<div class="quote"><i>MeelosLeaf422 wrote:<div class="quote">Actionmanrandell wrote:<div class="quote">MeelosLeaf422 wrote:
And how exactly would Toph go about doing this feat? In detail if you do not mind. </i></div>
i already stated above how she held the library in place for a few seconds, and that library weighs a good 200 times the weight of the drill. all she would have had to do is apply said fucking strength to stop the drill</div>Okay. She held up a library tower made out of stone from sinking into sand. So she fought gravity, and it was sinking in sand which slowed it down as well. That is a strong feat of earth bending power. So I again ask how can she apply this Earthbending strength to stop a giant metal drill that is being moved through steam propulsion systems and can bore through earth? Are you syaing she can just push against it with her hands? </div> <p>your not getting it. her feat of holding it in place had more than just bending, she slammed her foot into the ground to harden it, than slammed her hands into the building. than she literally farking held the building in place with her body as a brace, that would require the physical strength to hold the building in place. meaning its a feat of both earth bending and strength </p><p>lets put it this way, lets say you have Telekinisis. your walking down the street a crane falls and you put your hands in the air and you stop the crane from falling. your doing this with your mind some what but according to science, even if you had TK the weight of the crane would still kill you as the weight of the crane would push down on your arms.  your arms would literally break and you would be crushed. the only way around it is if you could shroud yourself in some type of aura that causes the mass and weight of the object your stoping to be evenly distributed without harming you, and even than you would have to apply equal telekineted force into the ground. this is not how bending works in this show. bending is an extention of a persons Martial arts. its as every bit as physical as metaphysical., this is why toph trained Aang by having him lift a boulder that would have definitely weighed a few thousand pounds  so no matter what, her physical body supported the weight of a bulding that was FAR FAR FAR larger than the drill.  also because of steels tensile strength steel buildings are lighter than concrete ones. so even if the drill was as long as the library was tall it would still weigh far lass.  </p><p>the library though was not just really tall but it was massive in size. it was far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far larger. no matter what the drill would have been hundreds of times lighter than the library. and no matter Toph would have had to support the weight of the library with her body </p>

<p>i would like to give a point of reference of how heavy the library would be.  lets use the Taj Mahal as an explanation. the taj mahal weighs in at an astonishing 2.5 thousand trillion kilos(5.51156 thousand trillion pounds/5.51156 sextillion lbs). the library in this serious is bigger than the taj mahal. so this means toph was able to support the weight of over 5 sextillion pounds. </p>

<p>The answer is that Toph was obviously using earthbending to support the library. The reason she had to take up the very physical stance of supporting it with her body was because the art of earthbending is generally accompanied with direct physical actions; earthbenders can destroy rocks by hitting or kicking them for example. </p><p>The drill, being made of metal, could not be stopped this way. And, let's say that she did somehow stop it - what then? Would she just stand there, using all her strength to hold the drill in place, while Tai Li, Mai or Azula attacked her? </p>

<div class="quote"><i>Enoshade wrote:
The answer is that Toph was obviously using earthbending to support the library. The reason she had to take up the very physical stance of supporting it with her body was because the art of earthbending is generally accompanied with direct physical actions; earthbenders can destroy rocks by hitting or kicking them for example. <p>The drill, being made of metal, could not be stopped this way. And, let's say that she did somehow stop it - what then? Would she just stand there, using all her strength to hold the drill in place, while Tai Li, Mai or Azula attacked her? </p> </i></div>
<p>your actually 100% wrong. there is literally no way that earthbending alone was involved. according to actual science even if you had telekenisis or some such power and say lifted an object above your head the weight of said object would still bare down on you. the only way around that is if a barrier was placed around you as well. in this case earthbending literally has no barrier so bending is a physical activity. this is why every time an earth bender uses earthbending to lift a massive amount of earth you can see there muscles being contracted as well IE Bumi lifting a massive piece of earth in his fight with Aang. when training Aang Toph told Aang that earthbenders have to be stead fast have to be strong enough to move the earth, if they don't have the physial strength than they themselves can not move the earth. we see this when instead of moving a boulder when he applies his energy to move the boulder its to heavy to move and instead he is flung backwards away from the boulder </p><p>when Toph held the Library in place she literally used her body as a brace. meaning her body literally acted as a brace to hold the library in place. we see this when her muscles in her legs actually contract and are activated. not to mention she had to literally harden the sand below her to brace her position on the sand. its not like she caused the earth to slam against the side of the library. the only thing that made contact with the library was her hands. </p><p>this all means that she was PHYSICALLY able to hold the weight of the library in place. and like i said the library is larger than the taj majal which weighs 5.51156 sextillion lbs </p><p>meaning her physical body is able to act as a brace to a building that weighs over 5.51156 sextillion lbs </p><p>this is an irrefutable fact. </p><p>this all leads to the fact that the drill was still lighter than the library and her physical body was able to act as a brace for the library meaning she physically would have been able to hold the drill in place. </p><p>also lets say you are right(your not) and that she was solely using earthbending(she wasn't her body was doing 99% of the work)  she was still able to hold a building that weighed atleast 5.51156 sextillion lbs in place. so she should have still been able to stop it since she is able to manipulate atleast 5.51156 sextillion lbs of weight using a combination of her body and bending.  </p>

