Sokka's Master

:This article is about the episode. For the titular character, see Piandao. For other similar uses, see Sokka (disambiguation).
"Sokka's Master" is the fourth episode of Book Three: Fire of Avatar: The Last Airbender and the 44th of the overall series. It debuted on October 12, 2007.
== Overview ==
After the rest of Team Avatar saves a town from destruction by a meteorite, Sokka feels left out as he is the only person in the group unable to bend. He finds a swords master named Piandao to help further his skills as a warrior, forging his own sword out of the meteorite. He and his friends realize just how important he is to their group. Meanwhile, Iroh devises a plan to escape prison and starts bodybuilding in secret.
== Synopsis ==
The episode opens with Aang, Katara, and Sokka, watching a meteor shower. Toph naturally cannot see anything, but chooses to "watch" it with them nonetheless. One meteoroid falls to Earth and impacts close by, starting a forest fire near a village. Fighting the fire, Aang and Toph begin to build trenches around it while Katara flies on Appa to a nearby creek from which she waterbends to dispose of the fire. Sokka, however, is merely placed in charge of Momo and does nothing to contribute, much to his dismay as even Momo manages to help out by snuffing more ember fires than him.
Meanwhile, Warden Poon goes to give Iroh his food in prison. The guard heavily mocks a markedly disheveled Iroh as he scrabbles for the gruel, even scooping what had fallen onto the ground into his mouth. As soon as the guard is gone, he becomes more collected, wipes the sweaty hair out of his face and calmly finishes his meal in peace, only eating out of the bowl.
While Team Avatar is dining in the town, Sokka expresses how he feels useless for not being able to bend or fight as well as the others, stating that he cannot "fly around" like the rest of them. The group tries to console him and takes him shopping at a weapons store. Katara is seen trying on leather gloves, and Aang tries on some very intimidating but heavy armor. After trying many weapons and injuring himself a few times, Sokka sees a priceless sword that he falls in love with. Commending his eye for quality, the shop owner informs him that it is an original, forged by the Fire Nation's most renowned swordsmaster and swordsmith, Piandao, who happens to live in a castle nearby. At Aang's suggestion, Sokka decides to seek the tutelage of the master because every other member of their group was formally trained by a real master of a bending art; Aang by Monk Gyatso, Katara by Master Pakku, and Toph by badgermoles, the original earthbenders.
Iroh is shown once again, lying on the ground deep in thought. Suddenly his eyes widen and he begins explosively doing bent-knee sit ups before the camera cuts away to the group.
Sokka travels to Piandao's home only to be cautioned by the butler Fat at the front gate that the master turns away almost everyone. He asks what Sokka brought Piandao to prove his worth, but when he cannot come up with anything, he shakes his head and lets the teen in to "get it over with". Taken to where Piandao is doing calligraphy, Sokka introduces himself. Piandao comments that his name is unusual, but Sokka awkwardly claims that it is normal in the Fire Nation colonies. Having yet to turn around from the table to look at him, Piandao skeptically guesses the usual story: that Sokka is the best swordsman in a little town hundreds of miles away and thinks he deserves to learn from the master. Sokka corrects that he has been all over the world, but the one thing he knows is that he has a lot to learn. When Piandao notes that he is not "selling" himself very well, Sokka agrees. In terms of proving his worth, he admits that he is not even sure of his own worthiness. However, this is exactly what the swordsman is looking for and he quickly decides to take Sokka under his wing.
After giving Sokka an outfit similar to his own as his formal student, Piandao demonstrates weapon form outside in his back garden area, explaining that the weapon is an extension of oneself and must be thought of as another part of one's body. The sword by itself is a simple weapon, but in the hands of a master utilizing the limitless possibilities of imagination and creativity, the sword too becomes the most versatile of weapons, with limitless uses. With that, Piandao charges him with tasks such as landscape painting and calligraphy, and has him practice against Fat.
Meanwhile, Iroh is still being mocked by the guard. The scene cuts to the group missing Sokka, trying to make jokes in his absence. They have no success, and when Katara tries, Aang even says, "I guess the jokes don't run in the family." Back at the prison, Iroh is training in the guards' absence, having upgraded to a more difficult variation of sit-up, the straight-legged inverted sit-up, and clapping push-ups. He keeps up the facade of loneliness and desperation in front of the guard to hide his exercises in preparation for his break out.
