Talk:Asami Sato/@comment-80.29.16.196-20120317184431/@comment-3338975-20120318195719

While the last name alone does not prove her nobility (the Satos obviously have one as well, pointing to the ability to afford a last name as a sign of wealth), the evidence given in that note certainly does not disprove it. The argument given there is basically an argument from silence, which strictly speaking is a logical fallacy; "since Toph was give no aristocratic title, therefore she must not be of aristocratic birth" is simply not good logic. This ignores the fact that no one outside of the royal families of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation were ever given royal titles in Avatar, which does not automatically prove that there was no nobility in the Avatar world. In addition, had Lao and Poppy been given the titles of Lord and Lady, this would have confused the matter of their ranks, by seemingly making them on par with the Fire Lord and Lady when they actually are lower in rank in society than the Earth King. At most, this shows that the creators of Avatar wished to not given them a confusing title if they considered them part of the nobility; it in no way disproves the idea that they are. The very fact that they have inherited wealth (the Beifongs were known as rich, not for anything they produced - unlike the Satos and business families) in the form of land and had servants in an ancient world where upward mobility was difficult points toward their being nobility quite strongly. Also, first class traditionally referred to the nobility, second to the merchant class, and third to the servant & working class through much of human history, and it's only by making giant leaps of faith in one's own interpretation of the Beifong's lack of a title that one can take that to "prove" her family was just "dirty rich" from business (especially when they were depicted as having a reclining life-style where they didn't have to do much of anything, a mark of the nobility for most of the world's history).