History Characters / AvatarTheLastAirbenderTophBeifong

[[WMG:[[center:[-''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' '''[[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbender Main Character Index]]'''\\
[[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTeamAvatar Team Avatar]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAvatarAang Avatar Aang]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderZuko Prince Zuko]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderKatara Katara]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderSokka Sokka]], '''Toph Beifong''') | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderMentors Mentors]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAllies Allies]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNation Fire Nation]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily Fire Nation Royal Family]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderPrincessAzula Princess Azula]]) | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheEmberIslandPlayers The Ember Island Players]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderOtherCharacters Other]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderComicCharacters Comics]]]]]]-]
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!!Toph Beifong (北方 拓芙)
!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JessieFlower (English),[[labelnote:Click to see other languages]]Ximena Marchant (Latin American Spanish), Marie-Luise Schramm (German), Creator/LetiziaCampa (Italian), Creator/JustynaBojczuk (Polish), Liana Ayon (Hebrew), Ana Lúcia Menezes (Brazilian Portuguese) [[/labelnote]]Creator/KateHiggins (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' past), Creator/PhileceSampler (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' present), Vivian Vencer (''VideoGame/NickelodeonAllStarBrawl'', ''VideoGame/NickelodeonKartRacers 3: Slime Speedway''), Creator/DionneQuan (''Aang: The Last Airbender'')


[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/toph_beifong.png]]
[[caption-width-right:250:''"[[BloodKnight I love fighting]]. I love being an Earthbender. And I'm really, '''really''' good at it."'']]

As a child, Toph Beifong was thought of as frail due to her blindness and was kept from the outside world by her overprotective rich father. She found an outlet by becoming an Earthbending master, even learning to "see" by sensing vibrations in the Earth. Because of this, she was selected to be Aang's Earthbending teacher. Though she has a bit of an attitude problem out of a desire to prove her independence, Toph makes up for it with her blunt insight and all-around roughness. Also the first metalbender in history, which she's rightfully proud of.