In the meantime, Sokka's swordsmanship greatly improves, to the extent where he finally beats Fat while taking a new approach at some of the challenges set before him. By this time, Piandao believes Sokka to be worthy enough to choose a steel to make his own sword. Unsatisfied with the samples of metal before him, Sokka remembers the meteorite and on getting Piandao's pleased approval to source his own raw material, returns to camp for help. Aang and Katara are both overjoyed to see him again, while Toph claims that she did not care, turning away to hide the blush on her cheeks. They haul the meteorite up the road to the castle, with aid from Toph's earthbending. They are addressed at the gate by Piandao, asking about Aang, Katara, and Toph, whom Sokka claims to be friends and fellow Fire Nation citizens. On Sokka asking about the meteorite as a potential material, the blade smith proclaims that they will craft a sword like no other.
Still, Iroh is seen training whenever not under watch, being able to perform difficult exercises including but not limited to inverted crunches, inverted push-ups, and one handed pull-ups. By this time he seems to regain much of his strength.
After spending a full night forging his sword, being made in a traditional Chinese fashion of melting, pouring into a mold, shaping, and quenching, the swords master presents Sokka a very unique, all black sword, claiming to have never seen such a creative, imaginative student or blade. Sokka refuses, though, and confesses to actually being from the Southern Water Tribe. The master attacks him, and they engage in a duel. Aang and the others try to intervene, but Sokka tells them to stand back, feeling he needs to fight this battle on his own.
Meanwhile, the guard comes to drop off food for Iroh. He mocks Iroh, comparing his former status as general and "Dragon of the West," to his pitiful, jailed condition. He drops the food on the floor, except for an apple that Iroh reached for, before leaving. Still keeping his jailer unaware, Iroh has managed to recondition his body to be more formidable than ever before.
As the duel between Sokka and Piandao moves outside, Sokka uses the techniques he has learned—coupled with his youth and agility—to retain a somewhat equal footing while dealing with his much more skilled opponent, something the master points out in approval several times. In the end, the swordsmaster finally gains the upper hand, but when Katara, Aang, and Toph jump down into the courtyard to help Sokka, he stands down and sheaths his sword by catching the thrown scabbard from Fat onto the blade. He reveals that he had known Sokka is from the Water Tribe all along just from his name, and also notes that Aang is the Avatar. He suggests Sokka to try using the cover name Lee instead, as "there's a million Lees". Nonetheless, he claims that the art of the sword does not belong to any one nation and gives Sokka his sword back. He tells Sokka that he must continue to train on his own now, and if he stays on this path, Piandao knows that he will become an even greater master than him one day. They bow to each other.
Just as they are leaving the castle, Fat runs after Sokka, giving him a small bag with the swordsmaster's gift to remember him by. Inside is a Pai Sho tile: the white lotus. As Fat closes the doors of the front gate, they notice that the symbol of the white lotus can be seen surrounding that of the Fire Nation. As they leave, Sokka gives Toph a piece of the meteorite he saved for her, calling it "space earth". Happy with the gift, Toph easily bends the meteoric iron into various shapes between her hands: a spiral, a star, and a "splat". Katara contradicts her brother, claiming that there is no such thing as earth from space because if it is from space, it is not earth. Sokka calls her out on ruining everything, as Katara states that she cannot believe she missed him.
== Credits ==
* Written by:
** Tim Hedrick
* Directed by:
** Giancarlo Volpe
* Starring:
** Zach Tyler Eisen - Aang
** Mae Whitman - Katara
** Jack DeSena - Sokka
** Jessie Flower - Toph
** Dee Bradley Baker:
*** Appa
*** Momo
* Also starring:
** Robert Patrick - Piandao
** Chris Butler - Fat
** Greg Baldwin - Uncle
*** This is the first episode in which Iroh is voiced exclusively by Greg Baldwin.
** Wayne Duvall - Warden Poon
* Additional voices:
** Dee Bradley Baker
** Greg Baldwin (weapons store shopkeeper)
== Production notes ==
=== Transcript ===
=== Avatar Extras ===
=== Series continuity ===
* Piandao suggests Sokka to use the name "Lee" while he is in the Fire Nation, as Lee is a common name. This is the same name Zuko used while living in the Earth Kingdom during the second book, while he was trying not to be discovered as being from the Fire Nation.
* Piandao's advice to Sokka about imagining the sword as part of your own body mirrors what Suki told him about using fans in the "The Warriors of Kyoshi". Zuko also gave similar advice to Lee in "Zuko Alone", adding that his two swords are not separate, but two halves of the same deadly weapon.
