Toph Beifong

"earth"

- I love fighting. I love being an Earthbender. And I'm really, really good at it. I know I've kept my life secret from you, but you were keeping me secret from the whole world. You were doing it to protect me, but I'm twelve years old and I've never had a real friend.

Toph Bei Fong, usually referred to as Toph, was an Earthbending master. Blind since birth, Toph was constantly condescended to because of her disability and stature as a little girl, especially by her overprotective parents. Upon discovering Badgermoles, earth-dwelling animals who were blind just like her, she learned seismic sense through them - the ability to use Earthbending as an extension of her senses, which effectively gave her "sight" through vibrations in the ground.

Known as the "Blind Bandit", she mastered Earthbending through her own style and developed a tough-guy personality, becoming infamous by winning underground Earthbending tournaments behind her parents' backs. Initially uninterested, she chose to leave behind her old life and travel with Avatar Aang and friends to be his Earthbending teacher. Toph's mastery over earth, especially with Metalbending which she created, as well as her unique personality, proved her to be a valuable addition to Team Avatar.

Background


Toph was the only child of the wealthy Bei Fong family of Gaoling. Born blind, she was sheltered by parents who believed her blindness made her fragile and incapable of looking after herself. They went to extreme measures to protect her, including hiding her existence from the rest of the world, which resulted in no one knowing that the Bei Fong family even had a daughter. Poppy and Lao Bei Fong expect their daughter to be well-mannered and proper due to their noble status in Earth Kingdom society; while she usually wore her green and pale yellow belted tunic and pants, at home Toph wore a floor-touching white petticoat dress, with long teal sleeves, a flower printed bodice, a long sash along the back, and a small, tiara-like headband with pink and white flowers on it. Toph, resenting her parents' treatment, grew up hard and rebellious. At the age of six, she ran away from home into a cave inhabited by Badgermoles.

Badgermoles were the first Earthbenders and according to Toph, she understood them, and they understood her because they were both blind. She learned Earthbending by imitating their movements. Toph learned to "see" through the use of her Earthbending, feeling people and other objects through their vibrations, which she feels through the ground via her bare feet.

She also developed a great sense of hearing. Although Lao Bei Fong later hired the Earthbender teacher, Master Yu, to instruct her, he didn't teach her anything other than beginner moves, according to the orders of Toph's father, unaware that she had already become very powerful. She became such a powerful bender that she secretly entered underground Earthbending tournaments as the Blind Bandit, and was actually the champion of Earth Rumble VI more than once. When she met Aang, she soon ran away to teach him Earthbending, but also to get away from her parents, who never gave her any freedom.

After the War
Toph later had a daughter who would become the Chief of Police in the Republic City, Bei Fong. Not much is known about Toph's future, but Andrea Romano confirmed in a recent interview that she and the rest of Team Avatar have died by the time of Legend of Korra.

Personality


When first introduced, Toph brought a totally new personality to the group. Unlike the nurturing Katara, flighty Aang or gruff but goofy Sokka, Toph is fiercely independent, sarcastic, direct, stubborn and confrontational. She appeared to have the same carefree and adventurous personality as Aang and she was very tomboyish in the way she acted and dressed - a contrast to the delicate doll her parents saw her as. However, unlike Aang, who avoided fighting whenever possible, Toph loved battling and took great pride in her Earthbending skills. She appeared eager to prove that she was as strong as anyone who could see and that she was the best Earthbender in the world.

Toph's eagerness to prove that she can be independent had led to some initial difficulties with Aang and his friends. Toph insisted that she can "carry her own weight" and often mistook a simple friendly gesture as an act of pity for her blindness. Her encounter with Iroh, however, has taught her that Aang, Katara and Sokka care for her because they are friends, not because her disability makes them feel obligated to do so.

Toph was brutally honest when criticizing others, especially her friends. She was vocal about her opinions on others regardless of status (the Avatar, Aang) or age (Iroh). Her occasional attitude or aloofness may be related to her being the only child of one of the richest families in the Earth Kingdom. Thanks to her time as a competitor and champion of Earthbending tournaments, she was an expert in verbally taunting and insulting her opponents and on occasion her friends (particularly Sokka). She revealed to Katara that, being unable to see what she looks like, she doesn't feel the need to fuss over her appearance. However, despite her many quirks, Toph had shown that she was a quick learner and her courage and loyalty to her new friends seemed very stable.

