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Was Toph truly the greatest Earth Bender?

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Thus far there's nothing to dispute it.

She wasn't tho. She just invented Metal Bending because she had a disability that worked to her advantage, quite ironically. I still think Bumi is.

She's certainly a better Earthbender than Gaara.

Didn't they have a fight which only got interrupted by Aang and we never learned who was better?
Also could she lavabend

Nigga, Bumi could bend by twitching his nose. Fuck you talking about.

After Bumi kicked it and for her time, yeah, but eventually there's going to be someone better. This is assuming we're not allowed to count Avatars.

She was probably better of an Earthbender than any Avatar

Kyoshi created an island by breaking off a piece of a continent and moving it a few miles away. I really don't think Toph has that kind of power, but I do think she's one of the most skilled earthbenders to ever exist.

Not that Bumi is an avatar, but Bumi could bend in some insane situations.

Didn't Kiyoshi perform that while using Avatar state?
That shouldn't really count

Random question: Is Toph down to kill enemies? It was never explained if she was.

It should because the Avatar state is a form you have to master.

Bumi can Earthbend without any contact to the Earth what-so-ever.

Who is the greatest fire bender?
My vote is for Ozai: he was an asshole but he was the fire-lord at the FN's height

>This is assuming we're not allowed to count Avatars.

We shouldn't. Being the Avatar doesn't make you the best at all four disciplines of bending. If they focused on one element only, they could. But usually, the typical Avatar is just good or great at all four. But not THE BEST. The advantage of the Avatar, in regards to bending, is just that they have access to all four disciplines. So naturally, they'll not really have the incentive to dedicate too much to just one. But with every other bender, their element is all the got. So naturally they'll put more time into it.

If an Avatar were to face off against one of the best of each, and being restricted to just the same element as their opponent, the Avatar would probably be outclassed and beaten.

So can Bolin and Lin and Suyin and Suyin's kids and Ghazan and every earthbender in probending and probably other people I'm forgetting in LoK.

Did he have blue fire?

Oh it was totally Ozai. He only lost because of the Avatarstate.

None of those people have Bumi's all around skill tho.

Because the actual strongest firebenders in the world didn't have blue fire, I feel like it's supposed to be a mutation.

>If an Avatar were to face off against one of the best of each, and being restricted to just the same element as their opponent, the Avatar would probably be outclassed and beaten.
Depends on what their native element is. Kyoshi could probably beat Toph.

Either Johnny Storm or Jim Hammond.

Ozai only had a chance because his power level was boosted by the comet.

Seems like a stretch, but fine. If we're going down this road you could say the blue fire is a sign of mental illness.

Only Azula did and that's by mutation.


He did well against Aang for a guy with only enhanced Fire bending (where Aang also had improved fire bending plus the other three elements)

Consider what Aang had to do to Ozai to beat him: he couldn't just lock him up in some place like they did to that girl in Korra: no cage would have been strong enough to hold him.

He had to take away his strongest facet to make him manageable.

A cold prison would work since Ozai was channeling the "wrong" type of firebending like the rest of the Fire Nation.
Iroh was teaching Zuko another way and that's why Zuko was able to survive in the North and not collapse in that freezer prison in the Boiling Rock despite the cold. Cold was needed for that chick in LoK since they didn't want to introduce Korra to the enemy and channel Aang to remove their bending because that would be too easy.

It´s one hell of a coincidence that the greatest firebender in the world is also the leader of the Fire Nation. Or was the fire nation so obsessed with perfection they literally researched genetics and mixed only the best genes within the royal family so their benders would be the best in the world?
That does bring them closer to Nazis and WWII Japan.

The meteor also enhanced Aang's firebending, so in raw power they were as equal as they would be if there was no comment at all.

>Ozai
Iroh would wipe the kebab grill with him

I think the idea is that the Fire Nation are so militaristic that the strongest benders would naturally rise to the top. Though for that to make sense they would have to be less socially stratified than presented in the series.

>Depends on what their native element is.

I disagree. Water was Korra's native element, yet she seemed much more adept to Earthbending than Waterbending.

> Kyoshi could probably beat Toph.

That remains to be seen. As far as we know, Kiyoshi was only a good or great Earthbender. Toph was reputed for being an exceptionally great Earthbender. If it came down to the two of them facing each other in both their respective primes, and Kiyoshi only using Earthbending, I'd put my money on Toph.

Though for that to make sense they would have to be less socially stratified than presented in the series.