Click [[SelfDemonstrating/TophBeifong here]] if you want to hear how she would describe herself.
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[[folder:A-L]]
* AchillesHeel: She's very reliant on her [[DisabilitySuperpower "tremor sense"]] to function. Unfortunately, it isn't foolproof, and has quite a few holes in it. First, she can't sense anything in water, and earth is the only thing she can detect in the air. As such, she can't swim and she is extremely vulnerable to aerial attacks. Second, standing on anything other than solid earth will affect her "vision," making her weaker or helpless depending on the circumstances. When she stands on wood, she had to hold Aang's arm while walking. Making her lose her footing or injuring her feet will leave her truly blind until she recovers (such as when Zuko accidentally burned her feet when she snuck up on him, while conversely foot massaging causes what looks like ''excruciating pain'' (enough to make her send an assistant flying through a nearby wall.)
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: More like Actually Pretty Awesome, but she was the only member of Team Avatar who downright enjoyed her portrayal in the Ember Island Players.
* AgonyOfTheFeet: Largely averted as she can walk barefoot on any surface from scorching hot sand to frozen ice and, while weakening her vision, is unbothered by the sensation. She does, however, appear to be in excruciating pain when she gets a foot massage at the spa. And when Zuko burned her feet, causing her to panic, as well as seeming affecting her ability to Earthbend.
* AlliterativeName: Her wrestling name: the '''B'''lind '''B'''andit.
* AffirmativeActionGirl: She became the second girl in Team Avatar in the second season.
* AnimalMotifs: The InUniverse [[MixAndMatchCritters Badgermoles]], being the original [[DishingOutDirt Earthbenders]] as well as her teachers in the art. Helps that just like them, she learned to use Earthbending not just for fighting, but expanding her senses.
* AscendedExtra: While Toph has always been a major character since her introduction, this trope applies to her voice actress Jessie Flower. Prior to Toph's introduction in season 2, Jessie Flower was the voice actress of Meng in season 1, a minor character in one episode who fell in love with Aang due to her fortune describing her soulmate to have big ears like Aang.
* BadassAdorable: Just a little girl (though you wouldn't know it from the way she acts) but it's a tossup for strongest earthbender in the series between her and Bumi.
* BadassBoast: She calls herself "the greatest Earthbender in the world" after escaping an inescapable cage, horrifying her captors. Considering she makes this boast right after she makes her first application of her breakthrough discovery of Metalbending (whereas metal was a WeaksauceWeakness to earthbenders before), she has every right to such a boast.
-->'''Toph:''' I am the greatest earthebender in the world. Don't you two dunderheads ever forget it.
* BadassTeacher: She teaches Aang Earthbending.
* {{Badbutt}}: A tiny blind girl who acts like a pro wrestler within the bounds of a kid's show. Director commentary mentions it was hilarious to watch Jessie Flower, an adorable, angel-faced little girl, spout wrestler trash talk during recordings.
* BecomingTheMask: Parodied and PlayedForLaughs in "Sozin's Comet". When acting as the "Melon Lord" during a practice to take down Fire Lord Ozai and having a blast at it:
-->'''Sokka:''' [''after barely dodging a rock on fire''] WATCH IT, TOPH!\\
'''Toph''': [[LargeHam I AM NOT TOPH! I AM MELON LORD]]! [[EvilLaugh MWUHAHAHAHAHA!]]
* BeyondTheImpossible: Toph invents [[ExtraOreDinary metalbending]], something that was stated to be impossible for other earthbenders to do so.
* TheBigGal: Not physically, but by personality and by her elemental powers. {{Lampshaded}} in "The Ember Island Players" when an actual big guy plays her in the play about written about the Gaang's adventures.
* BizarreAlienSenses: Her ability to "see" using Earthbending counts as this, as the closest thing to it in real life could be infrasound, which is used by some species (most notably elephants and snakes) to detect low-frequency sounds, allowing them to navigate even if their vision is impaired.
* BlackComedy: Has absolutely no problem exploiting her blindness for a laugh or to make a point.
* BlackMagicianGirl: A twelve-year-old tomboy and [[DisabledSnarker snark goddess]] who deals [[DishingOutDirt mountains of damage]] to baddies. She also loves dealing out a good offensive smackdown using her earthbending.
* BlindMistake:
** While struggling in the water in "The Serpent's Pass", she mistakes Suki for Sokka and kisses her on the cheek. She's very embarrassed when she realizes she kissed the wrong person.
** She tries to prove she can put up posters despite her blindness, but she puts them up with the blank side facing up.
-->'''Toph:''' It's upside down, isn't it?
* BlindWeaponmaster: A blind earthbending master.
* BlueBlood: The Beifongs are a well-known family, complete with a family crest. Toph is usually not one to flaunt it, but her aristocratic background has come in handy on a few occasions.
* BoisterousBruiser: "Yeah! Let's break some rules!" SMASH!
* BreakTheHaughty: Was a bit of a BrattyHalfPint and EntitledBitch when she first joined the Gaang. After being told by Iroh that good friends help one another out, she starts to mellow, but it isn't until she fails to protect Appa from being kidnapped that humility really becomes a significant virtue for her.
* BruiserWithASoftCenter: Shows affection by punching people.
* BrilliantButLazy: When the gang needs to infiltrate high society she says Aang and Sokka would stick out like sore thumbs. When they point out that she's the biggest slob in the group, she fires back that she was a LonelyRichKid whose parents [[GildedCage forced her to act cultured]]; she just chooses not to.
* BrutalHonesty: Toph was often brutally honest when criticizing others, especially her friends. She was vocal about her opinions on others regardless of status (the Avatar, Aang) or age (Iroh).
* ChildProdigy: One of the youngest benders we see, yet she is already one of the most powerful non-Avatar earthbenders. She also invented metalbending on the fly while captured, which was believed to be an impossible skill. And by the finale she was able to Sandbend, despite saying that she hated sand in Season 2.
* CompressedHair: It's not as long as Katara's, but is incredibly thick and voluminous, as shown in "Tales of Ba Sing Se". How she's able to comb it down to where it's restrained by that headband violates a couple laws of physics.
* CoolCrown: By "The Promise" she's switched out her headband for a green tiara; reflecting her new position as head of the Beifong Metalbending Academy.
* CulturedBadass: While she ''chooses'' to ignore them, Toph is an expert on how to behave in upper society.
* CurbStompBattle: Most battles where her opponents don't exploit her AchillesHeel end this way.
** The episode ''The Blind Bandit'' [[EstablishingCharacterMoment features her]] delivering one of these to the group of professional earthbenders in an underground Earthbending tournament, "Earth Rumble Six."
** In "The Earth King", she and Team Avatar, easily decimates the palace guards on their way to find the Earth King.
* CuteBruiser: The youngest and shortest of all of Team Avatar, she manages to dole out the most whoopass of all of them.
* DigAttack: Toph can do this: since she "sees" through vibrations in the ground, she knows where the enemy is even underground.
* DisabilitySuperpower: Although blindness isn't a requisite for an Earthbender to use her method of "seeing", it did lead her to focus her earth senses to an unprecedented degree, allowing her to perceive things approaching or beneath her in great detail and leading in turn [[spoiler:to her invention of Metalbending]].
* DisabledSnarker: Mostly at Sokka's expense and she's the biggest snarker in the series after him. Also some of the show's best lines are from Toph, especially when she's talking trash to her opponents. For instance:
-->'''Toph (to Bumi):''' Look, Pops, just because you're as old as dirt doesn't mean you know how to bend it.
* DishingOutDirt: Like every Earthbender.
* DontYouDarePityMe: Given her overbearing parents, Toph ''hates'' being babied. This leads to friction between herself and the rest of the Gaang until Iroh gives her some advice, telling her that there's nothing wrong with letting people help her and sometimes they do it because they ''want'' to, not because they think she's helpless.
* DrillSergeantNasty: During Aang's earthbending training, she was tough, critical and used methods like "hold still while a large boulder rolls towards you".
* DudeMagnet: There's Satoru in the comic who took an instant liking to Toph. Then, there's the two men who fathered her daughters, one's name being Kanto.
* EarthyBarefootCharacter: Toph is almost always barefoot, since her earthbending abilities require her to constantly be in contact with the ground at all times in order to sense vibrations and "see" properly.
* EmeraldPower: She's associated with the color green (like all earthbenders), yet Toph might as well be the most powerful of them all.
* ElementalMotifs: Earth, fitting not just her native element, but her hardy and stubborn demeanour in spite of [[LittleMissBadass looking like a frail young girl]]. She even points out to Aang that he must also adopt a similar mindset if he were to truly become an earthbender.
* EvilLaugh: PlayedForLaughs in the first part of "Sozin's Comet": she laughs maniacally when acting as the Melon Lord.
* ExtraOreDinary: She invented Metalbending. On the fly too!
* EyesAlwaysAverted: Due to her blindness. She also tends to speak to people without even facing their general direction, unlike most visually-impaired people in RealLife (who typically face the speaker to hear them as well as possible).
* TheFace: The youngest and yet the one with the most social savvy, due to being raised by rich socialites. Technically, being the Avatar, it should be Aang, but Toph is usually the one doing the talking.
* {{Foil}}: In ''The Rift'', she's contrasted with Aang. Their upbringings are quite different, as Monk Gyatso believed in letting Aang be a kid, while Toph's parents forced her to learn tradition and propriety. As a result, Toph wonders if Aang is trying to hold onto his past, while Aang wonders if Toph is trying too hard to run away from her past.
* FriendlessBackground: Due to being sheltered from the outside world by her ''extremely'' overprotective parents, she'd never made a friend before meeting the Gaang. Her integration with the team was integral to her character development. The only friends she had were the Badgermoles.
* ForceAndFinesse:
** [[MasculineGirlFeminineBoy Is the force to Aang's finesse]], employing a powerful, straightforward approach to combat with her [[DishingOutDirt Earthbending]], often bowling straight over attacks, in contrast to Aang's more agility and evasion based fighting style with his [[BlowYouAway Airbending]]. Little wonder she calls him [[AffectionateNickname 'Twinkle Toes']].
** [[TomboyAndGirlyGirl Also forms this with Katara]], in and out of combat. Toph is OneOfTheBoys, being rough, brutally honest and (especially initially) plays the role of DrillSergeantNasty training Aang on contrast to Katara's more matronly role, diplomatic temperament, and gentle approach to teaching Aang. In combat, Toph overwhelms her opponents with well place and hard hitting walls of earth, while Katara's [[MakingASplash Waterbending]] style emphasizes graceful movements and switching between offense and defense as needed.
* ForgotTheDisability:
