Okay but..why was making toph a cop a bad thing? Is there a plot reason, or are we applying current events to a fantasy world where such events arenât happening.
If you think Avatar: The Last Airbender wasnât one gigantic commentary on current events then I am fascinated to know what show youâve been watching, because you certainly havenât been watching ATLA. I suggest you do. A lot of people around here think itâs a pretty nifty show.
With that said, you want me to apply plot?
See, in the show, thereâs this character, Toph, who is a perfect example of how, even/especially among the most privileged families, disabled people are often ostracized and institutionalized. Again, this is a pinnacle example of how Avatar used its âfantasy worldâ to reflect âcurrent eventsâ. Disabled people have been, are currently, and will be institutionalized for being Other. Avatar showed that. Toph spent the first twelve years of her life being institutionalized at her familyâs estate, under near-constant watch.
She constantly recounts the times she tearfully escaped.Â
At one point, she actually gets away from the institution for a few months, only for people to track her down, ambush her, throw her into the metal container in the back of a cart, and drive her back to that institution.Â
Toph escapes before she can be fully institutionalized again, and travels back to the city from whence she was captured. Itâs worth noting that, several episodes before, Toph realizes that the city was overrun by guards who work with a corrupted government in order to instill fear and propaganda-led mindsets into the citizens.
Upon realizing this, Toph beats the everlasting shite out of them.Â
Toph also beats the everlasting shite out of the other institutional force protecting the corrupt government:
And when Toph returns to that palace, having escaped the aforementioned attempt at institutionalization, she sees that a trustworthy guard system has been corrupted and she beats the everlasting shite out of them:
The corrupt government becomes even more corrupt and they throw her in jail, whereupon she escapes being institutionalized, again.Â
That isnât even the last time Toph goes to jail because, several months later, when sheâs happily committing crimes, she gets herself a wanted poster, a moniker, and a night in prison.Â
She would have been institutionalized a few weeks later, if they had been captured at the Battle of Black Sun, but they manage to escape before theyâre captured.Â
Some arenât as lucky, which is why two of her friends instigate a prison breakout, because they realize that unjust institutionalization is wrong.Â
A few weeks later, Toph is clinging onto the hand of one of those friends as sheâs surrounded by, what else? Institutionalized guards who have been taught that their corrupt rulerâs dogma needs to be defended at all costs, even if it means plunging a twelve-year-old disabled girl to her death.
TOPH. WOULD. NOT. HAVE. BEEN. A. COP.
Toph would have never joined an institution. Toph would have never led that institution. Even if weâre going for a whole âoppressed person wanted to take charge of the institution to make it betterâ, routine, Toph knew that systems could be corrupted. I wrote the post about her creating the halfway house for runaway kids but the truth is, do you really want to know what Toph would have been? Toph would have been Zaheer; meaning that she would have been close to his ideology. Toph would have been an anarchist. She would have clashed with Zuko and Aang all the time. She wouldnât have trusted the system. She wouldnât have trusted any institution that tried to control her. She was a disabled girl who had been controlled, abused, and nearly killed by the system, by the institutions within. Toph would not have been a cop. I love LOK but that choice fits in the Great Divide chasm of mistakes.
Is that enough of a âplot reasonâ, ya lily liver?
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