<p>i would like to mention how there are plenty of scientific videos out there that talk about similar things about other psychokinetic abilities.  the film theory youtube channel has a video on how much weight violet would have to physically withstand if placing a barrier around her body like in the incredibles. other videos talk about how much physical durability characters like jean grey would have to have to physically lift an massive object with her TK or how strong magneto's body would have to be to lift an entire city with his magnetic powers. the scientific consensus is that such powers would still be linked to your body and the weight of said object would bare down on your body </p>

<p>her physical body is able to act as a brace to a building that weighs over 5.51156 sextillion </p><p>"But that's just a theory, a game theory!" </p><p>What you fail to understand is that the Avatar universe, at least as far as bending is concerned, has only a light basis in our modern understanding of science. Obviously the muscle contraction and physical strain of bending was added purely to let the viewer feel the strain a character feels when bending - it doesn't entirely make sense. Pretty much, it looks cool.
However, since we <i>are</i> in the general disccussion board of the avatar forum, such an answer will not do. Thus, here is my proposal, listed as a number of points: </p><p>1. Earthbenders do appear to use their physical strength very heavily when bending, and this is obvious throughout the series. However, and this is important, <i>one's earthbending does not become stronger if your body is stronger.</i> This seems to suggest that "earthbenders having to stay steadfast and strong" is more about the mindset, than the actual physical exertion. This is further backed because Aang manages to overcome his earthbending block by learning to think differently, rather than training at the gym. </p><p>2. Yes, it is possible that the series was wrong, and this was indeed a plothole - this would be the case if internal consistency was ruined. However, as we see throughout the series, bending cannot be explained by applying modern physics and chemistry. Why can firebenders bend fire and lightning, but not other kinds of energy? If they can bend thermal energy, why can't they freeze someone/something by taking all of the heat out of it? </p><p>3. The answer to that is simple. The Avatar universe is based on Eastern philosophy. Firebenders can bend fire and lightning because the <i>ideas</i> of fire and lightning are interlinked, and waterbenders can heal and get a power boost from the moon because it is a part of that philosophy. Healing in reality is not more linked to water than it is to air, however the concept of water in old Eastern philosophy reflects the way benders can use it. </p><p>4. Finally, why can't Toph stop the drill? Even if she did the proper stance and everything, she would only be supported by the ground. The moving metal drill would simply push her over. She <i>was</i> able to slow it down by lifting it slightly off the ground with earth spikes, however even those it could get over quite easily.
The library, on the other hand, was made almost entirely of rock and - more importantly - it wasn't gravity that was pulling it down, it was more-so the will of the owl spirit. The spirit attempted to pull it back into the spirit world where it came from, however Toph's earthbending contested this power, and they existed in a relative equilibrium until the sandbenders distracted her. </p><p>5. If she was indeed as strong as you said she was, she could've ripped open the metal cage like paper. If earthbenders had the ability to destroy anything as easily as they could obliterate a rock with a single kick, why didn't they do it? It's because these stances weren't the only thing at play here, and you cannot dumb the Avatar world down this way. It is much more complex than that, and establishes that complexity throughout the series - a complexity that is entirely it's own, not based in our world.
When an earthbenders kicks a rock and it explodes into dust, the action is really only a way to focus the mind to perform a bending action. We see several instances of benders using 'psychic' bending, bending without stances, and this appears to require far more focus and effort, because they cannot use the bending stances to help them focus. </p><p>This may not be the most satisfying answer to someone who wants to break things down into easily calculatable formulas based on real-life research, but it is the case with the Avatar world. Yes, they have the same basic laws of physics, however bending itself defies a lot of them - it would be impossible for bending to exist without doing so. What is important is that it is very internally consistent, and this is what makes a good story, not accuracy to the real world </p>

