Planning "Sokka's Eleven" - Part 2
Here we are again, planning a story I call "Sokka's Eleven," about how Sokka reacts to adulthood and peacetime by lashing out and robbing a casino for specific reasons I'm obscuring for now. So, last time I discussed my premise, and outlined what seemed to be my Eleven crew before I said I was going to have to redo the whole thing.
The list I created last time was indeed the cast I was going to use before I shelved this story, but since picking it up again, I realized that it had major problems. (Either I needed the perspective of a little distance, or I've become a better writer since then.) I'm sure most people notice, but the core of my Eleven crew is, essentially, the gAang. If I write them as in-character then they're going to essentially get along, they're going to know how to work together, and they're not going to interact as readily with the lesser cast members who won slots on the team.
As was pointed out on my deviantArt account, Zuko and Aang especially seem like odd choices for this story. They are the Avatar and the Fire Lord, two of the world's five world leaders. It's kind of mean for them to picking on a little casino owner. Even if he is a really bad person, or trying to take over the world or something, it's just petty to rob him or her before saving the day in the traditional manner. Just like the President of the United States wouldn't have worked in Ocean's Eleven, Zuko and Aang wouldn't have worked here.
Plus, this is a story about a casino heist. I notice there's a disturbing dearth of career criminals involved.
What I need is a team that will challenge each other, have some little conflicts without the interpersonal drama overshadowing the heist itself. I need these people to learn from each other, and learn about themselves through their interactions. I need people who can undergo their own little story-arcs that tie in with the main themes. I need them to be "small" enough that they are the underdog against this casino owner. And, as Lavanya Six noted on my LiveJournal, I'm missing some important archetypes for this kind of story. So, who should I swap out, and who gets in?
Well, Sokka stays. And, as noted, Mai has a major story arc while also being a pleasantly quirky specialist. I may or may not want to give a midlife crisis and/or growing-up story to Ty Lee, but even if I don't, she can be a really useful sounding board for the other two. Teo, as I noted, fulfilled an important archetype, plot-related role, and even played into the main theme. He stays. And they all have unique skills that could be useful for the heist.
So, who's new?
Well, we need an Old Timer. FairLadyZ2005 guessed the character correctly on my LiveJournal: Master Pakku. He's old, he's a Waterbending Master, he's grumpy, and he's sarcastic. So far, so good. He's also a former Big Shot in the Northern Water Tribe who moved to the Southern Tribe to marry his long lost love. Is he undergoing some culture shock? Does he miss being the toast of the sophisticated ice city? Even if I don't go with a sense of discontentment for him, he can be a very important figure in Sokka's story. Pakku is Sokka's step-grandfather now, and exploring their own relationship (or lack of one) could be very interesting, since Sokka is transitioning his way into both authority and adulthood, something that Pakku has a lot of experience with. And he's a stuffed shirt, so he can balk at the wild ideas of all the kids and ruffians and unfeminine women in the group. I'm really feeling this. Maybe I can even give Pakku a wild streak from his youth that he suppressed.
We also need someone with connections. Part of the fun of these Ocean's Eleven plots is how wild and resource-intensive they can get. Sokka can't always obtain some of this stuff on short notice, and his lack of criminal connections is just pitiful. It occurred to me that June might be a good fit for this, and Lavanya Six thought the same thing on my LiveJournal. A good reason for June to join up was even proposed that I really like: " In fanfic, June always just keeps doing what she's doing even as the years pass. You could do something different here. While it's cool to be a badass, hard-drinking, improbably strong bounty hunter, everyone has their limit. You can't fight your own mortality. Imagine a scene where Sokka finds out that June is going to use her cut of the money to buy, of all things, a bar. Because she's tired of bounty hunting and wants to settle down (in newly founded Republic City). That'd be jarring for Sokka, who might imagine he'd live a life of continuing adventures like June seems to do." That fits in with theme, to be sure. And June traveled the world and bought drinks for the whole bar wherever she went, so she probably has friends and criminal connections and stuff.