Exactly. They obviously have an hereditary monarchy; it´s not a "rule of the strongest" system they got going on in there. I still maintain that they are using rudimentary genetically engineering (the same way that's used to breed dogs, basically) to make their members the most adept at firebending.
It´s just too much of a coincidence that the ruling family has fire benders such as Ozai, Azula and Iroh.
It´s not like in the other nations the strongest gets to rule; for crying your loud, the Earth King is a non bender.

When it comes to earth bending always put your money on Bumi
Worst case scenario you get candy

What is that outfit from?

Based on what? Even Iroh said he wasn't sure he could win.

Maybe, maybe not. But she was a shit mom.

I thought it was that even if he won it would just be another person usurping power? That's why they wanted Aang to face him to prevent this public image.

Kyoshi is a giant bitch so she would definitely cheat and use avatar spirit to just overpower Toph.

They actually do, Ursa was chosen as Ozai's wife because she was Roku's grandkid. The way it probably works is that the monarchy is hereditary but since members of the royal family always seem involved with the military then the weaker ones get culled/stronger ones rise. They also probably pick from the strongest benders to marry into the family.

Nah, he was unsure of both, whether he could win and whether he could return stability.

But that was what was so dangerous about Ozai: his fire was from an unnatural source but it also seemed to be perpetual: Zuko had the issue where his emotional core was not truly from within him and wasn't sustainable: once he let go of his anger towards his father and the Avatar, he had no fuel.

Ozai had a fundamental distrust and hatred of nearly everything around him, from his daughter to his wife to his son to his advisors and his own nation.

He was a misanthrope and so he would always have anger enough to fire bend.

I agree that the prisons were mostly just an attempt to set a power-level early on for characters barely introduced but it inherently retcons the actions for someone like Aang to not consider something like that for Ozai.


Yeah, it's a social darwinist nation so I imagine they did a mix of Nazi-Deep Science (you see that with all the war machines they developed) and natural rise of the best benders to the top of the breeding pool.

So in the same vein would blood bending equate to a higher skill level of water bending? It seemed that you had to be at least upper tier to have a chance at it. I really wish we got to see Amon fight with bending if that was the case because he would likely be the best in the world. Shame they scrapped him because they thought they only had one season.

It's Ash Crimson's, from the King of Fighters series.

Amon's bending was some kind of a special bloodline skill just like combustion bending , also he would be too overpowered evne more than Zaheers plot armor. But they showed with that lady in prison with training long and determined enough you can learn bloodbending on your own

Psychic blood bending is purely genetic and can't be developed through training, though.

No but she was an huge mary sue

Right. My largely headcanon understanding of Bloodbending is that half of the problem is that everyone's natural internal chi dampens any attempt to bend the fluids of that person's body by a huge amount which is why even a master level bender still requires a full moon to influence even rats that way.
There's also just the psychological taboo of reaching into a person with your bending to fuck with them. So I took the psychic bloodbending as a mutation similar to azula's.
She had a natural mentality so twisted that it caused her flames to burn differently too. The psychic blood benders were all deeply manipulative, you could think of it like they just completely lack that psychological taboo so specifically bloodbending is as easy to them as regular water is.

I thougt it was Kula

Why isn't she Goro Dalian? He's a literal earthbender and his eyes are always closed like he is blind.

Avatar Kyoshi was.

But other than that Toph is the greatest, Bumi is the strongest. Bumi is kind of a mentally unstable nutjob and can't pass down his techniques, otherwise he'd be the greatest.

How in the hell was she able to walk barefoot all over the place? Jeez. Dirty feet bitches.

youtube.com/watch?v=vz1rsIVs0nQ

Fucking autocorrect, I meant Goro Daimon.

Ozai probably wins in raw power. The guy was able to whip out double lightning blasts without needing any build build up. Of course lightning doesn't actually work on Iroh but still.

Who was the greatest poet? The greatest painter?

You're talking about a fusion of magic and kung fu, not target shooting.

Toph was a savant who trained herself to use her 'handicap' as an asset. Thanks to her incredible senses and keen intellect, she was capable of developing new abilities and applying uses that other's might not have thought of.

Mad King Bumi took absolutely nothing for granted, not even the laws of physics. While an attitude that takes things as they are and not as they seem to be might not lend itself to the development of new abilities, no one in their right mind would dispute that that cat could Bend in a way no-one else could.

Aang was the Avatar, and had to overcome the entrenched philosophies of Air Bending before being able to Earth Bend. That likely led to him developing uses and ideas that hadn't been considered (like when Iroh learned from a Water Bender, despite not being one, and developed the technique of lightening redirection).

TL;DR
It's hard to have stratified power rankings when it's such a wide field. If we're talking formalized sparring matches, probably Toph (they find her as the champion of an underground (har) fighting ring, remember) or Bo-Lin (more experience in a fight with rules).

