toph beifong

"My name is Toph because it sounds like tough!" ...Okay, so that's not actually a quote from Toph. It is an in-universe quote, though, from play!Toph in the play "The Boy in the Iceberg" - which the gang goes to see while in the Fire Nation. It is sort of a ridiculous play and Toph is played by a huge muscular guy who actually says that. This play, though? It's written based on secondhand information in-universe. So somehow over the course of stories about the gang, Toph came across as the sort of person who needed to be played by a really muscular dude (Aang, on the other hand, is played by a bald lady, so uh there you go). That this sort of idea got put across isn't surprising. More than almost any other character (even Aang at times, who has a pesky pacifist air nomad sort of nature and tries to talk things out) Toph tends to sort of demolish the enemy really happily. Despite being a twelve-year-old blind girl who is smaller than pretty much everyone else in the series with maybe one exception, Toph is also one of the characters people least want to meet in an alley while doing something she wouldn't like.

Toph is tough, no question about it. While it should be noted that the image she showed for her parents was that of a demure, mannerly girl who was helpless for at least twelve years (and she seems perfectly capable of calling up those manners and that persona at need), Toph tends to deliberately distance herself from that girl. It's both rebelliousness and a sincere dislike for that sort of thing. In general Toph tends to act like a tomboy (or at least the popular image of one) and likes dirt, fighting, and being the best. She's abrasive and loud and confident in herself, and god forbid you get on her bad side, because she's not exactly gracious when she doesn't get along with people. Hell, she's not even that careful with her friends in the general way of things.

A lot of this has to do with a desire for independence. Having known for most of her life that she can do things, and also having been told for all her life that she can't, Toph doesn't take well to any suggestions that she's less than capable, or that she needs help. She takes even less well to any hints of pity about her lack of sight, or any signs that people don't think she's capable of doing things. While independence isn't a bad thing in and of itself, Toph takes it to extremes. When she first starts travelling with the gang, she almost entirely refuses to help out with chores and makes a show of taking care of herself. It isn't that she doesn't (or didn't) like the others, but more that she saw it as a matter of pride and thought that everyone should do their own things because that was how you proved yourself. She'd also later get in a snit and storm off after the others tried to help her out with things, assuming that they were doing so because she was blind when they were actually doing so just because she was their friend.

This is a point that gives her trouble. Toph isn't really great at the whole friend thing. While she's easily the most versed in social cues of society thanks to her parents and street smarts thanks to her time as the Blind Bandit, Toph had never actually had a friend before meeting Aang, Katara, and Sokka. It's clear early on that she's not really sure how to treat them like a friend - she sort of just treats them as she likes, and her affection is sort of awkward even when it's clearly there. She tends to punch people when she likes them, and doesn't seem to see the point in sugarcoating things even for friends. White lies don't have much to do with Toph Beifong, and she doesn't seem interested in changing that state of affairs.

Toph is really incredibly brutally honest. She never, ever sugarcoats or avoids saying something if she thinks it (though she can occasionally hold her tongue for the sake of a scheme, sometimes) and is often the character in the group who makes snarky one-liners after something happens. Status, gender, age - none of these seem to convince Toph to not say exactly what she thinks. In addition to that her tone and words can be a little bit caustic and aimed to hurt, honestly. She spent a chunk of her childhood beating up grown men in what equated to pro wrestling (but with earthbending); Toph's normal mode of speech seems to involve mocking people, even when she likes them. She calls Aang things like Twinkletoes and the Fancy Dancer, and has nicknames of equally derisive natures for the rest of her friends.

These things could be good in certain lights, but while Toph is a good guy, she's never really painted as being a nice guy. Oh, she's definitely supportive of her friends in her own way, and wouldn't actually leave anyone alone if she could help, but she's her own abrasive, boastful self as she goes about things, and you have to get to know her to get past that. Toph clearly adores the rest of the gang and does her best to stick with them and even makes sort of awkward attempts to cheer certain members up at certain times. And sometimes her attempts can be surprisingly on-key - like when she tells Zuko his uncle is already proud of him, during the Play episode (and then proceeds to sock him in the arm because that's how she rolls). In the comics, Toph is shown to care about her students a lot, as well. She believes in them when no one else does, and is willing to do a lot for them - and when they do well, she does praise them. She just also sort of berates them a lot and calls theme names, because that is how Toph Beifong operates. Another point towards her caring center is how long she puts up with her parents' coddling and how she actually plays the part of the girl they want for them. Toph's relationship with her parents is pretty tense and confused, but she always clearly cares about them. It's just...hard.