FairLadyZ2005 also suggested Chit Sang, someone I had briefly considered for the last two slots on the original roster but forgot about until she brought him up again. Chit Sang was the Kingpin of the Boiling Rock, ordering riots on demand. He might have even had experience at this kind of thing, and so has necessary expertise while also being someone who Sokka wouldn't have a problem with. They worked well together, and Chit Sang didn't hesitate to join the gAang afterward (although he disappeared right after that). Chit Sang can be played two ways- either he's trying to retire from a renewed life of crime, or he's trying to get back into a life of crime after trying to go straight. Either way can be an interesting contrast to Sokka's idea of trying to recreate his glory days and avoid settling down. As a bonus, June and Chit Sang are different enough that they could both be on the team without much overlap. Perhaps they even know each other. Perhaps June caught Chit Sang. Heck, I could even give them a romance.
Okay, they're both in. I'm up to six.
Toph, I think, is still in. She's Sokka's buddy, and a Metalbender, and a troublemaker, and The Runaway. She also still hasn't returned home to her parents as of The Promise, so perhaps she's trying to avoid her own bit of growing up. Is it so much that she still thinks her parents won't accept her, or is she worried that if she goes back and is welcomed, and even given a place where she can be herself, she'll find herself falling back into her old lifestyle, or at least becoming more sophisticated and less of the belligerent wild child she delights in being? Perhaps at some point, Sokka and company need a lot of money to continue the scheme, and Toph has to suck it up and go to Mommy and Daddy and ask for a loan. That could be interesting. Plus, she's Toph. Everyone loves reading about Toph insulting people. That's seven.
I also think Ty Lee could work well with these people. Ty Lee plays well off of everybody. Eight.
As a kind of way of cheating, I also have pieces of a plan for the actual heist that I developed before I shelved this project. Because I thought Aang was going to be part of things, I incorporated Appa into a big moment. Perhaps we can just skip Aang, and Sokka recruits Appa to be his ninth person? Remember, Sokka likes to talk to Appa and Momo as they're people. He would count Appa as a team member. The only problem here is that if Sokka steals Appa, Aang and Katara would probably descend on him as fast as they could follow. And Sokka would have to do a real song and dance to ask to borrow Appa without revealing his actual plans. But then, Aang let Katara take Appa to go hunt down her mother's killer, so maybe he would be okay with Sokka taking Appa for "one last adventure" without realizing what that adventure would consist of.
And then there's my controversial idea. Like I said, this whole setup predisposes itself for benevolent criminal characters, and it occurred to me that the ATLA franchise has one more who might fit here. The only problem is that she's obscure and non-canon. I'm talking, of course, about Jojo the Kissing Bandit. Read all about her here. She's a thief, so she'd be of use here. She's a pretty face and manipulative, so even more than Ty Lee, Jojo can be the "front man" of the group and be the one to put on disguises and meet directly with the casino owner. During the war, she was seen as a benign criminal, but perhaps with the war over and order being restored to the land, thievery is becoming too hot even for her. One of the ideas I have sitting on a shelf someday is a Western-style story where an older June goes after her last bounty, an aging Jojo who finally crossed the wrong person. It would about the end of an era, and aging, and change, what happens to the people who thrived during war. Maybe I can work some of that into this story.
Plus, if you read that bio, it says that Jojo is harboring a crush on Aang thanks to seeing a wanted poster. Aang isn't wanted anymore, and is out of her reach in Katara's arms. And we have Sokka having a "midlife" crisis about lots of things in his life, including his relationship with Suki. Perhaps Jojo transfers her affections to the one member of Team Avatar who is still fighting "the good fight." Sokka will have to decide if he wants Suki, that girl who he fought in the war with as a teenager and now wants a major commitment, or this dazzling lady thief with a sense of adventure. I suppose I could play Tokka off as the rival to Sukka, but I don't like fooling with the ship wars. It would be an unnecessary distraction from the rest of the story. But with Jojo? That might very well work.
