First impressions aren’t always right. Any time I need to remind myself of this, I think of my initial reactions to Avatar: The Last Airbender. If I had never given the show a second chance (or, more accurately, if I hadn’t been visiting friends while they were watching a couple of episodes), I would have continued to believe that the show was merely “okay” and might have missed out on what is now one of my favorite TV shows of the past decade.
A brief reminder: I’m going to be covering one episode of the series in detail. Spoilers abound and if you haven’t seen this episode or any of Avatar yet, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by reading the article instead. It’s your call, but I strongly recommend you see the episode before you read any further.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is the brainchild of Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The two had previously worked for Film Roman and Konietzko was a storyboard artist on the earlier Nickelodeon series Invader ZIM. The concept for Avatar came from the joining and refining of a couple of loosely related ideas: a young, bald martial arts master, a character trapped in an icy wasteland, and different cultures based on the four elements. As the concept developed, Western and Asian cultural influences entered into the mix. DiMartino and Konietzko successfully pitched the show to Nickelodeon in 2001. It debuted four years later and became a big success for the network. The well-crafted world, complex characters, and thoughtful writing hooked fans of many age groups while the continuing storyline and fast-paced martial arts action kept them coming back for more. Pleased with the show’s ratings, Nickelodeon ordered two more seasons. The story came to an end in July of 2008 with roughly 5.6 million viewers watching. A live-action movie based on the first season – called The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with that other Avatar movie – is due out this July.
So what is Avatar about? Well, this is one of those shows where the intro tells you just about everything you need to know. Watch and learn:
That’s the show in a nutshell. Aang is a twelve-year-old kid with the fate of the world in his hands. If he is to stop the Fire Nation from conquering the rest of the world, Aang must learn all four bending disciplines, which shapes the narrative of each of the three seasons. Throughout the series, Aang struggles to balance his duties as the Avatar with his need to be an ordinary kid with his own desires and problems.
The Episode
The episode I’ll be talking about today comes from the second season, known as “Book 2: Earth.” It may seem strange to select an episode from the middle of a series with a continuing storyline. But this particular episode tackles several interesting themes, introduce a major character, and showcases a lot of what makes Avatar great. So let’s get started on one of my favorite episodes of the series: “The Blind Bandit.”
Since this is Book 2: Earth, our heroes are traveling through the Earth Kingdom in search of an earthbending teacher for Aang. Prior to this episode, Aang was advised by an old friend that his teacher should be “someone who waits and listens before striking.” Aang has also received a vision of a young girl with a pet flying boar, a person he believes he is destined to meet.
We find our heroes taking a break to indulge in some shopping. Sokka, one of Aang’s companions, is going back and forth on whether to purchase a bag that has caught his eye. It’s a brief scene played for comedy, but it does set up one of the main themes for this episode: gender role reversal. Sokka’s behavior here is stereotypically feminine. He is indecisive about his purchase and highly fashion conscious. Later on, we will see the reverse of this as the women in the story excel at the traditionally masculine pursuit of kicking ass.
Part of Sokka’s role in the series is comedy relief and he doesn’t go very far beyond that in this episode. He is genuinely funny, but his personality and role in the story don’t end there. He can be a skeptic at times, a position that can only lead to frustration and pain for a character living in a largely magical world. He has no bending abilities (not all people in this world do), making him the odd man out with Avatar Aang and his sister Katara, a waterbender. In so many shows, this character would be insufferably annoying, stubbornly denying what’s right in front of his face and serving no real purpose in the team. Sokka isn’t like that. He can be very smart and has a talent for engineering. He is identified as the group’s “plan guy” and designated map reader. He has the potential to be a great leader if he can grow past some of his flaws. He has a sensitive side and his relationships with many of the other characters evolve over the course of the series. He is one of my personal favorite characters, even though he’s little more than a goofball – albeit an entertaining one – in this particular episode.
This is also a good place to note the overall color scheme of the show. In addition to an element, each of the four cultures in Avatar is associated with a season, which is primarily reflected in the colors of the local clothing and décor. Aang’s garments are the orange and yellow of fall leaves. Since, as the title indicates, Aang is the last of his people, he stands out wherever he goes. Sokka and Katara’s wintry blue and white outfits fit right in with the scenery in their arctic homeland, but mark them as strangers among the green-garbed natives of the Earth Kingdom, which is associated with spring. The Fire Nation doesn’t have a real presence in this episode. But when they do show up, they are easily recognizable in their red and black clothing, related more to the colors of fire and ash than those of summer. The show’s color theory gives a unity to the many settings, makes it easy to identify characters and their nationalities, and gives visual cues to separate the natives and the newcomers.
Retail diversions aside, our protagonists are here to find an earthbending tutor for Aang. The first possibility soon presents itself when Aang is handed a coupon for a free lesson at Master Yu’s Earthbending Academy. We’ll meet Master Yu shortly, but even his portrait on the coupon has the “just trust me” look of a less than trustworthy dealer of used cars. Viewers who can translate the writing on the coupon will note that the lesson is free, but the student is still required to purchase the proper uniform. The lesson itself doesn’t go well either. All of the other students are shorter and presumably younger than Aang, yet they all know the proper stance already. Master Yu seems totally unconcerned when Aang is hit by his opponent’s flying rock and knocked into the wall. He immediately tries to make a sale, offering to bump Aang up to the next belt level if Aang pays for a year’s worth of lessons in advance. Master Yu is clearly less of a teacher and more of a shady entrepreneur. He could care less whether his students learn anything or not, so long as their money is good. The audio commentary for this episode states that Master Yu’s Academy is the Avatar version of a strip mall dojo, the kind of place designed to keep kids occupied for an hour and take their parents’ money rather than teach martial arts. Master Yu introduces another theme for the episode: the power of money.
Aang wisely decides that Master Yu should not be the one to teach him earthbending. Fortunately, a new opportunity to find a teacher presents itself when Aang and his friends overhear two boys discussing the upcoming earthbending tournament, Earth Rumble VI. When Aang asks about the location of the tournament, the boys give him the brush-off and it’s left to Katara to pry it out of them. There’s a nice misdirect here that ties into the gender role reversal theme of the episode. Judging by Katara’s flirty call to the boys to wait up and her comment that “a girl has her ways” when Aang asks her how she got the information, it seems as though Katara used her feminine charms to coax the boys to tell her the tournament’s location. But Katara’s information gathering methods have nothing to do with the soft touch, as we see when it is revealed that she actually froze the two boys to the wall of a nearby alley.
There is a very brief bit where Aang’s pet lemur Momo decides that Sokka’s new bag makes a good bed. Mom and Aang’s sky bison Appa have very minor roles in this episode, but they do serve as a reminder that most of the animals in the world of Avatar are combinations of real-world animals. Momo is part lemur and part bat, while Appa is (supposedly) part bison and part manatee. This means that the winger boar Aang saw with the girl in his vision could be a real animal, though that turns out not to be the case.
Part of what I love about Avatar is the diversity of its influences. Its sources for inspiration are not limited to Asian culture or Asian animation, a mistake that some Western studios trying to capitalize on the success of anime have made. There is plenty of martial arts action to be found in the earthbending tournament, but it is chiefly a wrestling match, right down to the name “Earth Rumble VI.” The first major competitor we meet is “The Boulder,” an over-the-top personality who mostly refers to himself in the first person. His name and speaking style are likely a reference to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s voiced by another professional wrestler – Mick “Mankind” Foley – in a suitably over enthusiastic performance complimented by the broad poses and expressions on the character.
Unfortunately, this is about as far as my knowledge of wrestling stretches. But my knowledge of classic Nintendo games is pretty good. If yours is too, you’ll likely recognize “The Big Bad Hippo” – The Boulder’s first opponent – as a boss from the early days of video games.
Earth Rumble even has its own designated bad guy, the uncreatively named “Fire Nation Man.” Fire Nation Man is a stand-in for any wrestler who fans were supposed to love to hate. Sometimes, such wrestlers would be cast as citizens of enemy countries, as is the case here. Fire Nation Man even sports something than sounds like a bad Russian accent, despite the fact that no actual citizens of the Fire Nation talk this way. He is actually an earthbender, though in this fight, he’s handily dispatched by The Boulder before he can do any fighting. Though most of the matches in Earth Rumble VI are treated as serious brawls, this one has all the earmarks of a scripted fight. I can imagine Fire Nation Man sharing a drink with The Boulder after the two have claimed their paychecks.
During the tournament, Sokka shifts gears from stereotypical female behavior to…stereotypical male behavior. He has probably never been to an Earth Rumble before and has no way of knowing who any of the competitors are. Yet he is immediately caught up in the excitement, rooting for The Boulder, booing at Fire Nation Man, and eagerly anticipating more action.
Aang is less impressed with The Boulder. He declines when Katara suggests him as a potential earthbending teacher. Powerful though he may be, The Boulder is not someone who listens and waits. The way Aang puts it is “He’s just listening to his big muscles,” but I doubt The Boulder can hear much of anything over his own self-aggrandizing speeches.
Though he has defeated all of his opponents so far, The Boulder still has to face the current champion. And now we come to the character at the center of this episode’s narrative and themes. The Boulder has defeated several big, hulking, muscle bound opponents and is now set to do battle with The Blind Bandit, a petite blind girl whom Aang soon recognizes as the girl from his vision. Her real name, which we will learn later on, is “Toph.” (It rhymes with “off” rather than “oath,” but you already knew that because you’ve seen the episode, right?)
It’s appropriate that this character’s debut episode should focus so much on stereotypical gender roles being switched, since her development involved some gender bending. The original concept for Aang’s earthbending teacher was the more expected muscle man. But what began as a joke about a little girl who could take down earthbenders twice her size grew into a complete reworking of the character and probably new ideas of what earthbending is all about.
The Boulder echoes the audience’s concern about a small blind girl going up against a pro wrestler. But his concerns and most of ours evaporate when The Blind Bandit starts trash talking him and calling him “The Pebble.” She seems totally fearless and she is the current champion, so she must have some kind of trick up her sleeve.
Portraying a character with a disability like blindness and a fantasy ability that helps her compensate for it is a tricky proposition. But Toph’s blindness is handled very well throughout the series. As we see during her battle with The Boulder, Toph “sees” by feeling the vibrations in the earth through her feet, giving her a map of her surroundings. It is tied into her earthbending abilities, but it feels at least related to the way a blind person might use her other senses to compensate for her lack of sight. And, as we’re about to see, Toph’s abilities have their limits, which are kept consistent in future episodes.
Avatar puts a lot of emphasis on action and combat, though it doesn’t happen in every single episode. The series’ most obvious hook is the characters’ ability to use martial arts to manipulate water, earth, fire, and air. What makes the fight scenes in Avatar so exciting and fun to watch is not just the sight of combatants shooting fire from their hands or raising huge boulders from the ground, but the realism of the combat. This might sound impossible – how can fire kicks and water zooming through the air look realistic? But every type of bending is based in a real style of martial arts. Often, live-action reference footage was sent to the overseas animation studio to ensure that the fights and individual moves were accurate. This gives the magical skill of bending a basis in something real, adding specificity and believability to the characters’ attacks. Most earthbending is based on the Hung Gar style of Kung Fu. This fighting style emphasizes strong, low to the ground stances and strong attacks, making it an ideal representation of the stability and power of stone. To set Toph apart from other earthbenders, her moves were inspired by the Southern Praying Mantis style, which focuses in part on precision footwork, making it an ideal style for Toph who needs to keep her feet on the ground in order to “see.”
Toph defeats The Boulder with ease, anticipating his moves, dodging his blows, and sending him flying out of the ring with pillars of stone. Sokka is stunned, Katara, is mystified, and Aang sees that this is someone who waits for the right moment to strike.
The host of the tournament, Xin Fu, offers a cash reward to anyone who can take down The Blind Bandit. Aang tries to use this as an opportunity to talk to the girl he hopes will become his earthbending teacher. He isn’t looking for a fight, but Toph is. She obviously loves brawling and takes pride in her skills. But Aang, without even trying, proves to be her most formidable opponent. He isn’t fazed by her insults and his airbending abilities rob Toph of her biggest advantage. He can perform long, slow leaps and spend a lot of time in the air, rendering him invisible to Toph. This is one of the drawbacks of Toph’s unique way of perceiving the world. She can’t see anything or anyone in midair, only anticipate the path of something thrown at her. Unsteady ground like sand limits her sight and non-earth surfaces like ice or water leave her unable to see. If her feat are injured or off the ground, she is truly blind.
For Aang, fighting is a means to an end and something he would rather avoid if he can help it. For Toph, it is both fun and a matter of personal pride. So when Aang unintentionally knocks her out of the ring while avoiding one of her attacks, Toph takes it badly. She refuses to talk to Aang and storms off, defeating his true purpose in challenging her.
To make matters worse, Aang has made a new enemy. After the fight, The Boulder informs Xin Fu that he didn’t see any reason why The Blind Bandit fell out of the ring. Since no one has seen an airbender in years and no one at the match aside from Aang’s friend knew that he is the Avatar, Aang was assumed to be just another earthbender. The Boulder and Xin Fu wrongly conclude that The Blind Bandit took a dive in order to split the prize money with Aang later. The money theme has returned, but for now, Xin Fu is just a guy who mistakenly assumes that he has been cheated. It’s what he does about it that will make him a villain.
After the tournament, Sokka is back to thinking fashion, enthusing over how his bag matches the championship belt that Aang won. The protagonists return to the Earthbending Academy to try to find out where The Blind Bandit lives. They come across the same two boys from before, who are still dismissive of Aang but are immediately intimidated by Katara. She is the muscle while Sokka is more of a cheering squad.
Though flying boars may be real creatures, the one from Aang’s vision turn out to be the crest of the wealthy Bei Fong family and the clue that Aang and his friends need to locate the Blind Bandit. Though she’s now wearing an elegant dress, Toph is clearly The Blind Bandit. She greets the three intruders by raising a mound of earth underneath them and sending them flying into the air.
This scene includes the most direct reference to the main theme in the whole episode. Sokka chides Aang for responding when Toph refers to him as “twinkle toes,” complaining that “it’s not manly.” Katara points out that Sokka is the one who was so pleased that his belt now matches his bag. Sokka is still caught up in the image of masculinity put forth by the earthbending tournament, but he is unable to see that he himself does not fit into that image.
Toph immediately turns down Aang’s request to learn earthbending from her. Her behavior gets stranger and stranger. When she wants Aang and his friends to leave, she doesn’t use her earthbending to force them to. Instead, she threatens to call the guards and soon does. When the guards arrive after Aang, Katara, and Sokka have fled, she plaintively explains that she became frightened when she thought she heard someone nearby. The fearless Blind Bandit is now cowering at strange noises, or at least pretending to? What’s going on? What, as Aang asks later, is Toph’s problem?
Toph’s problem is Toph’s parents, two people who take the idea of overprotective parenting to new levels. They see Toph as a helpless infant, incapable of such simple tasks as cooling her own soup or wandering the grounds of the estate unsupervised. Toph’s parents have kept her so sheltered that the locals aren’t even aware that the Bei Fongs have a daughter. She does receive earthbending lessons from Master Yu, which would seem to suggest that he is a better teacher than he appears to be. But it quickly becomes clear that Master Yu has no more knowledge of Toph’s abilities than her parents do. He has only been teaching her the most basic stances and breathing exercises. Neither he nor Toph’s parents seem to believe that she will ever progress much further with her earthbending. Presumably, Master Yu continues to teach Toph because the pay is good, even if his student isn’t learning anything from him. Why Toph’s parents continue to pay for her lessons is more of a mystery. Perhaps they believe it is the proper thing to do. They do seem highly concerned with keeping up the appearance of everything being as it should, even when reality contradicts them. When Aang uses his status as the Avatar to get invited to the Bei Fongs’ home for dinner and Toph is initiates a long-distance kick fight under the table through her earthbending, the two kids end up shouting at one another. Rather than get angry or even try to figure out what’s going on, Toph’s parents merely suggest that they all adjourn for the living room for desert.
The most obvious reason for Toph’s parents’ egregious overprotectiveness is Toph’s blindness. But since Toph has no siblings, it’s difficult to say whether this is the cause of their behavior, or merely and excuse. The Bei Fongs might have been just the same way with any child. Toph’s blindness is seldom a problem for her, so her parents’ issues must be more complicated than having a child who does not see as others do.
In any medium, fantasy works best when it has some traces of reality for the audience to latch onto. This can take a variety of shapes: from making the main characters human or human-like to using real martial arts styles as the basis for martial arts that can control the four elements, to giving character problems with particulars based in the fantasy world, but a universal resonance. When stripped down to its bare bones, “The Blind Bandit” is the story of a girl approaching the moment where she breaks away from her parents. While few people can relate to the specific predicament of keeping your life as an earthbending champion a secret from your family, most can relate to the feeling that your parents don’t understand that you are growing up and you may no longer be the person they think you are.
We see Toph’s conflicted feelings when she makes up with Aang after the fight at dinner and has a heart-to-heart conversation with him. She isn’t happy being coddled and confined by her family, but she doesn’t yet see herself as someone who can claim her independence and choose how to live her own life. Sneaking out to do battle in the ring as The Blind Bandit allows Toph a limited amount of freedom and she has come to believe that is the most she can hope for. Aang again offers Toph the chance to join his team and leave her sheltered life behind. Toph envies the freedom that Aang enjoys, but she doesn’t believe she cam ever share in it. For the time being, she is resigned to being a poor little rich girl.
Toph detects an incoming ambush, but not soon enough to avoid being kidnapped along with Aang. Xin Fu has gathered his other fighters to help him abduct The Blind Bandit and the kid who defeated her in a plan to get his money back. Again, Xin Fu has reason to believe that he has been swindled, even if he is wrong. But his method of righting this perceived wrong turns him from shady wrestling promoter to outright villain. When Katara, Sokka, and Toph’s parents come to pay the ransom, Xin Fu releases Toph, but reveals that he intends to turn Aang in to the Fire Nation for a reward. If Xin Fu seemed like a bad guy before, he is utterly despicable now. He is perfectly happy to play to his countrymen’s hatred of the Fire Nation with gimmicks like Fire Nation Man when it’s profitable, but he’ll turn around and make a deal with the Fire Nation for the right price.
Toph finally reaches her breaking point. Katara and Sokka need her help to rescue Aang, but it’s not their pleas that cause her turn. It’s Toph’s father irritably responding that his daughter is “blind and tiny and helpless and fragile” and therefore incapable of helping them. Toph has a choice here: leave with her father and go back to her pampered, lonely life, or rescue Aang and reveal her true nature to her parents. Whatever her father’s comments may have stirred in her, Toph does not turn on him. She just pulls away and says “Yes, I can,” before going to face her opponents.
This is probably my favorite drawing of Toph ever. It just perfectly sums up everything I love about this character. There is no doubt of how tough she is. Her expression alone makes it clear that she is mere seconds from laying the smack down. But at the same time, she has the round cheeks and pouty upper lip of a little girl, beautifully observed and rendered in this particular drawing. Toph’s appeal lies in the combination of these two seemingly opposite personas: the powerful earthbender and the young girl.
Toph’s last battle of the episode against Xin Fu and his cronies emphasizes both her skill and the joy she gets from earthbending. She insists on taking down her eight opponents single-handed and smiles to herself in satisfaction as each in turn makes an error that will cost them the battle.
Despite his various flaws, Master Yu at least has the honesty to tell Toph’s father that he was completely unaware of Toph’s earthbending prowess. He is genuinely impressed, but Toph’s father reacts to seeing his daughter in combat with concern and sadness, even after she wins. Toph has defeated Xin Fu, but her toughest battle is yet to come.
For someone who believes her parents do not understand her, Toph is surprisingly understanding of her parents. She knows that they only wanted to protect her and realizes how difficult and shocking this revelation must be for them. Toph is not just naturally rebellious. If she were, she would have left home long ago. But she is a good person who couldn’t turn her back on Aang when he needed her help. And she needs to be free to do what she loves and have a real life. The line that gives Aang, Katara, and Sokka – as well as the audience – pause is when Toph reveals that she has never had a real friend. Toph desperately wants to pursue her earthbending and connect with the world beyond her parents’ home. But she still hasn’t made the leap to total independence. She is hoping that she can win her freedom without alienating her parents, that they will recognize their error and give her their blessing to do as she chooses.
So many other narratives would go for the warm and fuzzy ending, where Toph’s parents realize that they have been wrong and grant Toph the freedom she craves. But Avatar avoids this easy cliché. Toph’s parents have been denying the truth about their daughter for years and, sadly, they aren’t about to stop. Their view is that Toph’s actions prove that she currently has too much freedom and that her life needs to be more restricted, not less. This says to me that the Bei Fongs’ concerns have very little to do with Toph’s safety. Her father has seen first hand that she can more than handle herself in a fight and would have no problem with the everyday tasks that have been done for her for so many years. It’s more likely that the Bei Fongs don’t want to deal with the embarrassment of having a crass, pugilistic daughter who spends her days fighting in earthbending tournaments, a daughter whose existence they have kept concealed from the rest of the world. Sad to say, it looks like the Bei Fongs prefer the timid, helpless daughter they convinced themselves they had to the real one. The real Toph is right in front of them, asking for their understandings, but her parents can only see the stereotype.
