Source
r/respectthreads•
derstherower

Respect Toph Beifong, The Blind Bandit (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

movies/tv

Toph Beifong is the only daughter of Earth Kingdom nobles, Lao and Poppy Beifong. Intending for her to become a respected noblewoman, Toph's blindness caused her parents to try to keep her locked up. But Toph's blindness became her strength, and led her to become the greatest earthbender in the world.

###Early Biography

Toph was born to Lao and Poppy Beifong. After discovering that she was blind, they tried to keep her locked up in their estate to protect her. Toph, not satisfied with this life, ran away when she was young. She met badgermoles (the first earthbenders), who were also blind, and they taught her their techniques and how to see with earthbending (seismic sense). As she grew older, Toph became one of the most powerful earthbenders in the world, and was a champion fighter at 'Earth Rumble IV' under the guise of 'The Blind Bandit' when she was only 12 years old. After an encounter with Aang, Katara, and Sokka, she agreed to travel with them to teach Aang earthbending and help end the 100 Year War.

###Earthbending, Metalbending, and Sandbending Skill

Toph has been described as the 'greatest earthbender in the world'. She invented the art of metalbending and mastered 4 of the 5 known earthbending sub-skills (earth, metal, seismic sense, and sand).

Attacks:

Durability/Strength (Through Bending):

Immobilization:

Defense:

General Bending Skills:

Precision:

###Seismic Sense

Despite her being blind, Toph is able to 'see' with earthbending by sensing the vibrations in the ground, which provides her with incredible situational awareness and a mild precognition from being able to sense where her opponent will move.

Seismic Sense (Reaction Times):

Seismic Sense (Situational Awareness):

###Physicals

Endurance

Durability

###Other Information:

  • Toph started a metalbending academy after the 100 Year War. This later grew into the Republic City Police Force, of which she was it's first chief.

  • Toph is the only known earthbender to practice Southern Praying Mantis style earthbending.

  • Toph is the one of only two known characters to invent an entirely new bending art (metalbending).

  • Toph has trained 2 Avatars in earthbending (Aang and Korra).

(Other information will be edited in if I forgot anything).

This is my first 'real' RT, so please excuse me if it is a little rough.

Posted Apr 20, 2015, 9:33 PM UTC · edited

8718
ChocolateRage•

First of all good job!
Second on a humorous note I'm more impressed that Sokka survived that fall than I am that Toph launched him that high in the air.

Third I'd like to make a formatting suggestion, under earthbending you have a lot of feats with (durability), (precision), and (defense) instead of listing it at the back end you should separate them into sections so it looks something like this:

###Earthbending:

Toph is the self-described 'greatest earthbender in the world'.

Durability

  1. Shatters a boulder using only her head.
  2. Launches herself and kicks through a stone wall.

Defense

  1. Creates rock armor for herself in 1 second an(d) launches herself forward with it.
  2. Launches 2 Dai Li agents with pillars upon landing,effortlessly blocks a counter-attack, and attacks Azula.

Also in this example I used 3 # signs in front of Earthbending to make it a larger font than the rest.

15
derstherowerOP•

Thanks! This is my first 'real' one so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Glad you like it.

And those are really good suggestions. I will get on that ASAP. Thanks for the help!

5
JavelinR•

This is a really great start with lots of evidence, but I feel like you went a little overboard with the links and didn't focus enough on the actual character. The purpose of respect threads is to talk about and list a character's "greatest feats" so that anyone reading can get a proper idea of their limits. 56 is a lot of scenes to go through, especially when many of them show off the same thing but in different circumstances. For instance:

All show Toph attacking people with pillars. It's really redundant to have all of them and is counter intuitive toward truly expressing her limit. Similar basic moves like lifting earth or making walls are also over exemplified. In addition Repeatedly raises a giant slab of rock is just a straight up weaker control feat than Puts out a giant fire with rocks.

Secondly, I'd recommend sorting these feats not by video source, but by purpose. For example have a section dedicated to strength that talks about her young and old limitations in moving earth, followed by 2 or 3 examples. Next have another section dedicated to control, than reaction speed, etc.

Finally some of these titles are misleading.

I mostly just focused on the "earthbending" section but the things I mentioned apply to other areas as well. The only other thing I might add is try having a section about her backstory and maybe expand upon trivia (albeit that's a personal preferance). So far I think you've done a fantastic job with your research, you just need a little more work sorting it out so people not familiar with Avatar can follow.

^edit: ^added ^the ^final ^paragraph ^for ^clarification ^and ^grammar

12
derstherowerOP•

Thanks! I probably did go a little overboard with feats haha. I'm gonna be editing this down later (/u/ChocolateRage gave me some tips similar to the ones you gave, like sorting by category and not source). Thanks for the advice!

1
Bteatesthighlander1•

Now I get how she can beta Gaara ^^^/s

Anyways, are you worried about the videos getting tooked down?

8
derstherowerOP•

Garra never had a chance haha ;)

But no, I'm not really worried about them being taken down. A lot of them have been up for at least a few years, and there are other videos featuring most of them, so if one is taken down I can add another.

4
vadergeek•

Maybe I overlooked it, but did you leave out her holding up Wan Shi Tong's library? That's probably her best sheer scale feat.

6
derstherowerOP•

I did forget it. Thanks I'll add it.

1
KHolidae•

Makes me want to re-watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. Well done, Ders :)

3
derstherowerOP•

Thank you!

2
141_1337•

Excellent job, I hope you do now for avatar.

2
derstherowerOP•

Thank you!

2
MystyrNile•

Toph is the only known character to invent an entirely new bending art (metalbending).

Hama created Bloodbending.

2
Somerandom1922•

Ahem, the very first feat was not toph that was in fact melon lord, gosh, amateur. lol

In all seriousness excellent RT.

2
derstherowerOP•

Thanks!

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
PissedOffBiotic•

I figured you might want to know a lot of the videos have been taken down by YouTube.

1
derstherowerOP•

Oh crap you're right. I'll need to fix that.

1
PissedOffBiotic•

No problem, I was just looking at it today trying to get some stuff for a debate when I noticed.

1