** The rest of the Gaang (especially Sokka) tends to forget about her disability, leading to [[DisabledSnarker many of Toph's great one-liners.]]
--->'''Sokka:''' It's so dark in here, I can't see a thing!\\
'''Toph:''' [[SarcasmMode Oh no, what a nightmare!]]\\
'''Sokka''': Sorry.
** Subverted in the finale when Sokka, Toph and Suki take over a Fire Nation airship:
--->'''Toph:''' That's a ''great'' idea, let the ''blind girl'' steer the giant airship.\\
'''Sokka:''' I was talking to Suki.\\
'''Toph:''' That...would make a lot more sense.
** In one episode it happens ''twice'':
--->'''Sokka:''' Toph, when I was in town, I found something that you're not gonna like. [''holds up wanted poster for Toph'']\\
'''Toph:''' Well it ''sounds'' like a sheet of paper, but I'm guessing you're referring to what's ''on'' the sheet of paper.\\
''Later''\\
'''Katara:''' What's this? [''holds up the same poster'']\\
'''Toph:''' '''I ''don't'' know!''' I mean ''seriously'', what's with you people? I'm ''blind!''
** Have a look-see already...[[RunningGag Whoops wait!]]
* TheGadfly: Likes to use her blindness to mess with the rest of the Gaang, such as saying that Sokka's poorly drawn picture of Appa looks just like him, or shouting that she's spotted Wan Shi Tong's Library while the Gaang is flying on Appa's back.
-->'''Toph:''' There it is!\\
[''everyone turns towards the direction she's pointing, and one by one, silently glare at Toph'']\\
'''Toph:''' ... that's what it'll sound like when one of you spots it.\\
[''Toph puts on a big, dopey grin and waves one of her hands back and forth over her eyes'']
* GirlOfMyDreams: A non-romantic example. Aang sees Toph in a vision before ever having met her. When they do run into her a short time later, Aang is positively convinced that she, and no-one else, is destined to be his Earthbending teacher.
* GoodIsNotNice: Toph may be just as heroic, brave, and self-sacrificing as any other member of the Gaang, but she's still a bit of a jerk who rarely opens up to anybody.
* GreenAndMean: She's a downplayed case; she's associated with green and is a JerkWithAHeartOfGold.
* HandicappedBadass: She's blind but can "see" by sensing vibrations with her feet, which allows her to prevent attacks from opponents and kick a lot of ass. She can also hear better than anybody in the Gaang and never forgets a voice, which helps them out in numerous tight spots. In fact, she's so competent that her friends frequently forget that she's blind.
* HatesBaths: One of the tie-in comics has Katara having to force her to wash herself when she's too dirty.
* HiddenDepths:
** Toph and Katara's tale in ''The Tales of Ba Sing Se'' makes it clear that for all her claims of not caring what others think of her looks, Toph is actually quite hurt by such rejection. It helps drive home the fact that, despite being a badass, she's still a 12-year-old girl.
** In ''The Runaway'', she admits to Katara that she does feel guilty about running away from her parents, and the episode ends with her sending them a letter with Sokka's messenger hawk.
* HotBlooded: There's a ''reason'' why the Ember Island Players chose to portray her the way they did.
-->'''Toph:''' "[[LargeHam I am not Toph! I am MELON LORD]]! [[EvilLaugh MUAHAHAHA!]]"
* IconicSequelCharacter: Unlike the rest of the Gaang, Toph doesn't debut until Book 2, but she's no less prominent or iconic because of it.
%%* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: A mild case, and it's kept in the background for the most part. It's most evident during "Tales Of Ba Sing Se" and whenever her AchillesHeel is hit.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: With Iroh, but hey, it's [[CoolOldGuy Iroh]].
* JerkassHasAPoint: As rude as she is, she is right sometimes:
** When the group were all arguing due to exhaustion, she was the first to point out that Appa's shedding was the reason why Azula and co. were able to keep following them and thus why they couldn't sleep, but she took it too far by blaming Appa (though that could also be due to sleep deprivation).
** She also called out Aang, Katara, and Sokka on letting their personal experiences with Zuko prevent Aang from finding a firebending master quite bluntly, despite her pointing out that he was being sincere to them and he has done some good, like rescuing Appa. This is rather astounding, because she never cared about these things during her debut, but later on, she sees the bigger picture.
--->'''Toph:''' You're all forgetting one crucial fact: Aang needs a firebending teacher! We can't think of a single person in the world to do the job. Now one shows up on a silver platter, and you won't even think about it!? I'm beginning to wonder who's really the blind one around here.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Despite her tough exterior, Toph is not above warming up during intimate moments, as evidenced when she repeatedly joined in group hugs with Team Avatar and held hands with Aang at the prospect of friendships lasting more than one lifetime.
* TheLadette: The musclebound, belching, spitting hulk that was in the play near the end of the story? That's Toph on the inside.
* LargeHam: A rare little girl variant.
-->'''Toph:''' ''I am not Toph! I am MELON LORD! [[EvilLaugh Muahahaha!]]''
* LessonsInSophistication: Surprisingly, she does this. She was born into Earth Kingdom high society, so she knows how to act like a {{proper lady}}, she just chooses not to. She's able to help clean up Katara for a palace party hosted by the Earth King but she doesn't even attempt with Sokka and Aang. They're that hopeless.
* LittleMissBadass: She's only twelve, but she's a OneWomanArmy and one of the most badass characters in the entire series. Oh, and she's also blind.
* LittleMissConArtist: In "The Runaway", she, Sokka, and Aang decides to gain money by exploiting people's notion that since Toph is blind she's no threat.
* LittleMissSnarker: She might be a little girl, but she's [[BrutalHonesty brutally honest]] and you're not safe from her dry wit. Sokka is her most common victim.
* LivingLieDetector: Through her 'vibration sense', although some characters do get away with lying on some occasions. More specifically, she seems unable to detect the falsehoods of the psychopathic or pathological liars, who can say the most ludicrous or subtle lie without it having any kind of effect on their physiology for her to pick up on at all [[spoiler:like Azula]].
* LonelyRichKid: A fact that she dealt with by joining an underground fighting tournament and mopping the floor with anyone who challenged her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:M-Y]]
* MagicalBarefooter: Her bare feet are able to sense the vibrations from anything around her. She's also an Earthbender.
* MeaningfulName:
** Played with. In "The Serpent's Pass", the name on her passport reads 拓芙, "supported lotus", which hardly describes Toph herself, but matches her parents' view of her being delicate and helpless. Averted in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" where the transcript of her name temporarily changed to 托夫 "entrusted man", before going back to 拓芙 in "The Earth King".
** Her name also sounds similar to "toff", a British slang term for an upper-class person, and also the word "tough".
* MusclesAreMeaningless: In Toph's case, this relates specifically to her earthbending. She is clearly very strong for her size and age, often hurting her teammates, no pushovers themselves, with playful punches. However, situations where she lacks earthbending tend to emphasize her helplessness. This is partly because it takes away the DisabilitySuperpower that allows her to bypass her blindness, but she never demonstrates superior martial arts skills when not aided by her earthbending.
* NeverLearnedToRead: {{Justified|Trope}} by the fact that she's blind in a world [[SchizoTech without Braille]]. As such, [[DidntThinkThisThrough Sokka's plan to forge a letter from Toph to help her reconcile with Katara falls flat]].
* NiceMeanAndInBetween: Of the three girls who become part of Team Avatar, she's the "Mean" to Katara's "Nice" and Suki's "In-Between". Toph is by far the most shamelessly rude and sarcastic of the main female characters, tends to [[BrutalHonesty never mince her words when expressing her opinions]], and is often quite anarchic, having little respect for rules or authority. And while she does [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold care about her friends and provide support for them whenever necessary]], she is frequently quite blunt and harsh with them and is never afraid to backtalk them if they [[RunningGag forget her blindness]] or criticise her behaviour.
* TheNicknamer: Calls Aang "Twinkle Toes", as he's ''very'' light on his feet -- well, compared to the powerful, deliberate stomps of a master Earthbender like herself, anyway.
* NoHeroToHisValet: One of Toph's defining characteristics is that she doesn't give Aang special treatment even though he's the Avatar. He may be the student, but she treats him like an equal and friend, to the point where she never fails to vocally criticize Aang to his face when she thinks it's needed.
* NoHuggingNoKissing: She is the only person in the gaang who doesn't end up in a relationship. [[spoiler:She does end up having kids with two different men, however, one being unknown and the other being a guy named Kanto, but all the romance happened offscreen.]]
* NotHyperbole: When she says that she is the greatest earthbender in the world, you better believe she can back that claim up. This is the girl who duelled King Bumi, who literally had a hundred years of experience on him, and she fought him to a draw! At age 12! Even earlier, she figured out how to subvert a WeaksauceWeakness of Earthbending by figuring out [[ExtraOreDinary Metalbending]], which none in history had done before. [[spoiler:In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', this claim ''still'' applies, and almost certainly extends beyond the currently living.]]
* TheNotLoveInterest: Appears to be one for Aang, at least initially. She's a girl his age who he is quite literally destined to meet so she can serve as an aid to him in his quest, a setup which at least hints to her being some sort of romantic interest for him. But her official introduction and subsequent episodes with him make it clear that their relationship is purely platonic.
* ObfuscatingDisability: While her eyes honestly do not work, she occasionally hides her Earthbending-linked tremorsense to play up the appearance of a helpless blind little girl.
* OneOfTheGuys: She tends to prefer spending time with Aang, Sokka or Zuko over Katara and Suki.
* OutsideContextProblem: Being both a [[DisabilitySuperpower blind Earthbender]] and the world's only [[ExtraOreDinary Metalbender]] means that most enemies she faces are at a loss on how to counter her. Gets ''somewhat'' [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] later on as exceptionally clever enemies are shown outsmarting her, such as Combustion Man throwing her into a wooden cell rather than a metal one.
* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: In the North and South comic, Toph describes the Beifong Metalbending Academy as "the most prestigious metalbending school in the world". One of her students points out they're the ''only'' school, but she sees it as the point since they do something that used to be considered impossible until she learned how to do it.
* ParanormalGamblingAdvantage: Toph uses her earthbending abilities to cheat in several ways in several cases to gain money in the episode "The Runaway". A prime example was when she bent a pebble under a specific cup during a shell game.
