Toph Beifong () is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, and is part of the Avatar: The Last Airbender world. She is voiced by Michaela Jill Murphy in the original series and Kate Higgins as an adult and Philece Sampler as an elder in the sequel series. She is portrayed by Miyako in the second season of the live-action television series adaptation.
Toph is recognized as a prodigy of earthbending, which is the ability to telekinetically manipulate, reshape, and control stone, sand, dirt, and, later, metal. Because she was born blind, and her parents believed that her condition limited her capacity to learn and use the skill safely, they had a tutor teach her only basic earthbending. Unbeknownst to her family, she once ran away from home when she was younger, and had learned advanced earthbending from the badgermoles (fictional blind creatures that naturally earthbend), including the ability to use her earthbending to scan the environment around her, essentially allowing her to “see” the world and eliminating the challenges her blindness presents. She eventually becomes the first person to develop the ability to "bend" metal as well (known in the avatar world as metalbending).
Toph was introduced in the second season of Avatar. She travels with the protagonist Aang as his earthbending teacher, shown to have an abrasive, conceited, pragmatic, and sometimes stubborn personality which leads to clashes with her peers. Toph proves herself a steadfast ally to Avatar Aang and eventually Avatar Korra. As a breakout character, the character has received universal acclaim, quickly becoming a fan favorite.
Character overview Creation and conception Toph was initially conceived as a sixteen-year-old boy who was athletic and muscular, designed to be a foil to Sokka. Her prototype design is featured in the show's intro as the earthbender.Avatar Extras for episode "The Blind Bandit". As the series progressed and the time came closer to introduce an earthbender who would join the main characters, head writer Aaron Ehasz suggested that they create contrast by designing a little girl who is able to defeat strong, adult earthbenders; some of the staff found this humorous, but it was initially rejected by Avatar co-creator Bryan Konietzko. Following several long discussions, Konietzko stopped fighting the idea and warmed up to it, after which Toph was made female and introduced into the series, becoming one of Konietzko's favorite characters. The character's original design was recycled into the appearances of minor characters The Boulder and Sud. Her original design greatly influenced the appearance of Bolin in The Legend of Korra. Her Earth Rumble outfit, the clothing she wears for the majority of Avatar: The Last Airbender, was inspired by European fashion styles.DVD commentary for "The Blind Bandit" Her fancy dress was modeled after the traditional clothing of the Chinese Tang dynasty.
Toph uses a unique fighting style of earthbending, based on the Southern Praying Mantis style.
Toph was favored by the creators to return in The Legend of Korra after the appearances of both Katara and Zuko, DiMartino writing that it "never quite made sense" for there to be a trip to the swamp, where she was located, during the third season. In the following season, she was meant to serve as a foil to Korra with her "gruff mentoring style" contrasting the reserved Korra. Her design became a subject of difficulty for the staff, who wanted her to return to the size of her twelve-year-old self from the original series despite flashbacks in the earlier part of The Legend of Korra showing her as having grown in height. Konietzko was content with the staff's wishes but wanted her shortened height to come from her having become hunched since then. Artists had issues carrying out this design, resulting in multiple takes.
Personality and characteristics Toph is fiercely independent, direct, belligerent, and practiced in taunting and insulting her opponents and on occasion her friends, particularly Sokka. On several occasions Toph appears picking her nose, spitting, and belching loudly. As she explained to Aang and his companions, she does this intentionally as a rebellion against the principles of refined culture that her aristocratic parents attempted to make her conform to. If the situation absolutely requires it, she actually knows how to behave in upper-class Earth Kingdom culture much better than Aang's companions do. She is usually covered in dirt, or as she calls it, "a healthy coating of earth".
In her advanced age, despite retaining much of her strength as an earthbender, Toph refuses to take part in prolonged conflicts, admitting that she is too old and lacks the energy for such endeavors.
Name
In "The Serpent's Pass", Toph's passport reads (tǔ guó tóu děng hù zhào běi fāng tuò fú), which translates as "Earth Kingdom First Class Passport: Beifong Toph". Here, her name means "supported lotus", which matches her parents' view of their daughter as a flower in need of protection. In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", her name is written as (Tuō Fū), which is the phonetic transcription based on the official guide for foreign names. In "The Earth King", her name is reverted to . Her last name Beifong () is close to the Mandarin pronunciation of the word "North" (běi fāng). The word (Tuō) also means "to support in one's palm", or "drag" and is the word used for child care, and is also intended to sound like the English word "tough" and "toff".
