Toph Beifong: Beauty in Simplicity | Avatar the Last Airbender

we are in a golden age of television more and more it seems like the place to tell long-form character-driven stories is the small screen despite that historically not being the case consider the likes of daredevil Mad Men Breaking Bad Game of Thrones the list goes on but among this crowd of Titans stands one black sheep while many of us come from a background of anime it has to be admitted that animation is not considered the pinnacle of storytelling for the mainstream Western audience despite that one show has risen above the pool to go toe-to-toe with the best of them a show accepted by an audience of all ages in all demographics that show being Avatar The Last Airbender having made a handful of videos about the show at this point my thoughts on characters like Zuko and Katara are abundantly clear characters from Avatar impressed with their incredibly well-written arcs that stand out as some of the best in the modern landscape but surprisingly throughout all five or so of my videos there has been one character I've yet to mention and not for a lack of popularity as she is a fan favorite of course I am speaking of the blind bandit herself Toph beifong Toph is an interesting character because she is largely unchanging as to where a character like Zuko is all about the growth of antagonists to Ally Toph enters and leaves our mind as the same person despite that you'll often see her talked about in the same vein as these other characters with intricately woven backstories and journeys how does Toph manage to grab the eyes of viewers without offering the intense complexity shared by her cast mates the voice in Tony's head was originally a different actress but again the girl Friday thing was something that I liked very much but when she came on as American the only way to establish who she was a sort of different person was to have banter between them which was literally men like establishing an entirely new character after the vision so to give her the the accent sort of made a little piece of shorthand this is Joss Whedon on his director's commentary for 2015 age of Ultron he's referring to the replacement AI system used by Tony Stark after Jarvis comes to life in the form of vision age of Ultron balances a lot of new characters with Scarlet Witch Quicksilver and of course Ultron and vision in this time cron there really wasn't a lot of room for introducing someone as minor as Tony's new AI but Josh recognized that he still had to make her distinct distinct enough that she could stand out despite not receiving a formal introduction the solution was simple make it a girls voice opposite to previous Jarvis and give her an Irish accent one not yet heard in the MCU this is the essence of design and though this is but one infant s Amelie small piece of that movie it serves as an example of how simple details can create impactful impressions the first element the angler --nz in Avatar The Last Airbender outside of airbending was water partially taught to him by Katara but significantly through PACU of the Northern Water Tribe PACU was an old man old and powerful something he shared in common with the first major earthbender introduced in the series King Bumi and the first potential firebending teacher Jeong Jeong this gives the subconscious idea that the people who will be behind Aang's teachings will be powerful but old and wise this is the first detail in subverting expectations that goes into tofs distinct introduction to contrast with the likes of Paco Bumi and Jang Jong we are instead introduced to a little girl or sort of introduced because the second detail is actually that she appears as a hallucination of sorts in the episode the swamp there's a couple notable elements to this introduction the first that we will get back to later is the clothing that she wears it's a fancy garment of sorts something a proper royal lady would wear the second is actually through katara and sokka's hallucinations the party is split up each having their own brief moment with seeing something that isn't actually there for Katara this was her mother for Sokka this was you a both figures of their past some more recent than others that left prematurely and created holes in the hearts of those still here the swath was showing people what they desired the most people they missed but for Aang all he saw was a random little girl not someone he had knowingly met before or had any sort of connection to this creates a powerful link between us and whoever this girl ends up being it tells us that she will be as important as princess youäôre as emotionally vital as Katara's mom in the third minor detail serving as a bit of foreshadowing is the fact that when Aang eventually does catch his hallucination he grabs her only to accidentally grab Katara again this is minor but it does foreshadow the idea that this girl has some sort of link to our resident waterbender not in the historical sense but in the narrative one taking at face value it could mean a couple things like potentially a replacement romantic interest but in hindsight we know what to actually mean that this girl will join a party in that she will serve as Aang's instructor similar to Katara let's rap back to detail number one the clothing this is a bit of a double fake first we get these subconscious establishing of us looking for someone like PACU or Bhoomi faked out number one is that it's not an old man but a little girl in a royal dress fake out number two is that this girl in a royal dress is actually a girl in a wrestling outfit who is a champion of an underground earthbending ring notice how when we first see her like this we hold the frame close both highlighting her blind eyes and masking her stature only to quickly pull out to a wide shot and having her stand next to two average-sized people thus emphasizing how small she is the context to her premiere fight is that she is defending her title against an undefeated contender in the boulder a muscled DEP meathead it's a short match as she unveils an ability that we have yet to see in the show earth bending seismic sense and uses it to swiftly and surgically destroy her opponent from this introduction we've created multiple levels of intrigue at any point in which you think you know who this earthbending teacher will be your expectations are subvert 'add she's then given various attributes that lead her to being a person of interest such as her having a last name something no one else in the show seems to possess or her incredible feats of power or you know the fact that she's blind Toph is a standout character from her very introduction and this lends incredible weight to her lasting