So, let's look at our team:
[Click to open]1. Sokka
* "Plan Guy"
* Has a boomerang
* Part-time inventor
* Part-time swordsman
* Patron of wit, sarcasm, pessimism, and seal jerky
* Fun and perky (disputed)
2. Appa
* Flying Airbender
* Ten tons
* Comes when called
* World's most extensive traveler
3. Mai
* Lady of Ten Thousand Hidden Blades
* Flawless aim
* Great with makeup
* Best poker face in the world
* Amazing tolerance for thoughtless jerks
4. Toph
* World's Greatest Earthbender (disputed)
* "Tremor-sense" superior to sight (disputed confirmed)
* Metalbender (disputed confirmed)
* More stubborn than a ten-ton bison (disputed)
* Richer than the Earth King (disputed)
* Incorrigible (never questioned)
5. Ty Lee
* Acrobat
* Contortionist
* Master of Dim Mak hand-to-hand fighting
* Can see auras (disputed)
* Doesn't need a net
* Utterly adorable
6. Pakku
* World's most experienced Waterbender Master
* Member of the Northern Water Tribe's Council of Elders
* Husband of the Southern Water Tribe's Elder (they only need one)
* Patron of wit, sarcasm, pessimism, and calamari
* Recovering sexist
* "Grandpakku"
7. Teo
* Beneficiary of the world's greatest inventor
* Licensed pilot
* Licensed driver
* Has lots of cool toys
* Rides a weaponized wheelchair (rumored)
* Goggles (confirmed)
8. June
* World's most accomplished bounty hunter
* Whips it good
* Stronger than you
* Owns a giant scent-tracking Shirshu
* Avatar of the Spirit of Sex and Leather
* Drinks are on her
9. Chit Sang
* Recognized authority on criminal psychology
* Good taste in allies and plans
* Biggest Firebender alive
* Hard on best buddies and girlfriends
* Completely innocent of whatever (disputed)
10. Jojo the Kissing Bandit
* Master thief and pickpocket
* Stealth expert
* Earthbender
* Famous/Notorious
* So cute it counts as resisting arrest
11. ???
So, I have one slot left to fill. I have some more suggestions from my LiveJournal, plus some ideas I got from browsing the Avatar wiki. Feel free to weigh in on them. Maybe I'll even put it to a vote.
Meng) Lavanya Six: "She's Aang's age, but what if, since the last time they met her, she's matured more than anyone else? Let's say Aunt Wu passed on not too long after Zuko passed through town, and it fell to her apprentice, Meng, to take over her duties. Now she's spent eight or so years as a den mother to her village, dealing with people's problems and helping the village navigate the post-war new world order. As for why she's in on the heist, let's say her village badly needs money for whatever. (Maybe the Earth King's government has pulled itself together enough to start collecting taxes for the first time in a million years?) To Meng, this isn't wacky time-wasting nonsense. It's serious business. People are counting on her. Sokka measuring himself up against someone younger than him and finding himself lacking could be sobering. Plus, you could have a small subplot where the Gaang tries to get Meng to lighten up a little and enjoy herself, with shades of Aang taking Katara penguin sledding."
Earth-Rumblers) These guys have some wacky Earthbending abilities, and are good sources of humor. The Boulder and The Hippo are known, but the others are blank slates for me.
The Herbalist) You never know when you'll have to drug someone.
Malu the Firebending Magician) Remember that guy from "The Deserter" who brought Katara up on stage? The team could sure use an illusionist and sleight-of-hand artist. Especially a dramatic, spotlight-hogging one.
Tom-Tom) Wouldn't Mai be surprised when it turns out that her brother is a renegade and looking to get into a life of crime?
Yeh-Lu) Remember the armored explosives expert from the Rough Rhinos? If he ditches the armor, Sokka wouldn't recognize him. What's he been doing in the post-war world?
The Duke) Another explosives expert, this time from the Freedom Fighters. Kids love the Freedom Fighters! (Unless I'm writing their last stand.)
