Talk:Bumi vs. Toph, Round One/@comment-204.154.123.79-20130114172652/@comment-3338975-20130117041518

However, we also saw Toph earthbend gambler's dice around with a small tilt of her chin in The Runaway. Sure, it wasn't anything large, but it doesn't really have to be for my point to stand, for the following reasons:

People often like saying Bumi's a better Earthbender than Toph, simply because we've seen him levitate larger rocks. The thing most people miss, is that while Bumi excels at applying neutral jing as an overall strategy, he really isn't too subtle in his tactics - hence his massive displays of boulder levitation, the type of inflated masculine power displays seemingly preferred by many of his supporter. Toph, on the other hand, isn't anywhere near as good at developing neutral jing as an overall strategy (and who could expect her to? She's still a kid, after all, and thus lacks the requisite wisdom), but is simply stellar at applying neutral jing in her individual tactics, as befits one who sees through Seismic Sense. As a result, her Earthbending tactics are almost always more subtle than Bumi's (she listens before striking, in order to design her attacks against the tactics of her opponents), and thus usually not as impressive; it's not that she can't move large masses of rock quickly (the staircase she transformed into a slide to neutralize the guards in "The Earth King" was certianly large enough), but instead that she usually just doesn't see any reason to. Perhaps it's just me, but I'd choose the female Earthbender over the male Earthbender any day of the week.