Toph and Katara seemed to be polar opposites; while Katara was kind, welcoming and supportive, Toph was tough, unyielding and steadfast. This extended to their teaching styles to Aang. However, Toph eventually showed a bit of compromise to help Aang through his initial difficulty with Earthbending. Despite occasional clashes or spats Toph and Katara generally got along, perhaps if only for the fact that they were both girls.



One of Toph's most obvious traits involved personal hygiene. She was accustomed to lying on the ground and walking everywhere barefoot leaving her soles quite soiled. This was common, however, as most Earthbenders in the show walk barefoot, likely so that their body is directly touching the earth at all times. Also, she had been seen belching loudly, picking her nose, spitting, and is usually covered in dirt or, as she calls it, "a healthy coating of earth".

Toph was well-educated in the manners and bearings of high society—she merely consciously and constantly chose to ignore them. She made an exception when the group needed to go to a special party to see the Earth King, in order to give news of the solar eclipse, only to meet the head of the Dai Li, Long Feng.

Toph didn't let her blindness hurt her self-confidence. Once Toph told Katara, "One of the good things about being blind is that I don't have to waste my time worrying about appearances. I don't care what I look like. I'm not looking for anyone's approval. I know who I am." Katara replied by saying how she deeply admired Toph's self-assuredness. Toph had high self-esteem and was more than determined to show that she won't let her blindness deter her from living and fighting like everyone else.

An ongoing joke concerning Toph's blindness was her lack of ability to discern anything that had been written or drawn. In Ba Sing Se, Toph became angry when Sokka suggested that she needed help putting up fliers. She angrily slapped up a poster herself, only to inadvertently place it backwards and said, "It's upside-down, isn't it?". Also, she sarcastically complimented Sokka on his drawings of Appa despite the obvious fact that she couldn't see them. Later, in the Fire Nation, after being presented with the same wanted poster twice, Toph vocally expresses her annoyance with the constant oversight. Toph, at times, even joked about it herself. For example, while searching for the library, Toph, while flying on Appa, claimed that she saw it, before remarking "That's what it'll sound like when one of you spots it" before waving a hand in front of her eyes, and then, “I’ve held books before, and I gotta tell you, they don’t exactly do it for me”.

While hijacking an airship, Toph mistook Sokka's comment about taking the wheel thinking he was referring to her. By the smile on her face she was gleeful about getting another chance to correct him. But it turned out that Sokka was talking to Suki and she managed to cover up her intention pretty well. At the reunion in the Jasmine Dragon several months after the passing of Sozin's Comet, she made a joke about Sokka's drawing, saying that she thought everyone looked perfect.

Name
Toph is one of few characters within the series to express a last name, Bei Fong; the only others are the members of the Pang and Yum Soon Han Families (who are never potrayed), Pu-on Tim, and Lao, Poppy, and "Chief" Bei Fong. Toph's passport reads as 土國頭等護照北方拓芙 (tǔ guó tóu děng hù zhào běi fāng tuò fú) which translates as 'Earth Kingdom First Class Passport : Bei Fong Toph'. Here, her name means 'supported lotus,' which matches her parents' view of their daughter as a delicate flower that has to be protected. In one other occasion (on the panel card which begins the "Tale of Toph and Katara" part of the "Tales of Ba Sing Se" episode), her name was written as 托 夫 (Tuō Fū), which means "entrusted man". In the document from home, her name is reverted back to 拓芙. Her last name Bei Fong ( 北 方 ) is the Chinese pronunciation for the word "North". It is similar-sounding to the Cantonese for 'to release back,' which is what Lao Bei Fong would like for the daughter whom he believed was kidnapped by the Avatar. The word 托 (Tuō) also means 'to support in one's palm' and is usually a prefix to another Fù ( 付 ) that means "hand over".

In addition, Toph is a phonetic reference to the words "tough" and "toff" (slang meaning upper-class) in English. Toph is also the Hebrew term for "drum", which is essentially how Toph can "see", by sensing the vibrations from the ground, much like the way a tambourine is beaten while played.