Lee) Phthalo-Blue: "You know, the kid from Zuko Alone. I think we should throw him into this mess of things. We can make him the Linus." (Note: Linus was the naive newcomer in Ocean's Eleven)
The list I created last time was indeed the cast I was going to use before I shelved this story, but since picking it up again, I realized that it had major problems. (Either I needed the perspective of a little distance, or I've become a better writer since then.) I'm sure most people notice, but the core of my Eleven crew is, essentially, the gAang. If I write them as in-character then they're going to essentially get along, they're going to know how to work together, and they're not going to interact as readily with the lesser cast members who won slots on the team.
As was pointed out on my deviantArt account, Zuko and Aang especially seem like odd choices for this story. They are the Avatar and the Fire Lord, two of the world's five world leaders. It's kind of mean for them to picking on a little casino owner. Even if he is a really bad person, or trying to take over the world or something, it's just petty to rob him or her before saving the day in the traditional manner. Just like the President of the United States wouldn't have worked in Ocean's Eleven, Zuko and Aang wouldn't have worked here.
Plus, this is a story about a casino heist. I notice there's a disturbing dearth of career criminals involved.
What I need is a team that will challenge each other, have some little conflicts without the interpersonal drama overshadowing the heist itself. I need these people to learn from each other, and learn about themselves through their interactions. I need people who can undergo their own little story-arcs that tie in with the main themes. I need them to be "small" enough that they are the underdog against this casino owner. And, as Lavanya Six noted on my LiveJournal, I'm missing some important archetypes for this kind of story. So, who should I swap out, and who gets in?
Well, Sokka stays. And, as noted, Mai has a major story arc while also being a pleasantly quirky specialist. I may or may not want to give a midlife crisis and/or growing-up story to Ty Lee, but even if I don't, she can be a really useful sounding board for the other two. Teo, as I noted, fulfilled an important archetype, plot-related role, and even played into the main theme. He stays. And they all have unique skills that could be useful for the heist.
So, who's new?
Well, we need an Old Timer. FairLadyZ2005 guessed the character correctly on my LiveJournal: Master Pakku. He's old, he's a Waterbending Master, he's grumpy, and he's sarcastic. So far, so good. He's also a former Big Shot in the Northern Water Tribe who moved to the Southern Tribe to marry his long lost love. Is he undergoing some culture shock? Does he miss being the toast of the sophisticated ice city? Even if I don't go with a sense of discontentment for him, he can be a very important figure in Sokka's story. Pakku is Sokka's step-grandfather now, and exploring their own relationship (or lack of one) could be very interesting, since Sokka is transitioning his way into both authority and adulthood, something that Pakku has a lot of experience with. And he's a stuffed shirt, so he can balk at the wild ideas of all the kids and ruffians and unfeminine women in the group. I'm really feeling this. Maybe I can even give Pakku a wild streak from his youth that he suppressed.
We also need someone with connections. Part of the fun of these Ocean's Eleven plots is how wild and resource-intensive they can get. Sokka can't always obtain some of this stuff on short notice, and his lack of criminal connections is just pitiful. It occurred to me that June might be a good fit for this, and Lavanya Six thought the same thing on my LiveJournal. A good reason for June to join up was even proposed that I really like: " In fanfic, June always just keeps doing what she's doing even as the years pass. You could do something different here. While it's cool to be a badass, hard-drinking, improbably strong bounty hunter, everyone has their limit. You can't fight your own mortality. Imagine a scene where Sokka finds out that June is going to use her cut of the money to buy, of all things, a bar. Because she's tired of bounty hunting and wants to settle down (in newly founded Republic City). That'd be jarring for Sokka, who might imagine he'd live a life of continuing adventures like June seems to do." That fits in with theme, to be sure. And June traveled the world and bought drinks for the whole bar wherever she went, so she probably has friends and criminal connections and stuff.
