Vive Le Vagin

atla-annotated:

What happened to Hakoda’s title/throne? 

I am a bit confused, how is the Chief of the NWT in charge of the SWT?

Hakoda was Chief and then what? If Sokka had no heir, then there’s Katara and she has three kids. Shouldn’t Bumi, as the oldest, be Chief?

Did I miss some backstory or has this not yet been explained?

the water tribes were very disconnected during the hundred years’ war. I don’t know if they had been connected before, but in ATLA I got the feeling that the NWT had done its best to stay out of the war, since during the final two episodes of season one we find out that the last encounter they had with the Fire Navy was like, eighty years ago. I think the NWT closed itself off.

Then at the end of that season the NWT Chief says that some of them are going south to help rebuild the SWT.

We know that with Katara gone, the south has no waterbenders. My guess is that Hakoda may not have been chief of the SWT in the sense that Arnook was chief. The SWT population was so severely decimated that they had to choose a new chief amongst themselves, and they chose Hakoda.

We know that Hakoda is alive at the end of the war, and he probably went home to help rebuild the south. By that time, NWT may have installed a new government, they may have given Hakoda a place in that government, or maybe not. Even if Hakoda was made chief, on his death, neither his son nor his daughter would have been able to really follow in his footsteps. Sokka was on the council in republic city and Katara probably didn’t want to remove herself from her friends and family in Republic City.

Without anyone actively challenging the NWT, they would have been able to put their own governmental system into place. And really, who would argue against it when most of the people in the SWT were probably immigrants from the NWT, who came to help rebuild the south. And among those true southerners, some probably had objections, but were also probably so grateful for the help and aid they were finally receiving that they weren’t going to risk losing it by saying anything.

It’s very clear from the first three episodes that the NWT looks down on the SWT. When Tonraq was banished from the North, he wasn’t banished from the water tribe, he was free to go to the South.

The SWT may have some form of democracy and they may have chosen Tonraq as their leader.