Talk:Bumi (King of Omashu)/@comment-4885978-20120715142211/@comment-5176024-20120725020541

@Anonymous: I didn't say Toph mastered sandbending. I did put "almost?" in there. If she hadn't mastered it, it was obvious she was close to doing so as she did make a complete sand sculpture of Ba Sing Se in "Sozin's Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King".

@AntJenkins: Bumi told Aang he had to find someone that mastered neutral jing which tells us that Bumi hadn't quite mastered it yet. I'm not saying that he wasn't close to mastering it, though.

When did Bumi turn solid ground into quicksand (I can't remember which episode that would have been in)? Just because he do that wouldn't mean he's capable of sandbending. It just means that he can crush the earth into fine granules.

Bumi was old. That could be considered a weakness (also, refer to my first point about neutral jing). However, just because Toph's blindness is a weakness, she more than made up for it. Had she not been blind, she likely wouldn't have been as great of an earthbender. She never would have had reason to be. Her blindness coupled with her mastery of neutral jing allowed her to discover metalbending.

Even Aang and Lin don't match Toph's skill despite being her pupils. Because they didn't/don't have to rely on their seismic sense, they were/are more (or just as) prone to attack (which has been shown in the two series).

You're right, we don't know all of Bumi's skills. It's only assumed that he mastered earthbending after 12-years-old. But we do know that Toph mastered the element at or before 12. We also know that Bumi and Toph are pretty much equally matched at their respective ages.

''"Just because Toph mastered it at an earlier age doesn't make her a better earthbender." ''Yes, actually, it does. Would that mean that Azula wasn't a better firebender than Zuko (before he learned from the dragons and she went crazy, of course)?