SMNTY Classics: Toph Beifong

Toph Beifong is a fan favorite character from the award winning shows Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. First introduced as a twelve-year-old blind earthbender, her character was initially designed very differently. In this classic, we dig into her history and why she's so beloved.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Sanny and Smitha and welcome to stuff.
I never told your production of ihearted you. And for
today's classic, we are bringing back a fictional woman around
the world that we did on tof Beifong from Avatar

(00:27):
The Last Airbender, because the second season recently came out
on Netflix and this was the first time we had
a live action Touf played by Miaco and Miyako is
ten years old, I believe, and she grew up loving
the show. While the actress is not blind, the character

(00:49):
is blind if you miss this episode. She wore vision
obscuring contact lenses and worked with a blindness consultant. So
like things about how she pours tea, measures the height
of stairs with her feet, and speaking of feet, she
also learned how to work with oversized silicone toof feet.

(01:09):
It seems like she was really well received. Like, the
character is very, very popular, and it seems like this
depiction of her and the actress's depiction of her was
really well received. I'm not so sure about the show overall,
but you can let me know. But yeah, that was cool.
It was cool to see an update on it. I
was watching a trailer for it the other day. Very neat,

(01:32):
so please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Anny
and Samantha and welcome to Steff One ever told you
production of iHeartRadio? And welcome to another sub sub sub

(01:55):
subsub segment. Fictional women around the World. And this was
a listener suggestion from Taylor. Thank you. Taylor. Taylor is
our unofficial Olympic correspondent who's written in before. So hopefully
we'll be hearing from Taylor soon about something. How do
we make her official? Oh that's true. We need to
we need to discuss this, we need to do what

(02:18):
is the initiation? So today we are talking about Tough
from Avatar, The Last Airbender and Legend of Kora. Disclaimer,
I have not seen these shows. I have seen episodes,
but I haven't seen the whole thing. So as always,
I always kind of fell out of my depth when
I do one about someone I don't know personally. Nothing

(02:42):
about this Yeah, oh my goodness is very popular. But
let me know if I get anything wrong. But we're
gonna I think we're gonna give a good background because
this character is beloved Samantha, So Tough Beaifong is a
fictional character from the animated shows The Last Airbender and

(03:03):
the Legend of Korra. She was first introduced in the
two thousand and six episode of The Last Airbender, The
Blind Bandit, and at the time she was a twelve
year old girl. But yes, if you have no idea
what we're talking about. Avatar The Last Airbender is an
animated series set in a fictional, largely Asian inspired world.

(03:24):
It ran from two thousand and five to two thousand
and eight and was followed by the Legend of Korra,
which ran from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. In this universe,
some people have the ability to telekinetically control the four
elements fire, earth, water, and air, and this is called bending.
The Avatar is the only being who can bend all

(03:46):
four elements. The story largely follows Aang, the last survivor
of his kind, Avatar, and his friends, including Tough. It
has won So So So So So many awards and
is viewed by many as one of the best animated
shows of all time. It touches on things like genocide, war, politics, imperialism, sexism, discrimination,

(04:09):
and choice. Those are just a few. There was a
live action movie and Night Shyamalan did, but it was
generally panned and accused of whitewashing, I would say, rightfully so.
There is also a live action series as of this
year on Netflix which I haven't seen and has gotten
mixed reviews, but I believe they are doing a season
two and they're casting Tough Now. There are games and comics,

(04:34):
are all kinds of media surrounding this, but all right
back to our character. Tough was born blind and because
of that has had limitations placed on her by others
since she was very young. She is an earth bender,
which basically means she can telekinetically manipulate and control sand, dirt, stone,
and eventually metal. However, because of her blindness her extremely

(04:59):
overprotective parents, they limited her to basic earthbending like they
wouldn't really let her explore it. But Tough gets around
this after she meets some badger moles through blind animals
who naturally earthbend, and through their teaching, she learns to
quote see through vibrations. Through her training, she earned herself

(05:20):
the alias the Blind Bandit. She won a lot of
underground earth bending tournaments. Frequently she ran away from her
her parents, trying to escape them and learn more about
her abilities. She eventually decided to travel with Aang and
the others, including an earth bending teacher. Again she's twelve
years old. Tough argued with some of the other team

(05:43):
members in the beginning, even temporarily leaving the team before
returning to teach Aang about earth bending. Tough skills proved
essential to the team, and she brought them closer together.
After Tough receives a letter from her mother claiming that
she is in the city, she understands Tough now, Tough

(06:03):
goes to see her, but on her way is captured
and put into cage. Her frustration and determination to escape
led to her becoming the first metal bender in earth
bending history. Basically, she was able to see that earth
in the metals through seismic actions like banging her hands
against it. She freed herself and rendezvous with Aang and

(06:25):
others soon after. She used her new found abilities to
free herself and her companions. Tough's metal bending ability proved
invaluable when they were low on funds. She used it
to cheat in gambling, which did end in prison, but
she escaped. Later. She used her truth seeing ability to
know that their believed enemy, Prince Zuko, was being truthful