She's also the one who goes to try to talk to Zuko after he attempts to join and everyone else says no (although that ends in burnt feet, so) because she's capable of swallowing her pride and trying to think of what's best for the group when it comes down to it. And Toph does have a lot of pride. She's confident in her abilities and hates it when other people aren't. That said, she's also actually fairly decent at keeping a cool head at times. While Toph trash-talks and has a temper, she's also the teacher who waits and listens before acting. Toph often displays a wisdom beyond her years in regards to earthbending, and can often be more mature than she usually acts when she's bending or in a situation where her skills are needed (though she also admittedly jokes around while doing all of this, sometimes). The thing about her confidence is that she can pretty much always back it up, which makes it hard to talk her down to, you know, not being all gung ho about it. Even when backed into a corner (ala the metal cell before she learned metalbending) Toph doesn't seem to give up. She's very determined and seems to be made of the rock she knows how to bend.

Basically: abrasive, sarcastic snarker in a tiny body who despite that is gruffly affectionate with people she likes. Also a hero although she likes the fighting part a little too much, probably. Really, really protective of her independence and takes it badly when anyone suggests she can't do something on her own or can't do something.

Pretty much all of Toph's abilities center around one single capability: earthbending. In the world of Avatar, "bending" is the term used to describe the capabilities of some of the people of their world who can control ("bend") earth, fire, water, or air. Toph Beifong was one of the - if not the - greatest earthbenders of all time, both by her opinion and those of others. She was the master chosen to teach Aang earthbending in the series for a very good reason: she's good at it. Toph has even mastered sandbending, which is notoriously hard for earthbenders - and she invented metalbending, which would later be more widely used thanks to the Beifong Metalbending Academy.

The most important use of Toph's earthbending is the one that has caused the most differences between Sophie and Toph. Toph never had a problem seeing - with earthbending, she could feel the vibrations in the ground and used them to "see". This was part of the reason she hated shoes. Sophie, without that ability, has turned out differently than she otherwise might have.

Toph was also much more fight-capable and sturdy than Sophie is, partly because vision was never an issue for her, even though she was blind. Toph was a really good combatant, although again, she relied on her bending more than anything else.

Like her preincarnation counterpart, Sophie Bai was born blind. Unlike her preincarnation, Sophie wasn't immediately locked up and kept secret from the world by her parents. Born into a perfectly ordinary middle-class family rather than the richest family in her city ("and maybe even the world"), Sophie's parents dealt with their daughter's blindness in a much more measured way. They did research. Books, movies, talks with doctors, you name it, they did it. Rather than looking at the issue from the stand point of "how can we keep her from ever getting hurt" (although as with most parents they did want to shield their child from harm to a normal degree) the Bai family approached the matter from the viewpoint of "how can we help her to function without her vision?"

This was a wildly different view from the Beifong family in another life. Her parents encouraged her and supported her, and while they helped her as a child, their support and encouragement led Sophie to be able to support herself fairly well on a day to day basis (in terms of doing things; she is fourteen and not actually eligible for work outside of like, lemonade stands). There were problems and roadblocks, but they faced those together, and Sophie's childhood actually doesn't have anything stunningly bad to report. Sure, she got injured a few times due to stupid accidents she kind of blames herself for (going too fast, normally, especially at home where she feels most confident - and then misjudging something or miscounting steps and running into something. Ow). But those times barely stand out against her entire life.

Her childhood was happy despite the blind thing (and really, Sophie rarely gave it too much thought in the "woe is me" sense. She wasn't raised to feel sorry for herself). Sophie's parents always had time for her and liked to listen to her. Her father was (and is) an ordinary salesman at an office downtown. Her mother works as a secretary at the same office, which is how the met. And beyond her parents, Sophie has a perfectly ordinary extended family, all of whom she's fond of to various degrees (generally; of note is her cousin Bruce Banner, who is over three times her age and about as many times as nerdy. Sophie magnanimously likes him despite both these things, because she is just That Nice - and of course that connection was discussed and cleared with the Bruce player). She's sort of one of the younger members of the extended clan, but this has never bothered Sophie much. While she gets treated like the baby of the family sometimes, it's usually just doting on her or something, which she's okay with as long as it's clear they're just doing it because she's the "cute little baby". ...Well, okay, she's okay with it as long as she's getting something out of it.

Sophie was always permitted to attend a regular school, as well. She did have some special attention from teachers (and students), but just getting to interact with other children and getting out of the house? Was far different from what she might have expected in another life. Sophie made friends and enemies and got involved in things she liked. While Sophie never joined any school clubs officially, she sometimes drops by on meetings that sound interesting and doable, and otherwise spends a lot of time hanging out with friends or her family (which is, admittedly, pretty damn dorky). There is always something to do if you look, and Sophie gets antsy if she's left with nothing to do for too long.