* ThePigPen: A mild case. Despite eschewing most sorts of hygiene, especially where her feet are concerned, she doesn't look it unless attention is drawn to it. She mentions that she [[TooMuchInformation picks her nose a lot]], and Katara nicely points out that she has dirt and grime on her "everything".
* PintSizedPowerhouse: This girl is absolutely tiny being a little over 4 feet tall, but her only non-Avatar rival in Earthbending is King Bumi.
* PowerLevels: Mentioned in an interview. According to [[invoked]]WordOfGod, she's the strongest bender in the Gaang (though this obviously doesn't count Aang in the Avatar State).
* PrecociousCrush: Had one towards Sokka, but only shown in "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSerpentsPass The Serpent's Pass]]".
* PrefersGoingBarefoot: Justified in that because she's blind, her bare feet are her strongest connection to the world. Anything that's not solid ground (or even moderate bandaging) dampens her "vision". The animators pay special attention to this; whenever she's shown asleep, she has her feet out of contact with the ground as the equivalent of [[https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ed/7c/a2/ed7ca23b411cb496b85bdd4f3ce7fa4e.jpg "closing her eyes."]]
* ProphetEyes: Her eyes are ''technically'' green, though a very pale, washed-out shade. Helps to emphasize both her blindness and the [[HandicappedBadass enhanced senses]] that came with it.
* PunnyName: As her Ember Island Player counterpart said: Toph sounds like "tough", and that's what she is.
* RebelliousPrincess: Not actually royalty but close enough. Toph rebels against her parents because of how they stifle her freedom due to their overprotectiveness.
* RecruitedFromTheGutter: {{Inverted|Trope}}. The LonelyRichKid is recruited by the itinerant monk and his two near-penniless sidekicks. However, Toph very much lives ''as if'' she's in the gutter, like that "healthy coating of earth" that she cultivates.
* RedOniBlueOni: The snarky, blunt red to Katara's demure, caring blue.
* ReflectionlessUselessEyes: She has these eyes to show she's blind.
* RunningGag: The show doesn't shy away from making jokes about Toph's blindness, with them being about fifty-fifty [[{{Pun}} sight gags]] or Toph snarking about how someone who ''knows'' she's blind expects her to react like a sighted person.
* SadClown: [[DisabledSnarker Toph]], when all is said and done, has more baggage than a cargo ship: she was always treated as a fragile thing by her parents, ran away from home after they said they'd be even more strict about protecting her (even after she showed first-hand that she was already one of the best earthbenders in the world at TWELVE), is legitimately torn over how she must have broken her parents hearts and makes them worry as a result, feels responsible for Appa having been kidnapped, and is actually terribly insecure about her blindness (despite acting like it's a non-issue normally). Outwardly, she seems like a total snark-bender who doesn't really care about anything, save for her friends.
* SadisticChoice: Was forced to choose between saving Appa from Sandbenders or saving the rest of the Gaang from a building that was being pulled into the Spirit World. She tried to TakeAThirdOption, but her AchillesHeel was active at the time.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: As a member of a powerful merchant family, she flashes her gold-bordered passport and makes up something about "valets" and a "seeing-eye lemur" to get entry passes to Ba Sing Se for herself and the rest of the Gaang from a humorless border official. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well when she later tries to bluff her way into the Earth King's party without invitations.
* SentIntoHiding: She was this until meeting Aang. Her overprotective parents kept her locked inside the grounds of their home (although she was able to sneak out to work as a wrestler).
* SheCleansUpNicely: Almost immediately we see the rough wrestler become a well-dressed lady in her intro.
* SheIsAllGrownUp: A puberty-related (and quite realistic) example. During the months which pass from her first appearance in Season 2 until the end of Season 3, Toph goes from being completely flat-chested to obviously beginning to develop.
* ShelteredAristocrat: She was raised to be this due to her blindness, but over the years she became much less sheltered thanks to figuring out how to leave the grounds in secret and learning how to earthbend.
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: All of Toph's love interests happened to be {{nice guy}}s.
** She had a huge crush on [[PluckyComicRelief Sokka]], but dropped it after he and Suki became a couple.
** The comics has her being {{ship tease}}d with Satoru, who considers her as his hero; needless to say, his praising of her melted the ice.
** [[spoiler:The sequel series, has her reveals Lin's father -- Kanto, who she deemed a "nice man", but their relationship didn't work out for reasons unknown.]]
* SoreLoser: Prior to Character Development, she doesn't take any losses on her part well since her skills are the only thing she gained on merit (of the group, she's the only one who was never trained by a bending teacher, developing her skills entirely herself) and she's very proud of that fact. So when Aang initally beats her in a bending competition, she's bears a bit of a grudge on him for it and only lets it go when she gets a sucker punch on him later when she joins the group.
* SourSupporter: Sometimes. She often vocally expresses her doubt in the group's plans, but will help them.
* StealthPun: It's only natural that the family symbol of the girl who did the impossible by inventing metalbending would be a winged boar. After all, something like that would only happen ''when pigs fly''.
* StreetSmart: Part of why she's the TeamFace: she knows how to take advantage of street situations, such as in "The Runaway." And it's more than just the street. At the custom official and for the Earth King's party she was the one doing the talking.
* SuperSenses: Toph can sense the vibrations of the Earth, and is able to sense underground, behind walls and pretty much everything that a normal person can see (and even more). She can also tell whether someone is lying by sensing their heart rates.
* TailorMadePrison: In Season 2, she gets trapped in a steel cage, with her captors convinced that she can't escape because Earthbenders can't bend metal. Turns out that it did help her develop her [[ExtraOreDinary new ability to metalbend]]. However, in Season 3, when she is put in a wooden cage, this time she really can't escape on her own, as wood is not a bendable substance.
* TinyTyrannicalGirl: She states that she likes bossing people around, and she's not fooling around.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Katara's role as the TeamMom and LadyOfWar fighting tactics mean that she often clashes with Toph's more [[TheLadette laid-back]], OneOfTheGuys mannerisms.
* TomboyWithAGirlyStreak: She kicks ass and doesn't take crap from anybody, but she does know high society manners and actually enjoys her spa day with Katara in "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheTalesOfBaSingSe Tales of Ba Sing Se]]".
* TookALevelInBadass: Toph was already a Master Earthbender when the Gaang found her. She could take on most any Earthbender, save Bumi, and win easily. How does she become even more badass? By developing Metalbending, something ''no one in the history of the world'' had done before.
* TownGirls: After Suki joins the team, she becomes the Butch (TheLadette, and OneOftheGuys), to Katara's Femme (LadyOfWar, and TeamMom), and Suki's Neither (a NiceGirl, but not stop being a [[ActionGirl Kyoshi warrior]]).
* TraumaButton: Saying that's just how things are done will give her flashbacks to her oppressive childhood and cause her to become contrarian.
* {{Tsundere}}: She shows affection for someone by punching their arm. She's usually at her softest around Sokka but only at certain times, like she missed him but won't admit it.
* UseYourHead: In order to demonstrate to Aang the basic principles of earthbending, she shatters a big boulder with her head.
* WaifFu: Subverted. It looks like she has superhuman physical strength, but she's really just using earthbending to lift things around her. When using only her own physical strength she's actually quite weak, as shown when trying to lift a large metal mallet.
* TheWatson: Not so much in personality -- she actually tends to be the most knowledgeable of the Gaang, who are all [[CountryMouse Country Mice]] -- but her blindness means other characters will read stuff (all in Chinese or Japanese characters) ''[[AsYouKnow out loud]]'' to her, and thus, the audience.
* WeaksauceWeakness: Wood. It's such a flimsy material, yet effective enough to separate her from any earth.
* WellDoneDaughterGirl: Toph has a case of this, though unlike Zuko, it's more of trying to get her father to accept her for who she is as opposed to trying to please him.
* TheWorfEffect:
** Her tremorsense isn't limited to what's in front of her, goes right through cover, and has a range of over a hundred meters, so as long as she's part of the Gaang, ''no-one can [[InTheBack sneak up on them]]''. They wrote around this for [[spoiler:''twenty-six episodes,'' but the ''instant'' she gets her [[GameBreakingInjury feet burnt]], Combustion Man shows up and starts blowing everything to rubble.]]
** In "The Library", Toph comments that the desert sand puts her at a relative disadvantage, as the looseness of it messes with the vibrations in the ground and blurs her vision. This ends up contributing to her [[spoiler: failure to protect Appa from being caught by the sandbenders. Toph was already struggling to defend Appa because she also had to concentrate on keeping the library from sinking into the ground, but even when Toph tried to attack the sandbenders, her aim would be slightly off due to the shiftiness of the sand. Eventually, Toph realized she had to cut her losses and put all of her efforts into holding up the library, sadly allowing for Appa's capture.]]
* WorldsBestCharacter: What Xin Fu calls Toph in regards to [[DishingOutDirt Earthbending]] before she uses her newly discovered and invented ExtraOreDinary abilities, and then she [[IronicEcho turns it back on him]] and [[BadassBoast claims the title]] after she traps him and his companion inside a metal box:
-->'''Xin Fu:''' You might think you're the greatest Earthbender in the world, but [[TemptingFate even ''you'' can't bend metal!]]\\
[...]\\
'''Toph:''' I AM THE GREATEST EARTHBENDER IN THE WORLD!!! And don't you two dunderheads ever forget it!
* YamatoNadeshiko: She can fake it perfectly, as when she shows up in a white dress in her parents' home -- except she really, ''really'' dislikes it. Before leaving home she moonlights as a pro wrestler, and once she's free of her parents' supervision and can act the way she wants to, she proves to be very crude, aggressive, and unladylike indeed.
* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: In more serious moments, she refrains from using nicknames.
* YoungerMentorOlderDisciple: Toph is the youngest out of all the people to teach Aang bending who is technically older than most of his mentors anyway. Toph, however, one-ups them by being younger than Aang physically too.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes that apply to her in ''The Legend of Korra'']]
!!Toph Beifong
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elderly_toph.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Nice to see you again, [[EmbarrassingNickname Twinkle Toes]]."]]
[[caption-width-right:200:[[labelnote:Click here for her Metalbending Police Chief appearance]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/toph_lok_6570.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]