power in terms of entertainment she is able to remain relatively unchanged in comparison to other characters largely due to this fact in an article for the writer magazine writer Jeff Lian states that not every story is actually a story instead there are two subsections of fiction story in situations the difference lies in four conditions that he outlines in the article but I'll be focusing on only one for the purposes of this video quote a situation begins and ends in the same emotional space that it started in in other words if you do not have an arc you do not have a story now that sounds derogatory but it's actually not for Lyons he identifies the purpose of a story as to speak about growth and change it is about the human condition and people learning these things are inherent to character arcs but as with all rules of writing you are allowed to forego them some of the greatest pieces of fiction have Indiana Jones famously is a character with no notable arc but yet remain as one of the most iconic characters of all time with someone most well-received movies katara and zuko are stories in themselves they are tales of people growing katara from a naive child to one of the most powerful water benders in the world Zuko from a prince desperate for his father's approval to teacher of the avatar but Toph is not a story like that she goes through little to no art having entered the show as a rambunctious rebel and leaving the show exactly the same and she's all the more entertaining for it however that's not to say that there is no depth to a character at all while Toph doesn't grow all that much as a person we do manage to chip away at that rock like exterior that she fronts in her daily life at face value in her introduction you may be led to believe that Toph has issues with authority or more specifically she hates being coddled this is in part due to her royal upbringing in which she was seen as a helpless child one to be protected at all costs even at the expense of undermining her agency as an individual but it's in that last line that we uncovered the truth of the matter earlier I had alluded to a connection to be made between Toph and Katara these two characters had a rocky relationship from nearly the get-go and perhaps it's easy to see why Katara joined Aang on his journey under the motivation of helping him master the elements but a sub-sect of that motivation was the Katara herself could teach aang to waterbend she knew she wasn't a master but figured a couple basic tricks could be easy enough however in the end Aang still needed to get a real master and thus PACU entered the picture Katara had issues with PACU but they mostly stemmed from outright sexism as opposed to any innate character flaws within herself of course that character flaw being Katara's tendency to overstate her maturity as an adult even Katara could probably see that she was not in a position of superiority over someone as old as PACU despite exercising that authority over the likes of her friends fast forward to season two if I had studied under Bhumi I don't see any reason for Katara to come into conflict with him but aang didn't study under Bhumi he found teaching from a girl even younger than Katara this stoked flames as it immediately played Katara's insecurities am learning earthbending from a master who was two years younger than Katara undermines just how mature Katara is by comparison it makes her look weak or perhaps lesser than Toph this in hand put Katara into motherly overdrive in an attempt to regain authority she had to once again overstate her role as the caretaker of the group this inherently comes into conflict with what we know of tofs flaw which is that she hates being taken care of these two are a perfect set of foils for each other we see the culmination of this conflict come to head in one of my favorite episodes the run away in the beginning of this episode Katara makes a bold claim the Toph actually misses her parents and that the hatred she puts on display is just a part of her front of course Toph denies this but there may be more truth to the statement than granted when we learn about Toph this episode is that she has no actual issues with being taken care of the real issue lies within needing to pretend to be someone she isn't with her parents Toph had to hide her incredible earthbending talents she'd spent years working with an instructor who refused to go beyond the very basics of the skill all because her father feared for her safety she had to pretend to be a helpless blind little girl when in actuality she was fully capable of looking after herself after her whole childhood being spent like this the idea of a parental figure was inherently linked to the idea of needing to hide who she really was so when Katara's motherly tendencies come in the form of telling her she can't go run her scams of course this would lead to intense conflict it was the very type of conflict that led Toph to running away in the first place this is not the only episode in which we learned the depths behind tofs character but it is probably the most impactful one in a sense you could maybe even call this an arc while Toph doesn't necessarily go from something as Extreme as disliking Authority to liking Authority she does learn to trust in her companions and open up to her emotions in the grand scheme of Avatar The Last Airbender in which we witness large-scale Grand character arcs this at the very most comes across as a minor one the truth of the matter is that Toph is a fantastic entertaining character who manages to stand out as the rock of the group the unbudgeted that solidifies herself as a fan favorite not through complexing sweeping narratives but through a unique refreshing set of character traits thanks for watching I swear there will be another anime video soon maybe not right away but I am working on it if you enjoyed this video and like when I talk about avatar then please share it with your friends or anyone who you think might enjoy it and if you really want to support us you could do so at patreon.com slash kate o YT join the likes of woods on a moon day page Mulder the hunter hundred 2011 dick writing Association Danny the donkey gage Lambert doji tempest next 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Channel: Kato

Views: 2,072,986

Keywords: Kato, Anime, Analysis, Zero, and, Hoodie, Avatar Analysis, Avatar the Last Airbender, Toph Beifong, Toph Analysis, Beauty in Simplicity, The Legend of Korra, Do you need a character arc, Character arcs, Character analysis, Toph vs Katara, Toph introduction, Aang vs Toph, AtLA

Id: Fo-bcmAr2Vg

Length: 11min 2sec (662 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 01 2018