Earthbending


Despite her blindness, Toph proclaimed herself the most powerful Earthbender in the world. Indeed, her bending abilities were drastically potent.

Although blind, Toph had the unique ability of seismic sense: she used Earthbending to "feel" even the most minute vibrations in the earth, including the march of ants several meters away and the presence of trees and buildings. Through this heightened seismic sense, she could visualize where people are, their relative distance to her, and their physical build, but she could not visualize faces. This sense provided her with a distinct advantage when facing other Earthbenders in combat because she could predict attacks as they began and quickly react, and her speed and agility were also greatly beneficial.

Her Earthbending style was unique and thus unpredictable, as her training was unconventional. This style greatly differentiated from the rigid training and fighting style that Earthbenders like the Dai Li implemented. Toph's style tended to be proven to be superior to the Dai Li, as she was able to take on a number of them and defend her friends at the same time. This is likely because while the Dai Li just manipulated the earth, Toph established a tremendously deep connection to it (although both styles have an overdependence on something i.e. the Dai Li and their earth gloves and Toph and her feet).

However, because Toph was dependending on vibrations in the earth, she was vulnerable to air-based attacks, as shown in her fight with Aang in the Earth Rumble VI. Later, Toph was completely surprised by Sokka dropping a large belt on her head. Her success rate in intercepting projectiles was also tied to her sensing of vibrations, being able to feel an opponent's movement and proceed accordingly. By her own admission, she could not feel her own projectiles while they are airborne.



Terrain that impairs Toph's ability to sense vibrations also hindered her abilities, as shown when Toph had some difficulty with sand, describing the vibrations in the earth as "fuzzy". She was able to compress sand into solid rock to gain some temporary footing, but was still unable to accurately aim attacks under those conditions. However, finally, she seemed to have gained some mastery of Sandbending, as she mentioned working on it and was able to create a miniature version of the upper ring of Ba Sing Se in rich detail. Her ability to sense vibrations may had improved, which may be how she was able to produce the very fine details of the city and did not show the same helplessness she had shown when previously walking on sand when the gang stepped onto the beach.

Toph also expressed an aversion for flying and submarine travel, as she could not sense her surroundings without her feet on solid ground. Also, as a result of her closeness or affinity with earth, Toph could rest or sleep comfortably on solid rock without any sleeping bag or blanket and could walk on any kind of terrain in bare feet, a standard trait for Earthbenders. Toph relied on direct contact between her feet and the ground for "sight" as well as for her Earthbending. Toph was very reluctant to allow anyone to touch her feet, probably because insensitive handling there would make her deaf to other vibrations and thereby render her helpless (and because they were far more sensitive than other people's feet).

Despite her substantial prowess on land, Toph didn't perform well in water and on ice. She was not able to swim and became nauseous when she needed to travel by submarine in the Invasion of the Fire Nation.

Toph had a great sense of hearing and could recognize people by the sound of their voices. In the Si Wong Desert, Toph recognized the Sandbender who stole Appa, adding that she never forgets a voice. In Ba Sing Se, Toph was seen feeling even slight vibrations as she told a man they met, "I can feel you shaking". Also, Toph demonstrated an ability to sense when a person is lying by the vibrations of his/her heartbeat and breathing patterns. However, Toph's senses were not absolute, as Azula demonstrated that she was easily able to lie without even the slightest physical reaction. However, not many people have the ability to lie while manipulating their breathing and pulse in this way.

Toph's Earthbending style was based on Chu Gar Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu, which is a style that is apparently unique to her; the style of Earthbending used by other Earthbenders is rooted in the Hung Gar style of Kung Fu. She was the only bender known to use a style based on a different root martial art than the standard for their bending art. This may be because she was self-taught rather than trained in the traditional Earthbending form. Toph came to develop her unique style by observing the movements of the similarly blind Earthbending Badgermoles that could be found around her hometown.

Sandbending
After the events in the Si Wong Desert showed her inability to see effectively while walking on sand, Toph practiced her Sandbending, eventually achieving a mastery over it that allowed her to create an extremely detailed sand version of Ba Sing Se during her time relaxing at Ember Island.