Creator of metalbending, founder of the Republic City police force, and current matriarch of the Beifong family. Though blind from birth, she used earthbending to sense the world around her, which led to the ability to bend metal--something earthbenders had never been able to do before. Fought alongside Avatar Aang and his companions to end the Hundred Years War. Mother of Lin Beifong, the current Chief of Police of Republic City, and Suyin Beifong, matriarch/governor of the city-state of Zaofu. She eventually left the force on a search for enlightenment, ending up living in the Foggy Swamp in the Earth Kingdom.
----
* AboveGoodAndEvil: Toph felt the whole conflict of good vs. evil is just pointless, because evil never gives up and the world is always out of balance no matter what. However, seeing her family in danger and seeing the sacrifices they were willing to make, convinces her that there will be a new generation to face each injustice and challenge brought to the world.
* AffectionateNickname: She continued to call Aang "Twinkle Toes" into his forties, [[EmbarrassingNickname much to her amusement and his aggravation]]. She addresses Korra the same way when they meet.
* AllForNothing: She notes that no matter how hard she tried, crime in Republic City never went away, and admits that she believes it can never truly be eradicated. She is later convinced that others will step up to stop them, however.
* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: She is possibly the most powerful character in the world, but she has no particular interest in getting out of the swamp to fight evil; it just keeps coming back - and as she points out, her advanced age means that despite her vast skill and raw power, she can't really fight for long. Neither of these things stops her wiping the floor with an admittedly off-form Korra when training her (and crowing gleefully that she would have ''destroyed'' Korra if she was in her prime), or when Kuvira makes the mistake of kidnapping the Beifong family - Toph responds by wiping out an entire squad of earthbenders and MiniMecha with one attack, warning Kuvira to back off, or else. For the one out of only two times in the series, Kuvira (wisely) backs down. The second time, it took [[spoiler: the destruction of the Colossus, a Korra beatdown]], and Korra bending [[spoiler:a spirit vine blast into ''a new spirit portal'']] to convince her.
* BabiesEverAfter: Toph had two daughters with different men between the TimeSkip.
* BackInTheSaddle: She does one last dance against Kuvira while trying to rescue her family at the last minute.
* BadassBoast: Claims her daughters never picked up metalbending all that well. Considering that Lin is the Chief of the metalbending police and Suyin is the matriarch of a city of metalbenders, this says a lot about what Toph thinks a true metalbending master should be capable of, and the only one who fits the criteria is herself. And she's capable of backing it up, too. Also, this unforgettable bit:
-->'''Korra:''' You were tossing me around like a ragdoll all day long.\\
'''Toph:''' ''I know!'' And I'm an old lady! Imagine me in my prime... I would have ''DESTROYED'' you!
* BadassInDistress: Like the rest of the courtroom in the flashback when Yakone breaks out the bloodbending. He even forces her to levitate over to him and unlock his restraints; keep in mind that Toph is ''blind'', and her substitute Seismic Sense only works when her feet are touching the ground. Doubles as a CrucifiedHeroShot.
* BlindSeer: Now more than ever, especially if her claims of being able to see everything are not exaggerated.
* BloodKnight: Toph's just as much a fighter as ever, greatly enjoying her "[[CurbStompBattle training session]]" with Korra and lamenting she didn't put up more of a fight, while noting in disappointment that "those swamp-benders really can't take a punch." However, she recognizes her age prevents her from going all-out.
-->'''Korra:''' That was terrible.\\
'''Toph:''' Ha! Maybe for you. I had a ''great'' time! I never realized how much I missed tormenting the Avatar. I wish you were putting up more of a fight, but it was still fun.\\
'''Korra:''' You were tossing me around like a rag doll all day long.\\
'''Toph:''' I know! And I'm an old lady! Imagine me in my prime! Ha-ha! I would have ''destroyed'' you!
* BoisterousBruiser: Still the ever loudmouth, arrogant master earthbender.
* BookEnds: The first time we see her in the series is as a vision Aang has in Foggy Bottom Swamp. When we last see her, she's returning to Foggy Bottom, where she now lives.
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Toph founded the metal-bending police and sought to eradicate crime from Republic City, while neglecting her children in an attempt to (over)compensate for her own stifling upbringing. Her younger daughter ended up as a getaway driver for criminals and scarred her other daughter while resisting arrest. Lin didn't forgive Suyin for this or Toph for covering up the crime.
* CoolOldLady: Well into her 80s, but still a powerful earthbender who acts pretty much like she did when she was a kid, in addition to having all the wisdom that comes with a full and productive life.
* CostumeInertia: Still wearing effectively the same outfit she had when she was 12 years old. Averted for her past self, as shown when she was Chief of Police.
* CrackOhMyBack: At the end of ''Operation Beifong'' Toph says that she can't continue fighting anymore and admits that the big earthbending move she did threw out her back. WordOfGod also states that, when she was training Korra, her constant sitting down was actually because she didn't want her ego to be bruised by letting Korra know how much strain she was under while training her considering that she is now pushing ninety.
* CynicalMentor:
** Is this towards Korra, lamenting that all her years fighting crime as the police chief don't seem to have made any difference in the long run.
--->'''Toph:''' Listen, when I was chief of police of Republic City, I worked my butt off busting criminals. But did that make crime disappear? Nope. If there's one thing I learned on the beat, it's that the names change but the street stays the same.\\
'''Korra:''' So basically, you're saying that everything I've ever accomplished has been pointless. And I thought [Lin] Beifong was grumpy...\\
'''Toph:''' I'm the ''original'' Beifong!
** {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in "Remembrances", where it's shown to have done more harm than good. Tenzin and Asami both dispute that it means nothing, but rather insist that just because something new pops up doesn't mean the previous battle wasn't worth fighting.
** After seeing her family in danger, she realizes there are things worth fighting for after all. Even though she feels too old to continue on, she encourages others to continue those battles.
** She tries to pull this again in ''[[ComicBook/TheLegendOfKorraRuinsOfTheEmpire Ruins of the Empire]]'', but Korra twists her own words about the wisdom of the swamp's visions and not wanting to give up the comfort of routine to risk being hurt again in order to force Toph to run for governor of Gaoling.
* DaChief: The founder and first chief of the metalbending police.
* DentedIron: After her first real fight in decades, her back hurts so much that she knows she can't help any more.
* DirtForcefield: Despite living in a swamp, her hair and clothes are free of mud and dirt. Makes sense because she can earthbend it off.
* DoNotCallMePaul: Toph hates it when Baatar calls her "Mother."
* DotingGrandparent: Her reaction towards Opal showing her affection (not to mention seeing her for the first time in years) is certainly in ''stark'' contrast to [[ScrewPolitenessImASenior how she handles affection from others.]]
* DramaPreservingHandicap: Toph may be the greatest earthbender who ever lived, but old age has caught up to her more than she'd care to admit, especially to Korra. That's why she has sidelined herself from most of the fighting, and has only involved herself against Kuvira when the latter was a direct threat to her family.
* DrillSergeantNasty: As with the previous Avatar, she's taken to training Korra, whom she abuses and tosses around even worse than she did with Aang.
* FatalFlaw: Her arrogance. She always believed that she made the right decisions and had the right to tell people what to do or not do. Suyin and Lin resent that it meant she never provided them guidance or was an actual mom. While Suyin and Toph talked out their issues, Lin refused to speak to either of them for decades. Toph comes ''really'' close to driving Lin away again when Lin reluctantly allies with her to save Suyin from Kuvira.
* FriendToAllChildren: Downplayed, but she's very fond of Opal, she's surprisingly amiable to Bolin, and she takes a shine to Meelo soon after they first meet.
-->'''Meelo:''' Wait a minute. Cranky? Old? ''[waves his hand in front of her face]'' Blind? You must be Toph!\\
'''Toph:''' Ho ho, I like this one!
* FormerTeenRebel: More like ''pre''-teen rebel, but she nonetheless went from runaway and con artist to police chief.
* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger:
** Toph does this to Yakone (and has six fingers) in a flashback.
** She also does this to Kuvira in "Operation Beifong" after saving her family.
--->'''Toph:''' You give Metalbenders a bad name!
* GodzillaThreshold: Despite knowing its time to retire due to her age, she comes out of her solitude when Kuvira poises a direct threat to her family, causing her to join a battle for the first time in many years.
** Kuvira notably (and wisely) refrains from engaging Toph when the two finally meet face-to-face. Luckily for Kuvira, Toph is only interested in getting her family to safely rather than ending the threat posed by Kuvira (which Toph sees as the responsibility of the younger generations).
* GoodCounterpart: To Hama in the original series.
** Both characters are hermit mentors at a very old age. Their personalities are a contrast. While Hama is evil trying to make others think she's a nice old lady, Toph is good at heart and never shuts away her emotions. Toph may be grumpy by the time she was about Hama's age, but she still cares for others.
** They both also learned a new bending technique when they were trapped inside a cage at a very young age (Hama learned bloodbending, while Toph learned metalbending) and passed it down to other people. Unlike Hama where she taught bloodbending for evil, Toph taught metalbending for good. In fact, Toph lashes out at Kuvira for using metalbending for evil purposes.
** Hama never had a family after escaping prison, whilst Toph had one during adulthood and had a better life compared to Hama (though not without some family feuds between her two daughters).
* GrumpyOldMan: A female example. Old and cranky, and as opinionated as ever, not to mention more cynical.
** Subverted since her grumpiness can't really be attributed to age. Her more cynical views about crime notwithstanding, her personality was pretty much the same when she was young.
* HairstyleInertia: Keeps the same hairstyle of her youth, now with a Republic City Police badge in her headband. She even retains this hairstyle in the present. Through all iterations from her youth to her old age, she keeps her bangs (which aren't a visual impediment for her since she doesn't have eyesight to begin with).
* HandsOffParenting: In an effort not to be like her overbearing parents, she left her children to their own devices, thinking they would find their own way much like she did. It didn't quite go her way, as Lin ended up emulating her while Suyin went in the opposite direction and rebelled against her. Eventually she couldn't bring herself to prosecute Suyin when she was caught in criminal activities, completely tearing the family apart. Su claims that Toph wasn't happy with the way either of them turned out. Toph, however, admits that [[spoiler:they both turned out fine in spite of her parenting.]]
* HermitGuru: It's ''Toph'', so she doesn't really have the serenity typically associated with the archetype, but she's nevertheless now a spiritually-attuned mentor living in seclusion in the wilderness.
* HeroicNeutral: Toph eventually took this stance, having grown tired of the seemingly endless struggle against evil during her time as a cop, to the point she sequestered herself away from the outside world by living in the Foggy Swamp. But seeing [[{{Determinator}} her family and their friends]] go up against near-impossible odds inspires her back into action one last time.
* {{Irony}}: It's a little hard to fathom [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqQ9S8aYkfs this girl]] becoming a police chief. She was also the girl that hustled many Fire Nation gamblers by cheating.
* ItMakesSenseInContext: Sums up her training of Aang as "I threw some rocks at the Avatar, he got all whiny, and then Sokka fell in a hole" and describes the day Ozai was defeated as "It was hot. I was on a blimp. And I think a giant turtle showed up." Those actually aren't entirely inaccurate descriptions of the episodes in question, if lacking in details she wasn't there for and/or couldn't see to describe them. But then Toph never was one for intimate details.
-->'''Korra:''' Okay, you're terrible at telling stories. \\
'''Toph:''' You're terrible at listening to them!
* JerkassRealization: When Lin after decades of estrangement decides to work with her to save Suyin and the other Beifongs, Toph can't tone down her snarkiness or brusque behavior. Lin then hits her RageBreakingPoint and tells her off for being a terrible mother, saying that after Suyin is saved, they're done. Again. Toph is visibly crushed, having a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment, before saying with a faint waver in her voice that she'll accept Lin's choice.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She is a cynical, loudmouth and arrogant master earthbender, but her heart is in the right place. She lets Korra hug her after she successfully bends the rest of poison out of her body, and she stated that she was proud of her daughters and apologized that she wasn't a good mother in "Operation Beifong". In addition, she was willing to answer any question Bolin had, even though he was pretty annoying, and was genuinely impressed by his lavabending, remarking that it's a rare talent.
