Sorry this took so long! I wrote out 80% of this and it got wiped so here we go again.
So over my many years as a fangirl I’ve considered what makes me love a ship. I realized that probably my #1 criteria for liking a ship is how well they balance each other out. No one is perfect, which is why I think that the strongest ships are the ones where they help the other to improve. If you challenge each other, you help each other grow.
That’s why I like Taang, and that’s where I’m going to start this analysis.
Toph struggles with having other people see her worth. She has fought her whole life to be seen as capable and strong, but her parents don’t see it. She gets a taste of people understanding her power as the Blind Bandit, but that’s only one facet of who Toph is.
When he sees Toph in the swamp Aang doesn’t see the Blind Bandit, the fearsome earthbending prodigy who can sense the ground’s vibrations. He sees Toph Beifong.
And as soon as Aang meets Toph he is amazed by her just as she is. Which is a first for Toph. No one has ever seen both sides of her and said “hell yeah.” But Aang does.
When Toph first tells Aang about how it is that she can see, he calls her amazing. He doesn’t call the Blind Bandit amazing with this awestruck look on his face, he says it to Toph. Aang helps Toph to see that she doesn’t have to be the Blind Bandit to be respected like she deserves. He doesn’t question her value, he reminds her of it.
Aang struggles with facing his destiny throughout the series. Up until Aang meets Toph, his MO is to run. It’s how he wound up in the iceberg. But Toph quickly snuffs that airbender impulse. In her first day of training Aang she manages to see his greatest weakness and begin helping him overcome it. She gives Aang his first dose of tough love and it’s effective.
Toph never backs down from Aang or cuts him any slack just because he’s the Avatar. She doesn’t care. Aang is Aang and he has to learn earthbending and so he’s going to learn earthbending. She pushes Aang to embrace his elemental opposite so that he can face his fears. Toph forces Aang to grow.
Look at Toph’s smirk as soon as she realizes she’s turned the tables on Aang and gotten him to stand his ground. Fuck yeah, Twinkletoes.
Toph gives Aang exactly what he needs within his first week of lessons.
Balancing act aside, I want to get into my weird theories on these two being sort of destined for each other. So.
Toph is literally the turning point for Aang to become a fully realized Avatar. When Aang gets stuck on his journey learning the elements, he’s sent to Toph. After he’s learned earthbending all he has left to learn is firebending. Initially, Aang doesn’t want Zuko to teach him. Toph is the one who grounds Aang when he’s acting on emotion and tells him “this is what we have to work with, you have to consider it.”
And when he won’t, Toph goes after Aang’s last teacher. And it isn’t until Toph has been burned that Aang understands that Zuko was meant to be his teacher. This didn’t unfold like this by chance.
Toph seems to have an innate connection to the spirit world, (and Raava in particular.) The first time we meet Toph we see her frolicking through the swamp. Aang even tells her that the spirits told him to find her. Toph was destined to connect with the Avatar, and the Avatar was destined to find Toph. More than once.
Look at the smile creeping up on Toph’s face when she says “But if your Avatar senses called you here...” like she’s reliving a fond memory of Aang showing up in her garden begging her to teach him.
Korra hadn’t said a thing about being the Avatar. Korra assumes that Toph recognized her face without realizing that Toph was blind. But Toph recognized Aang the way she always did.
A lifetime later, here we are again in the swamp. Toph recognizes the Avatar spirit right away. Because you know what? Toph knows that Aang is always going to find her. Their spirits are intertwined, destined to meet again and again.
I leave you with a parallel that sticks in my mind for no reason.
