My Thoughts on Toph

[weirdaljedifan]

This show was great, I'm glad we all agree to that, but something has been bothering me, why is it that some of the supporting characters are actually cooler and more interesting than the main characters. (Ty Lee) However with Toph, she is a main character, with a cool back story, but she's really a main character like how Meg from Family Guy is a main character, she's not really given much focus save for the occasional Toph episode. (Out of like.... 2 or 3) She's a main character who's treated like a supporting character most of the time.

Remember the five or so episodes before the Finale, after Zuko joined the team, each main character went on a "life-changing field trip" with Zuko? Aang and Zuko went looking for another way to bend fire other than the "I'm ticked" method. Katara and Zuko went looking for the jerk that killed her mother. Sokka and Zuko took part in an hour long "Escape From Alcatraz" adventure. While these characters got an episode or two with the guy. Toph got like 20-30 on-screen seconds, in the Finale, talking about how crappy her childhood was while Zuko was too busy looking for our MAIN character of the story.

Pardon my French but, BULL FREAKING CRAP. Sokka had 2 episodes with the guy, TWO! They really couldn't fit another Toph episode in before the Finale, or replace that annoying "play" episode? Really? Am I really supposed to care if Kung Fu Action Jesus (copyright GanXingba) is going to defeat wannabe Hitler #112, than for the blind earth/metal bender who's parents treated her like the world's weakest disabled person? Toph should've had her own season about her childhood, but she gets downplayed as a comic relief, as if Sokka wasn't enough.

That just makes me want to Mike and Brian.

[mattzilla]

I agree with you. Toph was my fave character. I wish she got more screen time. Whenever it was her turn in the spot light and the episode focused on her it was golden. I loved all her little jokes and stuff. Although I loved the play episode and wouldn't want them to cut it.

[nandireya]

Well...not to burst your bubble or anything...but Toph didn't really need a bonding-time episode with Zuko. She accepted him straight off the bat...well, there was her "You wanna do what now?", but that was about it.

She had no bad feelings towards him like Aang, Sokka and Katara did. He didn't chase her all over the world. He never threw fiery hot death at her. He didn't attack her village. By the time she joined the group he had his own problems. He wasn't as concerned with capturing the Avatar as he was with avoiding capture himself.

She never really saw him as an enemy. Plus she knew he was genuine and sincere when he first came to them.

But still...I'd rather have had a Toph/Zuko episode than two episodes of 'Escape from Alcatraz' (The Boiling Rock is not an episode(s) that gets a lot of repeat viewing from this little black duck).

Ironically...The Western Air Temple is on behind me while I'm typing this...

[asian malaysian]

All things considered, Toph got a fair bit of airtime. Its just that Katara was more of her counterpoint than any of the other characters hence the tension and eventual closeness between the two. Sure I would have loved more episodes. Period. But I can also see what was needed for the the bigger picture where it was more important for the main characters introduced in the first season to complete their story archs (especially Aang and Zuko).And Kataang. Had to be said

I loved the Boiling Rock though I never understood why the Warden was drawn like that. As I quoted elsewhere, "Those the gods wish to destroy they first drive mad." and the end of the boiling rock was the begining of the end for Azula. M&B are not mocked.

[Aanglover]

my thoughts on toph..:
she's a kickass character with a very solid backstory (eventhough i do wanna know what happened between her and her parents at the end of the show). She's sarcastic, witty, and strong & that's what i really love about her character. She kinda reminds me of.......well....me..
I believe, though, that she did have enough air time. They told her backstory & how she "really" became a master. i would have liked her to interact a bit more with some of the characters and see her training aang a few more times but the story line didn't really have time for that. but she is (and still will be) one of my favorite characters in the show.

[ZamKenobi]

Aug 14, 2009 2:02:41 GMT -5 asian malaysian said:

All things considered, Toph got a fair bit of airtime. Its just that Katara was more of her counterpoint than any of the other characters hence the tension and eventual closeness between the two. Sure I would have loved more episodes. Period. But I can also see what was needed for the the bigger picture where it was more important for the main characters introduced in the first season to complete their story archs (especially Aang and Zuko).And Kataang. Had to be said

I understand what you mean. Sokka, Katara, Aang, and Zuko have had storylines from the start that needed to be resolved and worked on in their little mini-adventures with Zuko, but I don't think that means that Toph didn't. Actually, did Zuko and Sokka actually bond at all on the Boiling Rock? Other than on the way to the prison, they didn't really interact much beyond plotting how to escape. So it was really more of a Sokka episode than a "Sokka and Zuko become friends" episode.

Do I think Toph should have had her own episode? Yes, because I feel like her not having one was symptomatic of something that had been happening to her throughout all of season 3. What affect did she have on the plot at all? None. All of her action seemed somewhat tacked on. A few tweeks and they could have done without her completely. The Runaway was a fun episode, but it didn't affect the plot really. It was like the writers suddenly realized that there was someone other than Aang, Katara, and Sokka in the gang who had her own storyline. Oops, let's throw a filler in there.

I agree with Nandireya that Toph didn't need a Zuko/Toph bonding episode because she didn't really hate him, but like I said, The Boiling Rock wasn't so much Sokka and Zuko bonding but Sokka gaining his confidence back with Zuko along for the ride and finally some development for Maiko to make it look like they do more than make out. What could Toph had done with Zuko? Not much, admittedly. It probably still would have been a filler, but it's because they never really made her central to any plot besides teaching Aang earthbending. Well, there was those two guys chasing her, but they never really did much of anything.

I think it would have been nice for Zuko to help her resolve her mommy and daddy issues as opposed to Katara in the Runaway though. We already had a "Toph and Katara sometimes don't get along" episode. The only thing that The Runaway addressed that a Zuko/Toph adventure couldn't was how motherly Katara is. Just change the adventure but come around to the same conclusion, that Toph misses her parents, and there you go. Better yet, have the two of them go looking for Iroh before the finale. They're all BFF's in that circle, I could have believed that. In fact, it was already shown in The Ember Island Players that Toph can help Zuko sort some things out, so really they both could have helped each other. Zuko helps Toph with her parental issues while she helps him with is guilt towards his uncle. They don't even have to necessarily find him, the journey helps. (I'm just throwing out ideas here, I realize there are a lot of plot points that would have been changed had this happened)

So yeah, in conclusion what bothered me most about Toph not getting an episode was how she never really became integrated into the plot to begin with. She was a great and interesting character who was awesome in the way that she was added, but she could have added a lot more interesting elements to the plot in Seasons 2 and 3. I understand that there's a limited amount of time for development for the characters, but I think that it should have been balanced more as opposed to automatically relegating that character development over to the original characters. Toph supposedly became a main character when she joined the gang, but she didn't really. She was comic relief that sporadically got awesome character development.