If we're talking deadly, kinda has to be "I Created a New Island" Kyoshi, doesn't it?

This t.bh it's really just a matter of what kind of fight were talking about. Each bender has different strengths and weaknesses even when they both bend the same element.

Lavabending is rarer than metalbending and Bumi could psychically earthbend just like Yakone & Noatok could psychically waterbend.

Kiyoshi is kind of sold as being a monstrously powerful and aggressive bender in terms of raw ability; I expect even among Avatars she's top tier in combat.

>could she lavabend
Maybe, maybe not. She had trouble with sandbending because it wasn't solid but she eventually got the hang of it. Lava would theoretically be even more difficult for her to control.

Also, apparently ones aptitude in specialized bending is genetic since Bolin said something like only 1 out of 100 earthbenders could metalbend.

my headcanon was that lavabending only became a recent thing because of the mixing of genes between fire and earth benders caused by all the fire nation colonies still being in the earth kingdom. At least that explains why there was never any earlier especially since all the nations were so segregated.

Kyoshi, Roku, and the fire avatar before him could lavabend. But they were avatars so I don't know if that debunks the headcanon or not.

Kyoshi moved an entire island. I think she'd be the safe bet.

Sozin was able to heatbend. Something we've never seen anyone else do. It would be a pretty OP power too if used on people where the user could either freeze you solid or make you spontaneously combust depending on which way they wanted the heat to flow. Basically the firebender's version of bloodbending.

The comics confirm that the royal family does indeed look for the best genes to propagate strong benders. Azulon and Ozai tracked Ursa down to a hick town in the middle of nowhere just because she had Roku's genes. The royal family would also have access to the best combat instructors available.

I also remember an interview from the creators a long time ago explaining that the Fire Lord has to stay in shape because others could challenge his authority if he appeared weak because of their militaristic society.

No, he said that if he were the one to bring down Ozai, it would be sceen as just another battle between brother over a throne.

>it would be sceen as just another battle between brother over a throne.
Which can be negated since Zuko can take the throne from his sister.

>since Bolin said
It's best to just take what Bolin said as "noise" since Bolin says a lot of things to eat up screen time and budget. Besides he was trying to pass off being interested in metalbending, trying to dismiss the attention directed towards him.

I want to believe Ozai could do that too but he probably couldn't.

He DID have that compressed heat shot where the fire was being restrained to his hand but was still increasing in intensity.

She could not defeat Bumi.

You're cherrypicking his dialogue.

"Even if I did defeat Ozai, and I don't know that I could, it will be the wrong way to end the war. History would see it as just more senseless violence, a brother killing a brother to grab power. The only way for this war to end peacefully is for the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord."

>inb4 he was just being humble
The writers put that line in there for a reason and from what we've seen of both brothers Ozai has displayed vastly superior abilities. Maybe Iroh in his prime could have been a better contender but we don't know for sure.

This is the one time I want some group of obsessive NEETS to actually put the work behind that, and make a video where I can skip to end for the answer.

The point Iroh was making was that Zuko, who was at the time struggling with what his destiny would be (wether to help the Avatar or be his downfall), was the only one who could help restore balance to the world and properly atone for their families sins. Because of his relation to both Roku and Sozin, Iroh believed that their struggle was still being ragged within Zuko himself in the form of his own struggle who he thought he should be and who could be.

Still, what with everything that went out, I'm surprised Iroh never considered stopping Ozai before via Agni Kai if he was supposedly stronger

See

That was 1 of the points.
The 2nd point was that he wasn't sure he could beat him.
A man can have more than one reason for doing or not doing something.

Reminder Kuvira did nothing wrong.

Iroh wasn't that kind of person, but I get what you're saying. Alternatively he could have just taken the throne and kept Ozai from power.

But you know who else could have stopped Ozai? Ursa. She poisoned Azulon with her extensive knowledge of herbs and such to keep Zuko from being killed. Why the fuck didn't she poison Ozai too? She knew what he was capable of and yet she did nothing.

Damn, my bad, I was super not focused on that.

Ozai kicked her out for that very reason and held the kids hostage so she would never come back. He even rhetorically asked her how long it would be before he found himself alongside his father should he allow her to stay.

It's been one year since the genderswap Avatar thread.

I know that, but why not poison them both at the same time or hell only poison Ozai in the first place? Azulon was only going to have Zuko killed to punish Ozai so that he would the pain of losing a son like Iroh did. It was just going to be punishment for the remark he made against Iroh, not like Ozai would cared anyway, bastard that he was. No Ozai, no reason for Zuko to die, No Problem.