Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender
Netflix’s live-action adaptation
of Avatar the Last Airbender is imminent... which makes this the perfect time to
go back and watch the original animated show instead.
Besides the compelling plot and
beautifully realized world, the show offered a range of lovable,
three-dimensional characters – many of which were women (or girls). In fact,
it’s an absolute buffet of fascinating female characters, from the ostensible
lead Katara, to the terrifying villain Azula, to the supporting cast of Suki,
Ty Lee and Mai. Even minor characters like Ursa or Kyoshi or Aunt Wu are
brimming with life and vitality.
Which meant I was rather torn on
who to pick for this entry, especially since Katara is so woefully (or
wilfully) misunderstood by vast swaths of the fandom... but there’s no denying
there’s something special about Toph. Simply put: there are very few female characters
like her.
In fact, she leaves such an
indelible mark on the story as a whole that it’s almost a shock to recall she’s
only in two-thirds of the show’s episodes; not appearing in the first season at
all. Not only that, but she was initially conceived as a very different sort of
character. Remember the introductory sequence that showcases the four types of
elemental bending? Water is Pakku, fire is Azula, air is Aang, and earth is...
some guy. Well, that was Toph’s original design before Aaron Ehasz pitched the
idea that the Avatar’s earth-bending teacher might work better (or be more
interesting) as a girl. And the rest is history.
Toph is first glimpsed in a vision
Aang has while traversing the swamplands, which depicts her as petite, elusive,
and finely dressed. When we eventually see her in the flesh, it’s in quite a
different context: as a contestant in a pro-bending tournament where she
effortlessly takes out fighters that are twice her size. And there’s room for
one more surprise: she’s known as the Blind Bandit on account of the fact that
she literally can’t see.
Aang knows she’s destined to be
his earth-bending teacher, as someone who can “listen to the earth” and moves
with immense control and grace. Toph, however, is reticent – not least because
she’s living a double-life. It turns out she’s the only daughter of the Beifong
family, and because she’s been blind since birth, her parents are convinced
she’s a helpless and delicate invalid. Her earth-bending she learnt in secret
from the badger-moles; her talents have been kept completely hidden from her
parents.
It's only when Aang is taken
captive that Toph is spurred to action, prevailing over an entire team of pro-bending
wrestlers single-handedly. She runs away from home to join Team Avatar, and for
the first time in her life – she’s free.
Of course, there are some growing
pains when it comes to integrating herself with the others. She is, after all,
a poor little rich girl with something to prove. This means she’s going to look
after herself – and ONLY herself, foregoing any communal chores (that she
probably doesn’t know how to do anyway) and tending to her own needs. Naturally
she clashes with Katara, and when it comes to train Aang in the art of
earth-bending, she’s not exactly a wise and patient teacher. Her mentality is
one of tough love, and she’s going to throw as many rocks at her pupil as can
until he learns to stand up for himself.
There’s also the issue of her
father sending a couple of bounty hunters after her, convinced that she’s been
kidnapped. They manage to track her down and separate her from her friends, but
in her time of utmost need, she concentrates on the metal enclosure surrounding
her, honing in on its natural ores and shaping them to her will. Girl just invented
metal-bending.
Toph is just one greatest hit
after another: storming the Earth King’s palace, taking on the entire Dai Li,
holding up a building as it’s sinking into sand, dismantling a Fire Nation
airship mid-flight, and my personal favourite: the full body metal shield. I’m
going to have to post the scene here because it’s Just. So. Cool.
Along with poking fun at her own
blindness (though she’s so capable that her friends can forget it’s even a
thing) and being the only one emotionally removed enough to point out that Zuko
is Aang’s best chance at getting a suitable fire-bending teacher, she’s also a
pretty great shit-talker. For all the show’s brilliance before she
turned up, it’s her introduction that really makes you feel that the secret
ingredient, the elusive X-factor, the je ne sais quoi, has ARRIVED.
There’s even some fun gender
commentary at work, from the discrepancy between her diminutive appearance and awesome
strength, to her frank enjoyment of gross-out jokes. I honestly don’t think
I’ve ever seen a female character prank her friends with fake armpit hair
before or since Toph did it.
She even gets the last line of
dialogue in the show (“well, I think you all look perfect!”) though the comic
books and sequel series The
Legend of Korra explore
what happened to her in the years to come. Toph eventually opens an academy in
order to pass on her skills in metal-bending to others, before – rather
controversially – pursuing a career in law enforcement after ennui sets in. A
cop... really?
Much of her adult life is still
something of a mystery, having given birth to two daughters with different
fathers (maybe the upcoming animated films will shed more light on things) but
as an old woman she’s living as a hermit in the swamplands. She’s as crotchety
and sharp-tongued as you’d expect, and yet she’s clearly grown in wisdom and
compassion – traits she no doubt picked up from Aang. Helping restore Korra to
full strength and rescue her family from Kuvira’s captivity is her grand swansong,
and she departs the show with the words: “at some point you got to leave it to
the kids.”
I could write more about her, but
this entry is already long enough. In summation, Toph Beifong is a force of
nature, a prodigy, a mould-breaker, and in her later years, something of an
enigma. She was one of the most remarkable aspects of what was already a
remarkable show: a girl from a sheltered background who is nothing like anyone
expects; someone who has raised herself up from profound vulnerability and made
her disability her greatest strength.
Her impact cannot be understated, which
means one of my favourite scenes in the whole show is when Aang is fighting
Lord Ozai in the grand finale, and for a moment we see the world in “Toph
vision” – that is, the visual representation of how she uses her feet to feel seismic
vibrations in the earth. It gives Aang the upper hand in the fight – making
Toph instrumental in defeating Ozai when she’s not even there.
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