(06:50):
when he had a change of heart and he was
willing to teach Aang fire bending. After they are attacked,
the team settled on Imber Island, were Tough enjoyed a
portrayal of her in a play depicting their journeys. Aang
disappears after that, and the remaining crew travels to the
Earth Kingdom. They are able to save that kingdom, and

(07:12):
Ang returns. Tough goes on to found a metal bending school,
first with three students. The school gets caught up in
a conflict and Tough almost gives it up, but her
students are able to meddle bend for the first time
and they fight and they went. Tough reunites with Team
Avatar for a festival where she runs into her father,

(07:33):
who does not speak up to say she is his
daughter and has her escorted off the premises of the
refinery that he co owns. Later, she confronted him and
he all but disowns her. He does not recognize any
of her accomplishments. When the mind starts to collapse, Tough
uses her ability to stop it and save the workers,
her father, her friend, and herself, but she collapses from

(07:57):
the exhaustion of that soon After help ride, she convinces
aang not to destroy the factory. So basically, he was like,
this is bad for the earth. Tough was like, well,
not necessarily, and she convinced him not to destroy it.
Her school grows and her first students are now able
to teach. Despite the success, Tough is bored. Her interest

(08:21):
in teaching is reinvigorated, though, when she agreed to teach
a lava bender named Sun over time. She acted as
a diplomat, a warrior, a spy, participated in a political
skirmish with bender supremacists, who are basically people that believe
benders are better than everybody else. Was Republic City's first
chief of police, had two daughters that both went on

(08:44):
to become Earth bending masters. Helped guide her friend Cora,
and ran for governor. She failed, but then was asked
a run again and refused because she was like politics
are bearable, and I'm like, okay, I see you. She
was seen as a hero and a competent teacher. I
believe there's a statue of her in Republic City. This

(09:16):
character is independent, stubborn, brash, sarcastic, and very blunts. Due
to her upbringing, she was eager to prove herself and
excelled at earthbunding. She wasn't worried about her appearance, and
she was usually covered in a quote healthy coating of dirt.
She was generally barefoot and sometimes purposely uncouth to rebel

(09:37):
against her aristocratic upbringing, like she would burb and spit
and all those things. She was very comfortable with her blindness,
sometimes joking about it or calling it out when people
would hand her pieces of writing or posters. As she
grew older, she did become more cynical, and her relationship
with her daughters grew strained, but she still kept an

(10:00):
touch with those that she cared about. And here's just
a quote to illustrate this character. So one of the
characters says, it's so dark down here, I can't see
a thing, and she says, very sarcastically, oh no, what
a nightmare. Her skill in earth bending was also unique

(10:23):
because she'd been taught more about the nature of it
outside of rigid teachings of a lot of others, so
she kind of learned it outside of structures. I guess
her style was derived from Southern praying mantis, which is
a type of kung fu. She was weak to air
attacks and didn't like traveling by air subs that she

(10:45):
couldn't feel the earth beneath her feet. She went on
to learn sand bending too, and of course yes, metal bending.
So there are a lot of reasons this show is interesting.
But the show creator is consulted with professional martial artists
for the show's fighting styles. A big one four tough
is called neutral jing. Essentially, this involves listening, reacting, balancing

(11:09):
attacks and defense, and predicting and opponent's next move. Some
behind the scenes stuff. This character was originally designed as
a sixteen year old male jock type. It was very
muscular in foul mouthed. I believe in the original pilot
he's in it, but they redid the pilot so it's

(11:29):
not the one we saw, but he was in like
the one they were showing networks and stuff. As the
show got closer to airing, the idea was pitched that
they should change it to a young girl, in part
for humor, because they thought would be kind of funny.
They have this like girl who's spitting and all this stuff.
I don't know. Some have said it was refreshing and feminist.

(11:50):
Ab a character have two children with two different men
and never be questioned about it, although some lamented that
her relationship with her daughters tarnished her legac. However, others
argue that that is from the pov of her daughters,
so you're not kind of getting her whole side of
that story. But I did think that was interesting. I

(12:12):
wasn't expecting that when I was reading this from my
experience with the show, I didn't know that there was
all this other like comics and all this other stuff
that explores what happens when they get older. And I
didn't know she had two daughters two different dudes, And
was like, that was it. Nobody cared. I like it,

(12:35):
but yeah, yeah, this is a really fascinating character. I
had a lot of fun researching her, and she's a
fan favorite. People love her. The creators were saying, you know,
they kind of fought. Some of them weren't on board
with changing her to a young girl, and now they're like,

(12:55):
this is my favorite character. I'm so glad that we
did this. And I the original jock dude that was
gonna be her is in an episode, so if you
love Easter Eggs, they did include him. Yeah, yeah, but
I thank you so much Taylor for the suggestion. Again,

(13:17):
if I got anything wrong, please let me know. If
you have any thoughts about this, please let us know.
You can email us at Stephania mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've
Never Told You. We have a YouTube page, we have
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can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always

(13:37):
to our super producer Christina or executive producer Maya, and
your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
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