Appearances Avatar: The Last Airbender television series
Book Two: Earth Toph's parents view her blindness as a disability and therefore keep her concealed. Despite her handicap, Toph has developed special skills by keeping company with the blind 'badgermoles' that inhabited nearby caves. By imitating their movements, Toph became a master of the martial art known as 'earthbending', but she kept her ability secret from her overprotective family. Toph fought frequently in Earth Rumble, an earthbending lei tai tournament resembling professional wrestling, under the alias "Blind Bandit". By the time Aang and his friends discover Toph at the tournament, she had become champion, holding a 42–0 win–loss record. However, Aang unintentionally beats her in a match when he tries to talk to her, as she could not sense air currents. When her parents learn about this and confine her further, Toph runs away to accompany Aang and his friends as Aang's earthbending instructor, although her parents believe she was kidnapped by Aang. Toph nearly leaves the group after feuding with Katara over not contributing to the group's teamwork, though rejoins them following a meeting with Iroh and encountering Princess Azula for the first time. Toph successfully begins Aang's training of earthbending and slows the descent of Wan Shi Tong's Library, where the group learns the date of the next Day of Black Sun and inadvertently gains an advantage over the Fire Nation, as it sinks, though fails to prevent Appa from being kidnapped by sandbenders. Due to Appa being the group's transportation, they are forced to travel on foot, journeying through Serpent's Pass and preventing a drill from entering Ba Sing Se. Now in the city, she infiltrates the Earth Kingdom Royal Palace, meeting Dai Li,Hedrick, Tim (writer) & MacMullan, Lauren (director). (22 September 2006). "City of Walls and Secrets". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 2. Episode 14. Nickelodeon. bonds with Katara,Estoesta, Joann, Wahlander, Lisa, Huebner, Andrew, Scheppke, Gary, MacMullan, Lauren, Mattila, Katie, Ridge, Justin, Volpe, Giancarlo (writers) & Spaulding, Ethan (director). (29 September 2006). "The Tales of Ba Sing Se". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 2. Episode 15. Nickelodeon. encounters Jet and reunites with Appa.Hedrick, Tim (writer) & MacMullan, Lauren (director). (6 November 2006). "Lake Laogai". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 2. Episode 17. Nickelodeon. Toph also learns to metalbend after she is captured in a metal cage by people who were sent by her parents to retrieve her. She realizes that metal contains small amounts of earth, which she can manipulate. She quickly escapes and traps her captors in the same small cage.
Book Three: Fire After the events of the Book 2 finale, Toph, alongside Sokka, Katara and the Southern Water Tribe, captured a Fire Nation ship. Once in the Fire Nation, she assumed the identity of a regular Fire Nation girl. In "The Runaway", Toph uses her earthbending senses to foil a vendor's trick, and by bargaining and continuing to use her senses, she extracts more and more money from him. Katara is distressed by this, and scolds Toph for her immoral behavior, but later enlists her to pull a huge scam. Katara fakes turning Toph over to the police in order to collect the reward money, with the assumption that Toph will metalbend her way out of prison and rejoin her. However, it is revealed that there is no reward money and the cells are made of wood, and Katara is shoved in jail alongside Toph. Aang and Sokka attempt to overtake their adversary Combustion Man, but Katara ends up busting herself and Toph out by being resourceful in her attempt to draw water for her bending. Toph then is part of the invasion team, and she helps Aang get to Firelord Ozai's underground bunker. She later is seen riding on Appa after the invasion team's defeat.
In "The Western Air Temple", she arrives at the Western Air Temple with the Gang and meets Zuko. She is accepting of him at first, urging Katara and Sokka to accept his help, but after she is burned by him, she too grows angry with him. When he reattempts to join their team, she happily accepts him on the grounds of Aang's acceptance. In the finale, Toph helps Sokka and Suki attack a Fire Nation airship. Suki hops off the ship in order to help Toph and Sokka get to safety. Toph is nearly knocked off the burning ship and killed, but Sokka rescues her and they are promptly retrieved by Suki. She later celebrates the Fire Lord's defeat with her friends in Iroh's tea shop.
Avatar: The Last Airbender comic series The Promise In The Promise trilogy, Toph is revealed to have started the Beifong Metalbending Academy from the ground up, an instructional institution to help earthbenders learn metalbending, shortly after the end of the television series. She chooses her three students (Penga, The Dark One and Ho Tun) on the basis of her meteorite bracelet shivering in their presence.Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise, Part 1 Though claiming her motives behind founding the school were due to her love of metalbending, in actuality, she enjoys bossing people around. Initially worried her students are not capable of being metalbenders, they surprise her with their victory over Kunyo and his firebending students, renewing her confidence in themAvatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise, Part 2 and she participates in the battle for Yu Dao.Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise, Part 3
The Rift In The Rift trilogy, Toph encounters her father for the first time since the series,Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Rift, Part 1 though he refuses to acknowledge her as his daughter. It is further revealed that her parents broke up after the people they sent to bring Toph back had failed. Toph prevents the others from being killed by debris falling from the mine collapsing,Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Rift, Part 2 including her father, who reconciles with her as she saves everyone. Following this, she passes out and has her students assist Aang in his battle against the spirit of Old Iron.Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Rift, Part 3
Smoke and Shadow
North and South
Imbalance
Toph Beifong's Metalbending Academy Toph Beifong gets a Metalbending Academy.
The Legend of Korra
Book One: Air