* KnightInSourArmor: Revealed to be the reason why she stepped down from the force. She lamented how that no matter what she did there was no real change in Republic City. As she puts it: "The names changed, but the streets stayed the same." Korra strong-arms her into trying again from the angle of politics in ''Ruins of the Empire.''
* LimitedWardrobe: Like HairstyleInertia, she wears casual clothes at age 85 similar to those she wore when she was 12. Though as a younger adult and at middle age, she wore police armor.
* MamaBear:
** She walked from the Swamp to rescue her family when they were in trouble.
** In a flashback, she used her position as police chief to protect her daughter from criminal charges, even if it meant destroying an inconvenient police report and tearing her family apart.
* MaternallyChallenged: She doesn't seem to have known how to actually raise daughters, possibly due to her own upbringing. Neither daughter really satisfied her and she greatly alienated one by abusing her authority as a police officer to let Suyin get away with a crime and for scarring Lin's face. Further, Lin is incredibly upset that not only does Toph fail to realize ''why'' Lin is mad at her, she usually brushes off her concerns and gives the impression she doesn't care. She doesn't have a response for this and sadly accepts Lin's criticisms [[spoiler:but they do make up later now that Lin finally has it out of her system.]]
* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: Like Katara, age seems to have taken off some height from her prime. The artbook notes that despite prior flashbacks showing her at a moderate adult height, the animators wanted her to revert to her 12-year-old height as an elderly woman. Her character designer agreed, so long as it was clear that the height reduction was due to her being hunched over with bent knees, not just her magically ''shrinking'' for no reason. This led to a ''lot'' of retakes when animators mistakenly drew her as too short without the bent knees or hunched over posture.
* MyGreatestFailure: Lin believes she retired from the force out of disgrace for Suyin's behavior, and guilt for having covered it up, though Suyin disputes this. Lin's wrong. The actual reason is that Toph felt that she wasn't actually fixing anything by busting the bad guys. Suyin's behavior probably didn't help though.
* NeverMessWithGranny: Like Zuko, she's in her eighties and WalkingTheEarth. Here, though, it's {{deconstructed}}. While she's as powerful and skilled as ever, if not a great deal more so, she no longer has the stamina or suppleness of youth, and one mission has her back ache so fiercely that she decides to [[PassingTheTorch pass the torch]] and sit the rest of the war out.
* NeverMyFault: When Toph meets Lin again for the first time in years and learned that she has forgiven Su she takes it as a point of fact that Lin let go of her (very understandable) "issues" and that they can put the past behind them seeming to think that she has also been absolved of her own role in her daughters estrangement. The fact that she [[NoSympathy doesn't seem to care about why her daughter was upset with her]] only makes things worse. It's only after Lin gives a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Toph and unloads on her for all her pent up years of aggression that Toph finally realizes her own role in their estrangement and admits to her kids that, while she may have been bad at showing it, she always loved them and was proud of them.
* TheNicknamer: Even after twenty eight years, she still calls Aang "Twinkle Toes". And after over seventy years, Korra inherits the nickname.
* NoBadassToHisValet: As with Aang, so with Korra. She ''enjoys'' kicking Korra around.
* NoSympathy: According to Lin, this is the root of their estrangement. Lin was hurt by having to grow up without a father and Toph's unwillingness to discuss him, and Toph herself didn't understand why it was important to Lin and therefore didn't care. At least Toph later on apologized for not being the perfect mother for Lin.
* NotSoStoic: Toph is pretty much always in control, but in "Operation Beifong" Lin finally cuts loose with her frustration towards her mother and chews her out for seeming to caring so little about what's important to her children, and finishes with a "once we save the prisoners, we are through." Toph sighs and her voice cracks ever so slightly when she says "if that's what makes you happy, fine." She holds it in well, but it's clear that Lin's words stung and on some level she knew she had it coming.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: To a degree towards Baatar Sr. She doesn't like it when he calls her "mother".
* OldMaster: Age has only made her an even more powerful earthbender, and she claims that neither Suyin nor Lin ever learned metalbending to her satisfaction. Adding to this her [[WalkingTheEarth pilgrimage to find herself]] and she is likely the greatest earthbender in history. A weakened Korra couldn't even touch her using all her elements, while Toph was only using basic earthbending.
* TheOmniscient: Claims she can see everything thanks to the far-reaching roots in her swamp. Though it's unlikely that she can see it all [[NotSoOmniscientAfterAll at once.]]
* OneWomanArmy: In "Operation Beifong", she literally sends an entire squad of Kuvira's soldiers (including several Earthbenders and [[MiniMecha Mini-Mechas]]) flying with one move when she pulls a BigDamnHeroes on her family.
* OurFounder: Has a solid gold statue of her in front of Republic City's police headquarters, and multiple statues in Zaofu.
* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: She declares Korra the worst Avatar she's ever trained. She then immediately lampshades the trope by noting she's only met one other Avatar.
* ParentsAsPeople: Very much - just because Toph became a mother wasn't going to magically fix her own cynicism or personality issues due to her own problematic upbringing by her overprotective parents (unlike someone like, say, Katara or Zuko, who had well-adjusted fathers in Hakoda and Iroh). While Toph does indeed love them and means well for her daughters, she tried to maintain a free-range approach to raising them, which ended up causing both to have their own issues in their youth. Naturally, this has led the women to have a strained relationship with her and each other, which doesn't get resolved until they're well into adulthood themselves.
* PassingTheTorch: Although she is game for one odd adventure to save her family's necks, she points out that she is simply too old to partake in extended fighting and that the younger generation must pick up the torch.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Thirty years later and she's ''still'' the shortest of the group. At 86 years old, she's even smaller. She's also still a badass among badasses.
* ReallyGetsAround: Implied to have had quite the appetite for men in her prime years. Given the whole SuperSenses thing, [[PowerPerversionPotential this does have a certain logic to it]]...
* RefusalOfTheSecondCall: She's living [[TheHermit alone in the Foggy Swamp]] and, despite the fact that's she tells Korra she's been [[DisabilitySuperpower keeping an eye on things]], only joins the main plot for a single episode when [[spoiler: the [[ItsPersonal Beifongs are captured]]]].
-->'''Toph:''' At some point, you gotta leave it to the kids.
* RestoredMyFaithInHumanity: Seeing her family take on new injustices with sheer determination, she knows that as long as a new generation is there to continue the fight, the world is in good hands.
* RetiredBadass: While [[NeverMessWithGranny she's among the most powerful characters in the series, she's also pushing ninety]]. No amount of [[UnskilledButStrong raw power]] or [[WeakButSkilled martial arts experience]] can compensate for the fact that she's too old to join the big fights.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Her [[DisabledSnarker attitude]] hasn't changed with age. If anything, age has only made her more direct.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: When Suyin got herself arrested, she tore up the police report and covered it all up. According to Lin, she felt bad enough about doing this that she retired a year later. Suyin disputes that this was why she retired. It's later shown that Suyin was right (though her behaviour didn't help), and Toph's real reason was more to do with being disillusioned at how fighting crime didn't make it go away, it just changed the names.
* ShooTheDog: Rather than jail Suyin for a few days to teach her a lesson and prove no one is above the law, she destroyed the arrest warrant and exiled Suyin to her grandparents. Lin was not impressed.
* SmugSuper: Old age and experience has not taught her humility. If anything, it's made her ''more'' arrogant than ever.
* SoProudOfYou: She tells this to everyone at the end of "Operation Beifong". Toph makes it known that she's proud her daughters, and later says that although she's too old for the hero game, she encourages them to continue fighting for what's right.
* StoppedCaring: Feels this way due to the unending nature of the battle against evil. In the end, though, she comes to believe that the likes of Korra along with others of her generation will step up to the plate and face said evil.
* TookALevelInBadass: She was already a match for King Bumi when she was a child. Now, her tremor sense crosses continents (augmented by the roots of giant swamp trees), and she's lost her weakness at fighting airbenders. She barely even uses her hands to earthbend anymore. If it wasn't for the fact that the aches and pains of age have caught up with her, plus her lack of stamina due to age, she'd be practically invincible.
* TookALevelInCynic: Toph was never TheIdealist in the first series, but her older self now believes that the Avatar isn't needed because no matter what good he/she does, evil and injustice never gives up. However, seeing her family in danger [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity gave her more hope]] in those who are willing to continue fighting.
* UnreliableExpositor: She says she retired as Police Chief on [[spoiler: realizing that crime would never stop]]. Lin claimed it was because she felt shame at covering up Suyin's crime. Both options are possibly true, with Suyin's arrest being TheLastStraw for Toph's faith that she could stop crime. Because if she couldn't even stop her own daughter, then what about strangers in jail cells? It is oddly coincidental that she resigned a year after she exiled Suyin.
* VibrationManipulation: To [[DisabilitySuperpower compensate for her blindness]], Toph developed the ability to sense even the most minute of seismic vibrations. This ability requires skin contact to the ground, which is why Toph goes barefoot. This ability has been honed to the point that Toph can measure a person's heart rate to tell if they are lying.
* WackyParentSeriousChild: Not so much in her daughters' youth as she became more serious as the Police Chief as shown in flashbacks, but by the present elderly Toph is just as fun and easygoing as she was as a child, in comparison to Lin and Suyin who are very serious, especially Lin.
* WalkingTheEarth: The last time most heard from her, she was on a search for enlightenment. She's eventually found by Korra in the very same swamp that Aang first saw a vision of her in.
* WarriorTherapist: Katara tried to heal Korra through medical waterbending over the course of more than two years, and only managed to fix her physical issues. Toph spent a week beating Korra up for fun and berating her, and got closer to the root of the problem than Katara ever did.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** She started WalkingTheEarth and disappeared to parts unknown, but in Book 4, it's revealed that she resides in the Foggy Swamp.
** And after all this time, we find out from Toph who Lin's dad is. [[spoiler: His name is Kanto, he was [[NiceGuy a nice man]], but the relationship didn't work out. And that's all that's known about him.]]
* WorldsStrongestWoman: By far and away ''still'' the greatest earthbender in the world (and, let's be real, is in the running for the strongest person alive, even dwarfing Korra), in spite of her old age. When she's forced to fight against Kuvira to save her family, she ends the battle in one Earthbending attack that immediately disables multiple war machines. It took multiple people, including her two genius-level bender daughters, to even mount a defense prior to her arrival.
* TheWorfEffect: In the flashback to Yakone's trial, she suffers this once Yakone breaks out his psychic bloodbending; she is the strongest bender there next to Aang and yet not even she can do anything once he has control of the bodies of everyone in the courtroom, including her. He even goes as far as to use her to unlock his cuffs, taking extra special care to keep her feet off the floor so she won't be able to counterattack, before knocking her and everyone else out. This is to underline and emphasize how dangerous of a bender Yakone was, which is why Aang felt it was best to take his bending like he had with Ozai.
* YoureNotMyMother: Lin refused to speak to her or Suyin for about thirty years after Toph exiled Suyin and made her a KarmaHoudini.
[[/folder]]
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!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JessieFlower (English),[[labelnote:Click to see other languages]]Ximena Marchant (Latin American Spanish), Marie-Luise Schramm (German), Creator/LetiziaCampa (Italian), Creator/JustynaBojczuk (Polish), Liana Ayon (Hebrew), Ana Lúcia Menezes (Brazilian Portuguese) [[/labelnote]]Creator/KateHiggins (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' past), Creator/PhileceSampler (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' present), Vivian Vencer (''VideoGame/NickelodeonAllStarBrawl'', ''VideoGame/NickelodeonKartRacers 3: Slime Speedway'')