<div class="quote"><i>Enoshade wrote:
her physical body is able to act as a brace to a building that weighs over 5.51156 sextillion <p>"But that's just a theory, a game theory!" </p><p>What you fail to understand is that the Avatar universe, at least as far as bending is concerned, has only a light basis in our modern understanding of science. Obviously the muscle contraction and physical strain of bending was added purely to let the viewer feel the strain a character feels when bending - it doesn't entirely make sense. Pretty much, it looks cool.
However, since we <i>are</i> in the general disccussion board of the avatar forum, such an answer will not do. Thus, here is my proposal, listed as a number of points: </p><p>1. Earthbenders do appear to use their physical strength very heavily when bending, and this is obvious throughout the series. However, and this is important, <i>one's earthbending does not become stronger if your body is stronger.</i> This seems to suggest that "earthbenders having to stay steadfast and strong" is more about the mindset, than the actual physical exertion. This is further backed because Aang manages to overcome his earthbending block by learning to think differently, rather than training at the gym. </p><p>2. Yes, it is possible that the series was wrong, and this was indeed a plothole - this would be the case if internal consistency was ruined. However, as we see throughout the series, bending cannot be explained by applying modern physics and chemistry. Why can firebenders bend fire and lightning, but not other kinds of energy? If they can bend thermal energy, why can't they freeze someone/something by taking all of the heat out of it? </p><p>3. The answer to that is simple. The Avatar universe is based on Eastern philosophy. Firebenders can bend fire and lightning because the <i>ideas</i> of fire and lightning are interlinked, and waterbenders can heal and get a power boost from the moon because it is a part of that philosophy. Healing in reality is not more linked to water than it is to air, however the concept of water in old Eastern philosophy reflects the way benders can use it. </p><p>4. Finally, why can't Toph stop the drill? Even if she did the proper stance and everything, she would only be supported by the ground. The moving metal drill would simply push her over. She <i>was</i> able to slow it down by lifting it slightly off the ground with earth spikes, however even those it could get over quite easily.
The library, on the other hand, was made almost entirely of rock and - more importantly - it wasn't gravity that was pulling it down, it was more-so the will of the owl spirit. The spirit attempted to pull it back into the spirit world where it came from, however Toph's earthbending contested this power, and they existed in a relative equilibrium until the sandbenders distracted her. </p><p>5. If she was indeed as strong as you said she was, she could've ripped open the metal cage like paper. If earthbenders had the ability to destroy anything as easily as they could obliterate a rock with a single kick, why didn't they do it? It's because these stances weren't the only thing at play here, and you cannot dumb the Avatar world down this way. It is much more complex than that, and establishes that complexity throughout the series - a complexity that is entirely it's own, not based in our world.
When an earthbenders kicks a rock and it explodes into dust, the action is really only a way to focus the mind to perform a bending action. We see several instances of benders using 'psychic' bending, bending without stances, and this appears to require far more focus and effort, because they cannot use the bending stances to help them focus. </p><p>This may not be the most satisfying answer to someone who wants to break things down into easily calculatable formulas based on real-life research, but it is the case with the Avatar world. Yes, they have the same basic laws of physics, however bending itself defies a lot of them - it would be impossible for bending to exist without doing so. What is important is that it is very internally consistent, and this is what makes a good story, not accuracy to the real world </p> </i></div>
<p>the actual DVD commentary says that to move earth the earthbender must have the physical strength to do so. durring the episode where Toph is training Aang but he can't grasp it.Bryan and Michael mention on the DVD commentary specifically that Aang couldn't earth bend because he doesn't have the mentality to do so  they went onto say that earthbenders can't just move earth as easy as say the other benders because earth has a substantial amount of mass. all the other benders have to do is just force a redirection of the element, air,fire, or water.  earth is to heavy and requires substantial physical strength to move as well. this is why Toph was having Aang lift that big ass boulder above his head(something she herself could easily do, which makes the later imprisonment in metal and wood a plot hole since if she can lift a several tonne rock the metal cage and the wooden sell would be nothing) </p><p>even if it wasn't that way and it was purely psychokinetic she was still able to earth bending a building that would weigh over a sextillion pounds. meaning she would still be able to stop the drill as 5.5 sextillion pounds of earth is superior to the drill that couldn't weigh anywhere near the weight of the library. </p><p>the drill was maybe the size of an aircraft carrier, made with lighter and weaker materials. to put that into perspective a nimitz class aircraft carrier has the weight of about 213,848,140lbs </p><p>the drill might be slightly larger but not by much so at most the drill would have a weight of maybe 300 million pounds. as heavy as it is it still nothing compared to 5.5 sextillion pounds. the library would still out weigh the drill  </p>

<p>That falls apart on the grounds that (among other things) water also has mass and weight. </p>

I feel like you're kind of arresting Al Capone for tax evasion right there.

Isn't that what they eventually ''had'' to do?