So: Sophie's life has really, truly been pretty unremarkable from ages zero to thirteen, and that is honestly pretty remarkable considering her past life. Her interests include listening to music (not getting involved in it herself, although she's good at keeping a beat) and movies (though she hates movie montages - what's the point of long music sequences where apparently there are a lot of meaningful images and clips that have no dialogue to like clue her in on that without an ongoing translation by her parents or someone else?) and going for walks. Sophie also likes to read a lot, or to have things read to her. Note that these books are not classics or tough in general - she likes children's fantasies, grade school levelish, with lots of daring rescues and escapes and fantastical things within. Also blood and death and battles. She loves that stuff, too. She likes witty wordplay and jokes, too, and that sort of thing will almost always earn her affability. Also? SPACE. Space is cool. Sophie likes hearing about things from space, and has gotten her parents to describe a stupid amount of space-related objects.

Overall? Sophie is a rather well-adjusted middle school girl (going into 8th grade this school year!) who tends to spend a lot of time with her parents. She's also pretty snarky, but details.

Born into another world and a different set of circumstances than Toph, Sophie is obviously pretty different. The first and most obvious point is how Sophie is actually a lot more willing to accept help without snarking about it or being offended. This is not because she is not independent. She is, but it's in a different way and to a different degree than in canon. Instead of being raised by parents who didn't believe in her capability to function normally and being locked away and having everything done for her, Sophie was raised by guardians who seemed to believe in her and who raised her to be able to function on her own. Yes, it was hard. Learning to use a cane and learning braille and learning how to do everything that sighted people could do without a second thought was a huge pain and sometimes things take her twice as long and it's frustrating. But Sophie has a support system that actually believes in her and enables her to stand on her own two feet, rather than a support system that treats her as younger and less capable than she is and doesn't allow her to do things on her own.

So for Sophie, accepting help from that support system is not admitting that her parents and the rest of the world was right and she's tiny and helpless and weak. Hell, Sophie is willing to ask for help if she needs it. She has learned in this lifetime that help is just that: help. Sophie still wouldn't ask someone to do something for her, but she is willing to ask people to help her to do things for herself. This does not mean that she won't get annoyed if people offer to do things for her, however, if she hasn't asked for help. Help given without being asked for still ticks her off (although to lesser degrees than it would Toph).

Her childhood and relationship with her parents are really different, and the relationship with her parents is actually a big driving thing here. Sophie has a much happier home life than Toph did. Sophie wouldn't consider running away because there is nothing to run away from. She actually keeps her parents in the loop on her life because she's never been given any indication that they would treat her differently because of x y or z. Sophie actually has a support system and grew up with it. Sophie is also actually surprisingly more polite because of this. She wasn't raised with high society manners, but she was raised with the usual set, and she never saw a reason to blow them off or ignore them just to prove a point. Sure, it may grate on her nerves to be polite when annoyed, and Sophie is still pretty damn sarcastic and can be rude, but she's also a hell of a lot better behaved because her parents raised her up right and she's always been pretty happy in her life.

In general Sophie is actually better at social interactions than Toph. Sophie has had friends since she was tiny, and has never been locked away from the world. She's a lot less awkward around people and more willing to show affection. This doesn't mean she doesn't show affection in occasionally rough ways, and that she doesn't take the mickey out of people, but Sophie is actually more in tune with social norms and following them. She's willing to hug people and hold hands and will occasionally even open up about her problems without a big to-do. It's a miracle! Sophie is still really honest and blunt and sort of snarky, though. It's just more good-natured than it isn't (although it was honestly pretty good-natured with her friends in a past life) and she can't help herself about it sometimes. She is more willing and likely to apologize to people if she really makes a mistake, although it might be a teensy bit reluctant in certain cases.

This filters in to how her independence is different. Sophie? Is not actually rebellious. She just believes in doing things for herself and doing what she can for herself, but doesn't do things just for the sake of rebelling or blowing off steam. She has no reason to do so. She was raised believing "you can do everything except see" and that sometimes it would just take her longer to accomplish things. This means her confidence is still there, but it's more a confidence she has been raised with. She has been raised to have self-worth and to believe herself a capable person. While Toph Beifong was confident, she was not raised this way and at times her confidence was because of that, because she was proving herself, and her drive to prove herself was really, really important. Sophie has less of a drive to prove herself. Oh, she's competitive, and she likes to give her all, but she doesn't see the need to prove that she's not a weak little helpless blind girl because the people most important to her in the world have always tried to never treat her like that.

Another thing? Sophie may actually be a bit more confident and independent than Toph in another direction. Without the magic-feet way of bypassing her lack of sight, Sophie has actually had to deal with blindness on a daily basis. She has always had trouble seeing, unlike Toph ("I've always been blind, but I've never had trouble seeing"). Sophie has learned skills to work around that, which admittedly Toph did as well - but Sophie's skills are a lot less earth magic and a lot more hard effort that she still works on to this day. She's also grown up with less general resources in terms of money/power whatever, which comes across in how she deals with problems.