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JessieFlower (English),[[labelnote:Click to see other languages]]Ximena Marchant (Latin American Spanish), Marie-Luise Schramm (German), Creator/LetiziaCampa (Italian), Creator/JustynaBojczuk (Polish), Liana Ayon (Hebrew) [[/labelnote]]Creator/KateHiggins (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' past), Creator/PhileceSampler (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' present), Vivian Vencer (''VideoGame/NickelodeonAllStarBrawl'', ''VideoGame/NickelodeonKartRacers 3: Slime Speedway'')

[[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTeamAvatar Team Avatar]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAvatarAang Avatar Aang]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderZuko Prince Zuko]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderKatara Katara]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderSokka Sokka]], '''Toph Beifong''') | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderMentors Mentors]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAllies Allies]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderGeneralIroh General Iroh]]) | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNation Fire Nation]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily Fire Nation Royal Family]] ([[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderFireLordOzai Fire Lord Ozai]], [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderPrincessAzula Princess Azula]]) | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheEmberIslandPlayers The Ember Island Players]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderOtherCharacters Other]] | [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderComicCharacters Comics]]]]]]-]

* ElementalMotifs: Earth, fitting not just her native element, but her hardy and stubborn demeanour in spite of [[LittleMissBadass looking like a frail young girl]].