Metalbending


Toph was the first character with the ability to bend metal. Metal is derived from ore, which is found in the earth. Guru Pathik explained to Aang that "Metal is just a part of Earth that has been purified and refined". Because of Toph's ability to feel the vibrations in earth, she was able to locate the impurities (the small fragments of earth) in metal and manipulate them to "bend" the metal portion.

When Sokka finished his training as a sword master, he gave Toph a small piece of meteorite, which being composed of earth and metal, she could easily mold into a myriad of shapes, and subsequently transformed it into an arm bracelet she now wore. Aside from these abilities, Toph had shown herself to be one of the most powerful Earthbenders in the world, being the only known Earthbender to ever bend metal during Avatar Aang's time, a feat that even the Avatar was unable to perform since the origin of Earthbending.

In Wulong Forest, when she was breaking into a Fire Nation Airship, it was shown that her Metalbending had improved greatly as she made a metal armor and manipulated the metallic structure of the room with far more ease than before, moving metal more fluidly. She was also able to crawl hanging on to the metal ceiling while completely covered in metal. Also, Toph could Metalbend outside of her metal armor, even though she already was bending the armor in the first place.

Toph later taught this self-invented technique through the world and to her daughter Bei Fong who eventually became head of the Police.

Other Abilities
Toph showed a decent amount of artistic talent, as she was able to create a realistic replica of the city of Ba Sing Se with Sandbending while Team Avatar stayed at Ember Island, contrasting with Sokka's poor sculpting abilities when he created a sand sculpture of Suki. Later in a training exercise involving all of the members of the team, she was able to create Earthbending mannequins while acting as the "Melon Lord".

She also displayed a remarkable amount of agility for one who prefers to have their feet planted on the ground at all times. In Team Avatar's first battle with Combustion Man, she rolled, pushed herself off of the ground with one hand, and then flipped over in the air to regain her balance after his first shot and position herself in an Earthbending stance so she could fight back against at her attacker as quickly as possible.

Relatives

 * Lao Bei Fong (father)
 * Poppy Bei Fong (mother)
 * Bei Fong (daughter)

Appearances
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Book Three: Fire (火)
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Trivia