FairLadyZ2005 also suggested Chit Sang, someone I had briefly considered for the last two slots on the original roster but forgot about until she brought him up again. Chit Sang was the Kingpin of the Boiling Rock, ordering riots on demand. He might have even had experience at this kind of thing, and so has necessary expertise while also being someone who Sokka wouldn't have a problem with. They worked well together, and Chit Sang didn't hesitate to join the gAang afterward (although he disappeared right after that). Chit Sang can be played two ways- either he's trying to retire from a renewed life of crime, or he's trying to get back into a life of crime after trying to go straight. Either way can be an interesting contrast to Sokka's idea of trying to recreate his glory days and avoid settling down. As a bonus, June and Chit Sang are different enough that they could both be on the team without much overlap. Perhaps they even know each other. Perhaps June caught Chit Sang. Heck, I could even give them a romance.
Okay, they're both in. I'm up to six.
Toph, I think, is still in. She's Sokka's buddy, and a Metalbender, and a troublemaker, and The Runaway. She also still hasn't returned home to her parents as of The Promise, so perhaps she's trying to avoid her own bit of growing up. Is it so much that she still thinks her parents won't accept her, or is she worried that if she goes back and is welcomed, and even given a place where she can be herself, she'll find herself falling back into her old lifestyle, or at least becoming more sophisticated and less of the belligerent wild child she delights in being? Perhaps at some point, Sokka and company need a lot of money to continue the scheme, and Toph has to suck it up and go to Mommy and Daddy and ask for a loan. That could be interesting. Plus, she's Toph. Everyone loves reading about Toph insulting people. That's seven.
I also think Ty Lee could work well with these people. Ty Lee plays well off of everybody. Eight.
As a kind of way of cheating, I also have pieces of a plan for the actual heist that I developed before I shelved this project. Because I thought Aang was going to be part of things, I incorporated Appa into a big moment. Perhaps we can just skip Aang, and Sokka recruits Appa to be his ninth person? Remember, Sokka likes to talk to Appa and Momo as they're people. He would count Appa as a team member. The only problem here is that if Sokka steals Appa, Aang and Katara would probably descend on him as fast as they could follow. And Sokka would have to do a real song and dance to ask to borrow Appa without revealing his actual plans. But then, Aang let Katara take Appa to go hunt down her mother's killer, so maybe he would be okay with Sokka taking Appa for "one last adventure" without realizing what that adventure would consist of.
And then there's my controversial idea. Like I said, this whole setup predisposes itself for benevolent criminal characters, and it occurred to me that the ATLA franchise has one more who might fit here. The only problem is that she's obscure and non-canon. I'm talking, of course, about Jojo the Kissing Bandit. Read all about her here. She's a thief, so she'd be of use here. She's a pretty face and manipulative, so even more than Ty Lee, Jojo can be the "front man" of the group and be the one to put on disguises and meet directly with the casino owner. During the war, she was seen as a benign criminal, but perhaps with the war over and order being restored to the land, thievery is becoming too hot even for her. One of the ideas I have sitting on a shelf someday is a Western-style story where an older June goes after her last bounty, an aging Jojo who finally crossed the wrong person. It would about the end of an era, and aging, and change, what happens to the people who thrived during war. Maybe I can work some of that into this story.
Plus, if you read that bio, it says that Jojo is harboring a crush on Aang thanks to seeing a wanted poster. Aang isn't wanted anymore, and is out of her reach in Katara's arms. And we have Sokka having a "midlife" crisis about lots of things in his life, including his relationship with Suki. Perhaps Jojo transfers her affections to the one member of Team Avatar who is still fighting "the good fight." Sokka will have to decide if he wants Suki, that girl who he fought in the war with as a teenager and now wants a major commitment, or this dazzling lady thief with a sense of adventure. I suppose I could play Tokka off as the rival to Sukka, but I don't like fooling with the ship wars. It would be an unnecessary distraction from the rest of the story. But with Jojo? That might very well work.