-->'''Toph:''' "''I am not Toph! I am MELON LORD! [[EvilLaugh Muahahaha!]]''"
* LessonsInSophistication: Surprisingly, she does this. She was born into Earth Kingdom High society, so she knows how to act like a {{proper lady}}, she just chooses not to. She's able to help clean up Katara for a palace party hosted by the Earth King but she doesn't even attempt with Sokka and Aang. They're that hopeless.

* MeaningfulName: Played with. In "The Serpent's Pass", the name on her passport reads 拓芙 "supported lotus", which hardly describes Toph herself, but matches her parents' view of her being delicate and helpless. Averted in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" where the spelling of her name temporarily changed to 托夫 "entrusted man", before going back to 拓芙 in "The Earth King".

* TheNicknamer: Calls Aang "Twinkle Toes", as he's ''very'' light on his feet (well, compared to the powerful, deliberate stomps of a master Earthbender like herself, anyway).

* NoHuggingNoKissing: She is the only person in the gaang who doesn’t end up in a relationship. [[spoiler: She does end up having kids with two different men however, one being unknown and the other being a guy named Kanto, but all the romance happened offscreen.]]

* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: In the North and South comic, Toph describes the Beifong Metalbending Academy as "the most prestigious metalbending school in the world". One of her students points out they're the ''only'' school but she sees it as the point since they do something that used to be considered impossible until she learned how to do it.

* PowerLevels: Mentioned in an interview. According to WordOfGod, she's the strongest bender in the Gaang (though this obviously doesn't count Aang in the Avatar State).
* PrecociousCrush: Had one towards Sokka, but only shown in [[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSerpentsPass Serpent's Pass]].

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: As a member of a powerful merchant family, she flashes her gold-bordered passport and makes up something about "valets" and a "seeing-eye lemur" to get entry passes to Ba Sing Se for herself and the rest of the Gaang from a humorless border official. Unfortunately it doesn't work as well when she later tries to bluff her way into the Earth King's party without invitations.

* TailorMadePrison: In Season 2, she gets trapped in a steel cage, with her captors convinced that she can't escape because Earthbenders can't bend metal. Turns out that it did help her develop her [[ExtraOreDinary new ability to metalbend.]] However, in Season 3, when she is put in a wooden cage, this time she really can't escape on her own, as wood is not a bendable substance.
* TheNotLoveInterest: Appears to be one for Aang, at least initially. She's a girl his age who he is quite literally destined to meet so she can serve as an aid to him in his quest, a setup which at least hints to her being some sort of romantic interest for him. But her official introduction and subsequent episodes with him make it clear that their relationship is purely platonic.

* TheWatson: Not so much in personality - she actually tends to be the most knowledgeable of the Gaang, who are all [[CountryMouse Country Mice]] - but her blindness means other characters will read stuff (all in Chinese or Japanese characters) ''[[AsYouKnow out loud]]'' to her, and thus, the audience.

** Her tremorsense isn't limited to what's in front of her, goes right through cover, and has a range of over a hundred meters, so as long as she's part of the Gaang, ''no-one can [[InTheBack sneak up on them]].'' They wrote around this for [[spoiler:''twenty-six episodes,'' but the ''instant'' she gets her [[GameBreakingInjury feet burnt]], Combustion Man shows up and starts blowing everything to rubble.]]

--> '''Xin Fu:''' You might think you're the greatest Earthbender in the world, but [[TemptingFate even ''you'' can't bend metal!]]\\

* YamatoNadeshiko: She can fake it perfectly, as when she shows up in a white dress in her parents' home - except she really, ''really'' dislikes it. Before leaving home she moonlights as a pro wrestler, and once she's free of her parents' supervision and can act the way she wants to, she proves to be very crude, aggressive, and unladylike indeed.

* ArrogantKungFuGirl: She is a [[PintsizedPowerhouse blind little girl]] that [[BoisterousBruiser loudly declares]] herself [[WorldsBestCharacter the greatest earthbender in the world]] whenever she gets the chance. ''She is absolutely right''. She participated in an underground fighting tournament and quickly became its champion, repeatedly gets into fights with huge guys with arms larger than she is just to [[CurbstompBattle curbstomp them]] seconds later, developed [[ExtraOreDinary metalbending]], and embraces this trope. When she found out that the play chronicling their adventures was portraying her as a burly man who sees by screaming, she was ecstatic.

* ArrogantKungFuGirl: [[CuteBruiser Toph]], [[DisabilitySuperpower Toph]], [[DishingOutDirt Toph]]. She is a [[PintsizedPowerhouse blind little girl]] that [[BoisterousBruiser loudly declares]] herself [[WorldsBestCharacter the greatest earthbender in the world]] whenever she gets the chance. ''She is absolutely right''. She participated in an underground fighting tournament and quickly became its champion, repeatedly gets into fights with huge guys with arms larger than she is just to [[CurbstompBattle curbstomp them]] seconds later, developed [[ExtraOreDinary metalbending]], and embraces this trope. When she found out that the play chronicling their adventures was portraying her as a burly man who sees by screaming, she was ecstatic.

* BreakTheHaughty: Was a bit of a BrattyHalfPint and EntitledBastard when she first joined the Gaang. After being told by Iroh that good friends help one another out, she starts to mellow, but it isn't until she fails to protect Appa from being kidnapped that humility really becomes a significant virtue for her.

* FriendlessBackground: Due to being sheltered from the outside world by her EXTREMELY overprotective parents, she'd never made a friend before meeting the Gaang. Her integration with the team was integral to her character development. The only friends she had were the Badgermoles.

-->'''Sokka:''' It's so dark in here, I can't see a thing!\\

* HiddenDepths: Toph and Katara's tale in ''The Tales of Ba Sing Se'' makes it clear that for all her claims of not caring what others think of her looks, Toph is actually quite hurt by such rejection. It helps drive home the fact that, despite being a badass, she's still a 12-year-old girl.

* DisabledLoveInterest: Toph is this to anyone she's romantically interested in given how she's blind.

* HeroicNeutral: Toph eventually took this stance, having grown tired of the seemingly endless struggle against evil during her time as a cop, to the point she sequestered herself away from the outside world by living in the Foggy Swamp. But seeing her family and their friends go up against near-impossible odds inspires her back into action one last time.

* StoppedCaring: Feels this way due to the unending nature of the battle against evil. In the end, though, she comes to believe that the likes of Korra will step up to the plate and face said evil.

* TheDreaded: Seems to be this to Kuvira - after Toph one-shotted an entire platoon of Earth Empire soldiers, the Great Uniter did not move a muscle (other than narrowing her eyes) until Toph left the battlefield.

* NotHyperbole: When she says that she is the greatest earthbender in the world, you better believe she can back that claim up. This is the girl who duelled King Bumi, who literally had a hundred years of experience on him, and she fought him to a draw! At age 12! Even earlier, she figured out how to subvert a WeaksauceWeakness of Earthbending by figuring out [[ExtraOreDinary Metalbending]], which none in history had done before. [[spoiler:In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', this claim ''still'' applies.]]

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JessieFlower (English),[[labelnote:Click to see other languages]]Ximena Marchant (Latin American Spanish), Marie-Luise Schramm (German), Creator/LetiziaCampa (Italian), Creator/JustynaBojczuk (Polish), Liana Ayon (Hebrew) [[/labelnote]]Creator/KateHiggins, (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' past), Creator/PhileceSampler (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' present), Vivian Vencer (''VideoGame/NickelodeonAllStarBrawl'', ''VideoGame/NickelodeonKartRacers 3: Slime Speedway'')

* RunningGag: The show doesn't shy away from making jokes about Toph's blindness, with them being about fifty-fifty [[IncrediblyLamePun sight gags]] or Toph snarking about how someone who ''knows'' she's blind expects her to react like a sighted person.

!!!'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JessieFlower (English),[[labelnote:Click to see other languages]]Ximena Marchant (Latin American Spanish), Marie-Luise Schramm (German), Creator/JustynaBojczuk (Polish), Liana Ayon (Hebrew) [[/labelnote]]Creator/KateHiggins, (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' past), Creator/PhileceSampler (''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' present), Vivian Vencer (''VideoGame/NickelodeonAllStarBrawl'', ''VideoGame/NickelodeonKartRacers 3: Slime Speedway'')