 * Though Toph could "see" where everyone was by using vibrations, she never actually looked at them while talking, instead staring off into space or in a different direction. Since she never looked at anyone while talking, she did not usually speak unless someone else did, so it is clear whom she was addressing.
 * Toph apparently used her hands as sense organs to supplement the vibrations she was able to feel through her feet, as she was often seen doing this to further investigate vibrations she had already felt by other means. This was probably a product of her learning Earthbending by crawling on all fours like Badgermoles. She was also seen using this ability before entering Old Ba Sing Se. Furthermore, when her feet get burned, she crawled on her hands when trying to get away from Zuko's camp, probably in an effort to retain some sort of sense of her surroundings.
 * The creators came up with Toph as a name because it resembled tough. There is evidence of this while Team Avatar watched The Boy in the Iceberg, when Actor Toph said: "My name's Toph; 'cause it sounds like tough, and that's just what I am!"
 * Toph was the only blind person shown in the series.
 * Toph was the only person in Team Avatar that did not have a romantic relationship by the end of the events of the Avatar: The Last Airbender section of the series. She had some sort of romantic relationship between the events of the series finale and the beginning events of The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, because she had a daughter at some point, "Chief" Bei Fong. The identity of the father is not yet known.
 * Toph was the third person shown to be taught Earthbending by the Badgermoles, the first two being Oma and Shu. Toph was also the first person shown to be taught by the animal from which a bending art originated, the second and third people being Aang and Zuko.
 * Toph was originally supposed to be a big, muscular boy as revealed by the co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko during an interview with Toon Zone. Toph would be a jock-type, bad-mouthing teenager who would be a foil to Sokka's nerdy character. The idea to have Toph be a little girl was introduced by head writer Aaron Ehasz and was initially rejected by co-creator Bryan Konietzko. After long discussions, Toph was given her gender and later became one of Bryan's favorite characters. The old design was used for the actor who portrayed her in the play “The Boy in the Iceberg” and was the basis for Roku's Earthbending instructor, Sud.
 * Although Toph's hair appeared to be short, it was shown to be very long and bushy when she let it down. In this way she resembled her mother, who also seemed to have a lot of hair (the relative bushiness Poppy's hair is unkown).
 * Avatar Extras stated that Toph could sense where rocks were, even if they were not connected to the ground and were suspended in the air. She demonstrated this ability while in combat against the Earth Rumble VI competitors. However, this ability was not infallible.
 * Toph was the only member of the original four members of Team Avatar not to go on an adventure with Zuko after he joined the team, later wanting to go with him when splitting up to search for Aang. As she plainly put it, "Everyone else went on a life changing field trip with Zuko, now it's my turn". However, it did not go how she planned, as he was more focused on finding Aang. Toph later stated, "This is the worst field trip ever."
 * Toph is a playable character in Avatar: Legends of the Arena. She is unlocked through the use of a secret code (metal bending). Aside from her appearance and name, she is played just like any other character.
 * Toph was voiced by Jessie Flower, who also voiced Meng.
 * A recurring joke was that other characters tend to forget she was blind, only for her to remind them she was in a sarcastic manner.
 * Toph could tell if people were lying as there are physical reactions in the body that she could sense through vibrations. Azula was the only known character that was able to foil this.
 * Toph was not with her parents since she ran away from home. However, she did send them a letter.
 * Toph's "sight" was depicted in a way similar to Daredevil's from Marvel Comics, though the vibrations that form his visions come from sound. Daredevil relies on sound waves to bounce off of things and shape the world, while Toph relied on vibrations to wrap around things. Unlike Toph herself, the muscular actor portraying her in the play “The Boy in the Iceberg” claimed to "see" through releasing sonic waves from his mouth.
 * Toph's seismic sense also extended to metal, wood, sand, and even to the meteorite that Sokka fashioned his "Space Sword" from which she used as a bracelet and described as "space earth"; but not to non-earthen solids such as ice.
 * After making her escape and inventing Metalbending, Toph made the claim that she was the greatest Earthbender in the world. Taking into account her advanced bending abilities despite her young age, her seismic sense and that she was the first Earthbender shown using Metalbending (in fact, she was the one who created the skill) and used all the known forms of Earthbending, there may be some truth to her words (although King Bumi made similar claims, he apparently lacked the ability to bend metal or perceive his surroundings with Seismic Sense).
 * Due to her blindness, Toph had no reading or writing skills. That being said, she apparently had some math skills, as seen when she was counting money.
 * Toph was the only named female Earthbender shown in the series, apart from Oma, female Avatars, and her own daughter (whose first name is still unknown at this point).
 * Toph discovered Metalbending and was the only person shown to utilize it, until she taught her daughter how to Metalbend. In The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, Toph was no longer the only Metalbender in the series, nor is her daughter the only other person to use it (she apparently taught it to the Republic City's police at large).
 * Toph had the last line of the series, saying, "Well, I think you all look perfect."
 * Toph was the only main character with a known last name.
 * Toph was the only member of Team Avatar whose life was not uprooted or dramatically changed by the War or the Fire Nation.
 * Toph was the least spiritual of the benders in Team Avatar, and the only bender who matched Sokka (after Yue's death, at least) in his disregard for the subject.
 * Toph was the only member of Team Avatar to be of the same biological age as Aang, as both were biologically 12 years old (though Aang is chronologically older than her by 100 years).
 * Coincidentally, the style Toph's Earthbending was modeled after was rumored to have been started by a blind woman.

Design
Toph was originally planned by the creators to be a large, muscular man as a foil to Sokka's nerdiness. This idea made way in the opening sequence, as the shadowed Earthbender was confirmed by the creators to be Toph's "prototype". Later on when time came closer to her debut, the creators pitched about it being funny of a small girl being able to take on all the strong, buff Earthbenders. This idea blossomed as a joke and Toph's character was changed into what was introduced in the show. The idea and design for Toph was later recycled as the idea for Sud, who was Roku's Earthbending teacher. A joke about the prototype later appeared as the actor playing Toph in The Boy in the Iceberg bore a closer resemblance to her initial design. The original design for Toph also influenced the character Bolin in The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra.