faesphere | [Character Application] Suki

Character

Name: Suki
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Gender: Female
Age: 15
Time Period: After Book 3: Fire
Wing Color: Dark green
History: Avatar Wiki

Personality:

There are two main sides to Suki; one is the Kyoshi Warrior side, and the other is the young girl she is, as Suki herself has no problem admitting. As a warrior, she is strong, confident, and serious; with the Kyoshi warrior's paint on her face, she seems less open/friendly and more inclined to kick someone's ass than befriend them, particularly if she thinks whoever she's dealing with is threatening her team, her friends, or her village. She's calm in the face of danger, able to keep her head and act without hesitation, no matter what problem she's facing. In "Appa's Lost Days", not only did she scare Appa off to protect him from being captured again, but she fought Azula without fear, despite the fact that Azula was a strong Firebender and Suki only had her fans and katana. She also crossed the Serpent's Pass a second time by herself, after going through it the first time to protect Sokka (when he thought he was looking after her, derp). Considering the dangers they faced as a group, that takes a fair bit of strength and courage.

Bravery and honour are the symbols of her village and of the uniform of the Kyoshi warriors, and she holds both of those very highly. She has a lot of pride, but not so much that she won't relent when she knows she ought to; for example, she had no problems with putting Sokka in his place for his sexist commentary about the Kyoshi warriors being a bunch of girls, but when he finally managed to knock her down, she was able to agree that he did get the best of her, if only for a moment. (Didn't stop her from denying it at first or bending back his fingers when he rubbed it in. She does have that pride to nurse.) She's not cocky, but she has confidence in her ability and that of her fellow warriors. She is a very self-assured girl, which is admirable for her age.

Most of her confidence comes from her physical prowess; when it comes to her social life, it sort of bleeds in to that, as well. She's friendly and fairly casual, not up to Aang or Sokka's level, but she blends well with the group when she joins up, despite a few little bumps here and there. She's also pretty forgiving as long as the one she's dealing with shows genuine regret for what they've done or attempts to right their wrongs; while she was originally a bit snippy with Zuko at the Boiling Rock prison for burning her village, she was able to work with him, and after that showed no indication that she still held it against him. She also allowed Ty Lee to join the Kyoshi Warriors at the end of the series, even after all she'd helped Azula do.

Suki is kind of clumsy in regards to fitting in with the behaviour of rest of the group; she had a sense of humour and a level of playfulness on Kyoshi, but not so much silliness or fun. Meeting the Gaang (and due to Sokka's influence more than anyone else) introduced her to the more fun and quirky side of life, and she's still getting into the groove of it, more often than not tagging along with their silly antics rather than starting anything herself. She's still learning, and the enthusiasm is there, but she's still pretty fail at it. (Like insulting the Fire Lord. Hoo boy, Suki, leave it to Sokka and Toph, eh.) On the other hand, she's very good at fibbing for the sake of teasing someone right from the get-go, something she especially likes to pull on Sokka.

You can't talk about Suki without bringing Sokka into it, so here goes. Sokka's had a big influence on Suki, something that started right from the get-go; they sort of taught each other the merits of the opposite sex, in a lot of ways. For Suki, Sokka demonstrated the good and the bad of menfolk- his sexist commentary did not make a good first impression, but his genuine regret at offending her and his willingness to submit to her teachings (even to the extent of dressing as a Kyoshi warrior and keeping it on despite getting teased for it) really made up for that, and she agreed to show him her style of fighting, even though she usually doesn't share those skills with men. Not only did they become fast allies from then on, but she probably started to crush on him back then, giving him a little kiss to send him off with Aang again, something she repeated to remind him of her when they met again later. Their night alone in the Serpent's Pass and the following day let her show that feminine side of her, the shy and somewhat embarrassed teenage girl living under the paint of a Kyoshi Warrior, and from then on she's able to let loose more and more when he's around. After Boiling Rock and up until the end when she's reunited with the other girls of her group, she abandons her Kyoshi uniform in favour of fitting in better with the others, dressing as a regular Fire Nation girl and just focusing on the day-to-day lives and missions of the others. She adapted well, but she didn't waste much time getting back into her uniform once the war was over.

Strengths:

Physical: "An elite warrior trained in the art of stealth!" Suki's main strength is her fighting ability; though small in stature and young, she has a lot of experience with a variety of weapons, though she relies mostly on hand-to-hand combat and the use of her fans. She also has some experience with a shield and a katana, all of which are a part of the Kyoshi warrior getup. The fighting style she's learned teaches how to use an opponent's strength against them, rather than utilizing the user's own strength- a useful skill for smaller fighters. She's incredibly acrobatic, able to perform impressive flips and jumps, scale walls, and moves that require speed, flexibility, and balance. Considering she was able to cross a field of rioting inmates, climb two walls, take out a Firebender or two, and capture the warden, all while unarmed? Yeah. Go girl, go!

Mental: In addition to being skilled in the physical aspect of things, Suki is able to keep her cool in a fight, meaning she has a fair bit of mental fortitude. She can face off with unknown enemies or enemies she knows are stronger than her without hesitation or showing fear, something she does numerous times over the course of the series. She can think on her feet, and while she usually doesn't act recklessly, she'll move fast if something happens and she knows she can handle it, such as when she beat Sokka to the punch in saving Toph from drowning or being eaten by the sea serpent... thing. She was also able to help Katara deliver a baby the same day (while Sokka predictably passes out), showing she has some mental fortitude, as well. That's a pretty stressful situation! Overall, Suki's pretty level-headed.

Emotional: Suki is not just level-headed, but emotionally strong and confident in herself and her experiences with people. She's kind of exceptional in that she doesn't get jealous of Sokka's relationships with others, particularly girls; the only time she shows what could be considered jealousy is during the Ember Island Players, when, after teasing Sokka about making out with the moon spirit, he shushes her. Usually she's pretty chillax about it, which is good because Sokka seems to have a talent for getting attention from a lot of ladies. :| But the fact that she teased him about it before he gave her a reason to get jealous means she trusts in their relationship enough to be playful about it.

Weaknesses:

Physical: Since she isn't a bender, her physical prowess is limited to weapons and fighting technique, and that means she has no experience with magical powers or the like. This means that she has difficulty against opponents who use bending or magic to fight; for example, she's able to hold her own against Ty Lee, but loses fairly quickly against Zuko or Azula. That never seems to slow her down, though. She's also very small and not overly strong, so she's had to learn to rely on speed and technique more than physical strength or size. If she were to fight a larger opponent who could match her fighting abilities or disarm/pin her down, she'd have a lot of difficulty fighting them as opposed to, say, fighting someone closer to her size.

Mental: Since she's mentally strong and calm most of the time, that doesn't leave much room for humour or wit. It's not that she's always serious, but when she's around people like Sokka or Toph, the poor girl tends to get left in the dust as far as amusing commentary goes. It's not for lack of trying, but more of a lack of experience; she's bound to make plenty of mistakes before she manages to get any good jabs at someone. ...If that ever happens. "King of the guys who don't win" isn't exactly a jaw-dropping insult.

Emotional: She's easily disappointed, I'd say. She'll follow and instinct or her feelings and run with it, and to hell with the consequences- like when she opened up to Sokka and basically offered herself to him, emotionally. When she didn't get the results she wanted, it wasn't exactly the end of the world for her, and she was able to carry on with the job at hand, but she couldn't quite let it go unless she brought it up with him again later on. It's probably really new to her, this whole "liking a boy" thing, so she's pretty obvious about it, and she very much has her heart on her sleeve when Sokka is concerned.