With the heightened urgency to learn earthbending, the gang shows up to an earthbending colony and hears some kids talking about the fight. This underground wrestling match introduces one of the strongest characters on the show. While some of her best moments come from one-liners, we’ll try to explore the different events that help make her such a good character. Let’s review the 10 best Top Moments.
10. The Blind Bandit (Best Toph Moments)
Toph is one of the most popular characters, and for a good reason. The young blind girl with a sharp tongue makes for an amazing opponent and inspiring character. Following Bumi saying he couldn’t be the one to teach Aang eathbending, a series of predictions leads him to a young girl and a flying pig. Although the events of the swamp excursion seemed odd, the events in the next episode were even odder.
As any true fan knows, the “blind bandit” was Toph’s stage name when she was in that underground wrestling ring. Although she seems like the underdog, she completely annihilates a much stronger opponent and teases him with snarky taunts, calling the “Boulder,” “Pebbles.”
Although Aang defeats her, many fans point out that she was just caught off guard by the Airbending technique, and she is actually the better fighter. Although their partnership gets off to a rocky start, she is the perfect teacher for “twinkle toes,” and it’s fun to see how much their relationship advanced over the years.
9. Toph vs. Dai Li agents
The entire Avatar series had some amazing fight scenes, but arguably, one of the best was when she absolutely annihilates the Dai Li earthbenders. “There is no war in Ba Sing Se” became a bit of a meme now as we got to witness the corruption of the once-great earth metropolis
. After some suspenseful buildup, we find out that the place was taken over by an extremist group that ultimately was at odds with our heroes. Toph didn’t need any help taking out these special agents as she demonstrated her amazing skills. Toph is strong, but to know that the young girl could take out a bunch of specialty agents singlehandedly is funny and impressive.
8. Stood Up to her Parents
While we aren’t too surprised by Toph’s greatness, there were two people that were completely shocked by her actions. Toph’s parents kept insisting on how useless and helpless she was. The only child of a very wealthy family, Toph was raised in luxury and hardly impacted by the war at all. Although privileged, their secret daughter lacked the freedom (or confidence) to really explore her potential.
Upon finding out that Aang wanted to recruit her and Toph was actually an amazing bender, they decided instead of promoting her to go on the journey; they wanted to restrict her freedom even further. The thought of being under more lock and key than ever and having her parents not accept her is enough to move the strong character to tears. Luckily for the gang, Toph ran off anyways.
It’s not that she hated her parents, but she desperately wanted to be free. They needed to see her for who she was and live her destiny. She ultimately reconnected with her dad (in the comments), but she was willing to give up everything to be herself.
7. Taught by Badgermoles
While she did have a human teacher, he insisted on keeping her at a very basic level. How did she learn to be a master bender and use bending to compensate for her lack of sight? She ingeniously learned from one of the many unique animal hybrids the show introduces us to. It was the badgermoles who taught her about earthbending. It’s a small scene, but it’s illustrated beautifully.
6. Became a Teacher
Ultimately she even becomes a teacher, which is pretty surprising as the creator of metal-bending. She uses her knowledge to lead a whole other generation of benders. Considering her temperament, it’s kind of surprising that she opened up a school. Sure, she taught Aang earthbending, but there were several creature differences that certainly don’t make for a …traditional… teaching style.
Of course, the school is only discussed in the comic universe, but it leads to some exciting storyline that ultimately brought her and her father together. She takes it to the next level by the time we catch up to Toph again during the events of The Legend of Korra. Despite Toph’s hatred of authority, she finds herself in some pretty big positions. She trained in the police academy and even ran it for some time.
5. Makes Blind Jokes
While this isn’t necessarily one event, in particular, one of Toph’s most enjoyable assets is her ability to laugh at herself. Although being blind is an essential part of her character, it’s never a setback.
Although she has some insecurities about people pitying her, she doesn’t miss an opportunity to make a joke about being blind. Some of the more notable examples where Toph added some much-needed comedic relief was when she made a comment about how Sokka’s poster looked great to her, and she pretended to spot the hidden library.
4. Lie Detector
Among all of her amazing abilities, it’s easy to forget this one simple one that doesn’t come around too often. Because Toph can sense vibrations, she acts as a human lie detector. The most notable moment where it came up was when the gang ran into Jet again. Jet is a fun character that acted as a love interest and ally.
However, he takes some dark turns sometimes that go at odds with the rest of the group – something that ultimately led them to go against him in the first place. Upon meeting Jet again, the gang is suspicious, and Toph’s lie detecting is there to let them know whether or not they should trust him.
Her abilities come in handy to get an on-screen death into a kid’s show. When Jet is injured and assures the rest of the gang he’s okay, Toph lets them know that he’s lying, and then we never see him again.
3. Held up the Spirit Library
When Aang and the gang need to find a spirit library, Toph is not afraid to let people know she really doesn’t care for books (or sand, to be fair). She is out of her element, so she decides to wait outside with Appa while the rest of the gang tries to find what they are looking for from the creepy owl spirit. After upsetting him, the spirit decides to hide the library forever under the ground.
As Katara, Sokka, and Aang were essentially sitting in their own grave; Toph manages to hold the library up all on her own. While this intense show of strength was impressive, it was also one of the most emotional moments of the entire series. While keeping her friends from their eternal tomb, she had to hold onto the library and could not stop bandits from stealing Appa.
2. Airship Attacks
Another emotional moment for Toph was when she and Sokka were destroying the airships. Although she is incredibly brave and we hardly see her hesitate, it’s easy to see her nervousness when jumping between airships. Without her feet planted on the ground, she can’t “see.” When Sokka tells her to jump, and she actually does, it’s a huge deal.
1. Metal Bending (Best Toph Moments)
Without a doubt, her most impressive feat of all was founding metalbending. One of the greatest weapons against master earthbenders was locking them up in metal prisons or cages. However, when she is put to the ultimate test, she’s able to break through and save herself. Not only that, but she really mastered metal bending, able to make armor out of it or take down airships. It becomes a huge foundation for the universe that the Legend of Korra is set in.
Did we miss any of your favorite Toph moments? We want to hear from you! Let us know in the comments below.