So, let's look at our team:
[Click to open]1. Sokka
* "Plan Guy"
* Has a boomerang
* Part-time inventor
* Part-time swordsman
* Patron of wit, sarcasm, pessimism, and seal jerky
* Fun and perky (disputed)
2. Appa
* Flying Airbender
* Ten tons
* Comes when called
* World's most extensive traveler
3. Mai
* Lady of Ten Thousand Hidden Blades
* Flawless aim
* Great with makeup
* Best poker face in the world
* Amazing tolerance for thoughtless jerks
4. Toph
* World's Greatest Earthbender (disputed)
* "Tremor-sense" superior to sight (disputed confirmed)
* Metalbender (disputed confirmed)
* More stubborn than a ten-ton bison (disputed)
* Richer than the Earth King (disputed)
* Incorrigible (never questioned)
5. Ty Lee
* Acrobat
* Contortionist
* Master of Dim Mak hand-to-hand fighting
* Can see auras (disputed)
* Doesn't need a net
* Utterly adorable
6. Pakku
* World's most experienced Waterbender Master
* Member of the Northern Water Tribe's Council of Elders
* Husband of the Southern Water Tribe's Elder (they only need one)
* Patron of wit, sarcasm, pessimism, and calamari
* Recovering sexist
* "Grandpakku"
7. Teo
* Beneficiary of the world's greatest inventor
* Licensed pilot
* Licensed driver
* Has lots of cool toys
* Rides a weaponized wheelchair (rumored)
* Goggles (confirmed)
8. June
* World's most accomplished bounty hunter
* Whips it good
* Stronger than you
* Owns a giant scent-tracking Shirshu
* Avatar of the Spirit of Sex and Leather
* Drinks are on her
9. Chit Sang
* Recognized authority on criminal psychology
* Good taste in allies and plans
* Biggest Firebender alive
* Hard on best buddies and girlfriends
* Completely innocent of whatever (disputed)
10. Jojo the Kissing Bandit
* Master thief and pickpocket
* Stealth expert
* Earthbender
* Famous/Notorious
* So cute it counts as resisting arrest
11. ???
So, I have one slot left to fill. I have some more suggestions from my LiveJournal, plus some ideas I got from browsing the Avatar wiki. Feel free to weigh in on them. Maybe I'll even put it to a vote.
Meng) Lavanya Six: "She's Aang's age, but what if, since the last time they met her, she's matured more than anyone else? Let's say Aunt Wu passed on not too long after Zuko passed through town, and it fell to her apprentice, Meng, to take over her duties. Now she's spent eight or so years as a den mother to her village, dealing with people's problems and helping the village navigate the post-war new world order. As for why she's in on the heist, let's say her village badly needs money for whatever. (Maybe the Earth King's government has pulled itself together enough to start collecting taxes for the first time in a million years?) To Meng, this isn't wacky time-wasting nonsense. It's serious business. People are counting on her. Sokka measuring himself up against someone younger than him and finding himself lacking could be sobering. Plus, you could have a small subplot where the Gaang tries to get Meng to lighten up a little and enjoy herself, with shades of Aang taking Katara penguin sledding."
Earth-Rumblers) These guys have some wacky Earthbending abilities, and are good sources of humor. The Boulder and The Hippo are known, but the others are blank slates for me.
The Herbalist) You never know when you'll have to drug someone.
Malu the Firebending Magician) Remember that guy from "The Deserter" who brought Katara up on stage? The team could sure use an illusionist and sleight-of-hand artist. Especially a dramatic, spotlight-hogging one.
Tom-Tom) Wouldn't Mai be surprised when it turns out that her brother is a renegade and looking to get into a life of crime?
Yeh-Lu) Remember the armored explosives expert from the Rough Rhinos? If he ditches the armor, Sokka wouldn't recognize him. What's he been doing in the post-war world?
The Duke) Another explosives expert, this time from the Freedom Fighters. Kids love the Freedom Fighters! (Unless I'm writing their last stand.)
Lee) Phthalo-Blue: "You know, the kid from Zuko Alone. I think we should throw him into this mess of things. We can make him the Linus." (Note: Linus was the naive newcomer in Ocean's Eleven)