=== Goofs ===
* The meteorite collision that occurs at the beginning of the episode causes only minimal damage, when in reality a meteorite that large would have destroyed everything for miles around.
* In the scene when Sokka is down about not being special, in one shot, the symbol on Aang's headband is missing and in another, Toph's nose is missing, when her hair is clearly away from her nose.
* When Sokka runs into the store, Toph is rendered in front of Sokka, even though she is farther away.
* The sword on the wall of the weapon's store looks absurdly long from a distance, but when Sokka takes it off the wall and unsheathes it, it is a normal, manageable size.
** After Sokka first unsheathes the sword, there is a cut to a different shot and the unsheathing sound effect plays once again.
* When Sokka paints a Z-shaped ink pattern on his face, the dot of ink he had unintentionally gotten on his face earlier can still be seen, but by the time he smiled, the dot was gone.
* The ink Sokka spread on his face was in a Z-shape. When he was finished smearing it onto the paper, the ink should have been all over his face, but it was still in the same Z-shape as it was before.
* The ink Sokka purposely put on his face would not be enough to cover the area that was on the paper. His face would have to be completely covered in ink for this to work.
* Sokka's landscape, in addition to the added rainbow, oddly completely omits the waterfall itself. It is also painted in color, despite him only being given black ink.
* During Sokka's third sword fight with Piandao's butler, right after Sokka rearranged Piandao's rock garden, the two begin while standing on the side of the white lotus that's depicted on the ground. When the shot changes to a view from behind Sokka's shoulder, the butler is standing in the center of the flower, and when the shot switches to his point of view, Sokka is standing in the center.
* When Piandao tells Sokka he is ready for a real sword, part of the yellow rim on the bottom of his collar is missing.
* During the shot of the group standing outside the gate with the meteorite, Toph's shirt is missing but still retains her shoulder garments.
* In reality, it would take months and even up to a year in some cases to produce a Chinese or Japanese sword due to the intricate and time consuming phases of production.
* When Piandao strikes at Sokka after apologizing, Sokka unsheathes his sword to block. However, when the camera cuts to Sokka's face, the sword is back in its sheath.
* When Sokka runs away during his fight with Piandao, he has no sword, but a few seconds later, he is cutting the bamboo with his sword.
* During Sokka's fight with Piandao, locks of hair from his wolf-tail alternate between being fastened and loose on multiple occasions.
=== Trivia ===
* The waterfall Piandao has Sokka paint is heavily based on the Gullfoss Waterfall in Iceland, which is famed for its rainbows. Prior to beginning the final season, the show's creators traveled around Iceland, gathering inspiration for what the Fire Nation landscape would resemble.
* When Toph is playing with the meteorite rock at the end of the episode, one of the shapes she forms is a "splat". This is a reference to the Nickelodeon logo at the time of the episode's airing.
* The blade that hangs on display in the weapons shop was drawn from a commemorative Qing dynasty sword that Sifu Kisu got in the Zhengzhou Wushu Festival for the fifteen hundred year of the Shaolin Temple in China.DiMartino, Michael Dante; Konietzko, Bryan & Sifu Kisu (October 30, 2007). "Sokka's Master" commentary. Book 3: Fire, Volume 1 DVD.
* The armor that Aang wears in the weapon shop is inspired by an early toy design of Aang with an armor suit. Additionally, the left gauntlet of the armor is similar to the right gauntlet design of the Soul Calibur character Nightmare.
* The white lotus appears a number of times in Piandao's castle, as do designs inspired by the lion turtle.
* Robert Patrick, Piandao's voice actor, played the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The T-1000 could literally make its arms into swords, paralleling what Piandao says to Sokka when comparing the sword to a "long, very sharp arm".
* According to Bryan Konietzko, the fighting sequence in the bamboo thicket was most likely inspired by a similar scene from House of Flying Daggers but may also have taken influence, directly or indirectly, from photos and footage they had seen of the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto.Basco, Dante (host), Varney, Janet (host), Jack DeSena (guest). (April 5, 2024). "Secrets from the Vault: Sword Fights & Bryke Bites". Avatar: Braving the Elements. Episode 113.5. Apple Podcasts.
== References ==
de:Sokka und sein Meister
es:El Maestro de Sokka
fi:Sokkan opettaja
fr:Le Maître de Sokka
nl:Sokka's Meester
pl:Mistrz Sokki
pt-br:O Mestre de Sokka
ru:Учитель Сокки
Category:A to Z
Category:Book Three: Fire
Category:Episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender
Category:Real world