But what’s this? Just as Aang and his friends are about to depart, Toph runs up to them. She tells them that her father changed his mind and gave her the freedom to leave home. So Toph has her freedom and Aang has his earthbending teacher. Toph even gives him his first earthbending “lesson” by knocking him into a tree. It seems Toph was still just a bit sore about losing her title to Aang. Sokka, seated on Appa’s back, removes the belt and accidentally (I hope) drops it on Toph’s head. Aang falls out of the tree seconds later. Avatar maintains a good balance between treating its story and characters seriously, and taking them down a peg or two when a touch of comic relief is needed.
It’s nice that Toph’s father finally came to accept her for who she is. But isn’t it a little strange that such an important scene took place offscreen?
The reason, of course, is that the scene never took place at all. Toph finally reached the point where she had to choose between what would make her parents happy and what would make her happy. The saddest part of this entire story is that Toph’s father still can’t see that his attempts to “protect” Toph are what pushed her to rebel and leave him. Rather than face the truth, he deludes himself into thinking that Aang has kidnapped Toph. At least, that’s what he tells Master Yu and Xin Fu.
If the connection between Xin Fu and Master Yu wasn’t clear before, it’s abundantly clear now. Toph’s father outright says that the two men are very different, but that he thinks they do have one interest in common: money. As Toph’s father suspected, the promise of a sizeable reward is enough to convince the earthbending teacher with delusions of greatness and the sleazy event promoter to join forces to find Toph. Notice how one of the men Toph’s father is hiring to “rescue” his supposedly kidnapped daughter is the guy who actually kidnapped her earlier? Talk about deluded.
This is the last we see of Toph in this episode. She is resting her head on the side of Appa’s saddle, a smile on her face as the wind blows through her hair. The four elements and the concept of bending not only provide the series with its hook; they also give it much of its symbolism. Stone is the perfect metaphor for Toph’s initial inability to leave or change her situation, while air – personified by Aang – offers her the potential to travel where she wishes. What better representation of freedom could there be in the world of Avatar than riding through the air on the back of a flying bison, the world at your feet and your possible destinations as limitless as the open sky?
Will Toph’s freedom last? Will Xin Fu and Master Yu be able to drag her back to her parents and a life of safety and solitude? Those are questions for another day. This is a continuing series, so there will be arcs that continue through multiple episodes. For now, all we need to know is that Aang has found his earthbending teacher and Toph has won the freedom to explore the world, to become a part of it, and perhaps even to help save it.
All images in this article are copyright Nickelodeon.
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Tags: nickelodeon, tv series, why i love animation
Wow, this was a great read. In-depth analysis of the themes, execution, symbolism…all of the reasons why I have quickly grown to love this show so very much.
In particular, Toph’s character never got complete resolution, she never saw the end of her character arc. A shame, really, given that she was one of the show’s 6 main characters.
Seeing as you wrote all of this and seem to put as much thought into the narrative of the show as I do, you MIGHT be interested in this story I’ve been working on having just recently finished the series a couple of weeks ago. The purpose of the story is to explore some of the conflicts of this character that never got resolved in the show.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6148203/1/Same_Skies_Worst_Field_Trip_Ever
One of my favorite aspects of this character is that she acts all tough and rebellious, but just as you say, that’s not really what is at her core. If it was she would just be a jerk. She would’ve run from home and not relied on anyone at all and not HELPED anyone at all. She is tough and stubborn and wants to be independent, but at the same time, she IS a young girl at heart. It’s a MUCH more interesting character to work with than a muscle man could have possibly been. I’m glad they changed it.
While Toph isn’t necessarily my FAVORITE character in the show, as I like all 6 of the main characters about equally, she is probably my favorite to analyze and observe, due in part to how her arc was never completed. She’s sure been fun to write about, at any rate.
Well, great read, truly. I enjoyed it. You could write an article like this on MANY episodes of this show, especially in Books 2 and 3. It’s quickly become one of my favorite shows, and one of my favorite works of narrative in general. It really shows what can be done in the medium of 2D, serialized storytelling. I can’t wait to re-watch it all at some point.
Glad you enjoyed the article. While I can see your point, I kind of like the fact that Toph never gets clear resolution, particularly with her parents. While there were other story arcs that I wish had been a little more fully resolved before the show ended, I don’t think that there was time to have Toph reconcile with her parents and have it feel natural rather than something thrown in to tie up everything because the show was over. I like to think about these characters having a life beyond the end of the show and judging from the first chapter of your fanfic (which I’m enjoying), so do you.
Thanks for the comment. I would really like to write more about Avatar in the future and I know I’ll have something to say when the new series airs. I hope you’ll stick around and continue to post your thoughts.