because the young man thought knitting or cooking was for girls, believing that it was his sister's role because she was a woman. Subjecting her to hard work, even when she is younger than him, and with the weight of practically replacing their dead mother.

So, to recap, the roles assigned to Sokka that could make him a father figure were these:

Hunting: He's very bad at it, he has difficulty fishing and in that episode where Toph teaches Aang earthbending, he gets stuck in a hole trying to hunt a creature, not to mention that many times he brought dried fruit because he couldn't catch anything.

Protect: There was never any real risk in the Water Tribe; they were a forgotten village that no one ever visited. The only thing that posed a danger was the abandoned ship, and Katara knew perfectly well that she shouldn't go there; she only went to follow Aang.

Command: Also terrible, not only does Katara ignore him, she also mocks him because between the two of them, she is the real authority, she is the true figure of the family. Sokka only likes to believe that he is a big man and he believed that men were for that purpose.

The saddest part of all is that when he learns his lesson and stops being a misogynist, he stops doing the bare minimum to support them, as if it were a reward. In the first season and part of the second, he made sure Katara and Aang never got into trouble and tried to protect them at all costs. After drinking cactus juice, he becomes just another idiot and acts with the same mental capacity as his 12-year-old friends (Toph and Aang), leaving Katara with the rest of the work that was his responsibility.

Now Katara is not only responsible for household chores, now she has to protect them in and prevent them from getting into trouble; now she has to be both ""father"" and ""mother"" at the same time. The only thing Sokka really continued doing was hunting, and that's something I'm assuming because as far as I remember, after a certain point in the series, they just bought food. If I'm not mistaken, he did get a job, but I only remember him working in "the storm" episode.