Republic City Dispatch

Excellent! Good to know there’s some standard for this weird “is she alive or not?” zone.

We didn’t receive any compelling evidence that Toph was dead. Most people who argued that she was claim that EVERYONE we saw in that flashback was dead (Sokka, Toph, Aang, Regretful Eyes), but we have even less basis for that than thinking Toph was dead in the first place.

We don’t know if Toph is alive or dead.

This is our stance on Toph until:

1) Someone brings us a quote from one of the creators commenting on Toph’s life status

2) It’s addressed in The Legend Of Korra

3) It’s addressed in The Promise

-Da7e-

Of course - all theories are valid until disproved, so keep ‘em coming.

Yes, the Avatar Wiki says Toph is dead, but when we looked into the interview that is sourced for this fact, the interview was outdated and erroneous. (POST HERE)

I’m not for blindly trusting the Wiki on this point, I’m looking for one of the show creators saying Toph is dead. Otherwise, we don’t really know.

Return of Melon Lord?

by *DarkKenjie

BING! 

Oh, The Promise. (We did a post on where to get it HERE)

I’ll say that the whole thing is up on YouTube, but we as a podcast don’t support it, because you should go buy the few official A:TLA/KORRA products there are. 

Good! Good to know Toph may not be dead. Keep scouring, fans! Someone had to say something. : )

-Da7e-

P.S. Also from YANK-76:

“Also, I have to say I love your guys’ theory about chibending being an extension of airbending. My roommate and I looked at each other and started going through scenarios in AtLA and were like “THIS WOULD EXPLAIN SO MUCH!”. Although I have to ask if you think chibending and chi blocking are two different techniques, or if it’s like Iroh learning to redirect lightning from the waterbenders?”

I haven’t the foggiest what this series definition of Bending Vs. Blocking. I would assume they are opposite forces, just because the world needs to be in balance and if Korra is the Avatar, Amon represents the opposite (non-bender) but with the same goal (unity).

Yes and no.

Yes, she bent steam, but steam is water particles in the air and Cloudbending, as we saw from the original series, is a combo specialization that both air and waterbenders can do.

The Wikia (which we trust, but occasionally doubt, so it’s far from the last word) classifies Cloudbending as a subset of Waterbending.

Well, here’s kicking off the big question of this week:

CAN SOMEONE SOURCE ME THE THING THAT SAYS TOPH IS DEAD?

The Avatar Wika page for her reads: “Toph passed away sometime before 170 ASC, but a statue now stands in her honor at Republic City’s police headquarters.^[7]”

But that little 7 that is supposed to link to the source leads to an interview with Andrea Romano, voice casting director, who only says a few lines about Korra, one of them being

_______________________________________________

Q: Will Aang in any way be in the series?

ANDREA ROMANO: I don’t know how much of the series I’m allowed to tell you, but that whole generation has died. It’s the next generation. So it’s really cool. It’s the same producers. It’s the same brilliant attention to detail and I’m very excited. Right now we are just making twelve of them and we’ll see what happens.

_______________________________________________

That interview was published August 2nd 2010 when they were only 3 episodes into creating the series and it’s the only source we have for Toph being dead?

So, I went back to the Comic Con transcript and there’s only this mention of Toph in the past tense from Michael:

Michael: So Toph, as you know, was a metal bender. She kind of like, travelled the world, started teaching people, earth benders, how to harness this ability. It’s still kind of a rare thing. Not every earth bender does metal bending but, we have these kind of, it’s the elites, kind of swat team of Republic City.”

A combo of the Comic Con panel and allusions to Toph’s activities in The Promise (Part One) was where Devindra was pulling from when he said Toph was traveling the world teaching metal bending in Episode 3 of the podcast (which is finally ready for you on iTunes by the way), but I can’t find anywhere that says Toph is actually dead.

Bring me official quotes of Toph’s dead-ness! Do they exist?

I think this is totally plausible. I’m not sure if “Pro-Bending” itself is diverse enough to be considered it’s own style, but if it is, it’s about standing your ground (territory based moves).

Here’s hoping that Pro Benders are also good at keeping their distance. Chi blockers need contact for their skill to work, so one would think staying away from the Equalists would work.

Then again, they’re all ninja-y so they’ll just rope you and pull you into the shadows anyway.

I’ve very excited to learn more about the Pro Bending culture over the next two episodes (I think it’s going to be 2). 

-Da7e-

(fan art: work in progress by theuglymuffin)

Yes!

elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey also wrote in saying:

“hey! im 17 and i remember geocities! don’t feel too old!”