In case you’re one of the few people left on earth who hasn’t given the masterpiece that is Avatar: The LastAirbender a chance, one of the biggest selling points of the show is the 12-year-old earth-bending prodigy, Toph, who happens to also be blind.
Now, we did just say that Toph is a 12-year-old girl, but make no mistake that she is arguably the most bad-ass character in the series (or television history, for that matter) as her confident attitude never waivers for a single moment throughout the show. Part of her confidence comes from her blindness (which she has never seen as a disability) thus allowing her to make constant jokes about her condition - and here’s a list of the 10 best blind jokes she ever made.
“I know this is from you, Sokka! Toph can’t write!”
The first joke on this list doesn’t come from Toph (in fact, she wasn’t even in the scene) but does come from an episode that was abundant with blind jokes as Toph found herself feuding with a motherly-Katara. The two girls refuse to speak with one another and Aang and Sokka see no way to make them reconcile - until Sokka gets the bright idea to send an apology letter to Katara under the ruse that it’s actually from Toph.
You can obviously see the problem that Sokka and Aang didn’t, but Katara immediately uncovered the ploy since Toph can’t read or write thanks to her blindness.
“You’ve seen nothing once, you’ve seen it a thousand times.”
One of the best parts of Toph’s lackadaisical attitude was that not only did she make jokes about her blindness, but she reached a point of such prowess with her earth-bending (and saw the vibration-method she used as such an advantage) that it seemed like she considered the ability of sight to be the actual disability.
Because of that reason, anytime one of the other main characters commented on something beautiful or appealing to look at, Toph had no problem informing them there was nothing special about it to her, including the season 3 episode where the gang gapes at a sky of shooting stars and Toph recites the classic line above.
“I’ve seen enough of Ba Sing Se, and I can’t even see!”
The real shame of Avatar: The Last Airbender was that Toph was brought in barely before the halfway mark of the series (Season 2, Episode 6).
While audiences would have loved it if Toph had gotten a little bit more screen-time, she certainly made the most of her run on the series with lines like the one above. After the gang has successfully rescued Appa from Long Feng and the Dai Li, they debate over whether they should stay or leave the Earth Kingdom capital, prompting Toph to inform the group that she votes to leave the city she’s clearly seen enough of.
“It sounds like a sheet of paper, but I guess you’re referring to what’s on the sheet of paper.”
As we stated in the first entry, the season 3 episode “The Runaway” features Toph and Katara at each other’s throats because Toph has discovered a clever way to scam people out of money using her earth-bending - we also mentioned that the episode has a lot of blind jokes, and this next one is two-fold.
When Sokka finds a wanted poster with a likeness of Toph’s face, he tries to show it to his blind friend who responds with the line above. But even better is when Katara questions Toph about the sheet of paper, causing Toph to shout, “I don’t know! I mean, seriously; what’s wrong with you people?! I’m blind!”
“Can’t you watch where you’re go…”
Another one of the best parts of Toph’s blindness was how relaxed and composed she was whenever somebody accidentally forgot that she couldn’t see. Despite using her disability to her advantage, there were occasional moments when Toph found it hard to sense any vibrations using her earth-bending, such as when the gang got trapped in a desert after Appa was kidnapped.
Toph mentioned several times throughout the episode that the sand made everything look “fuzzy’ to her, causing her to accidentally bump into Sokka when she didn’t notice that he had stopped walking. Sokka, exhausted from the sun and heat, angrily accuses Toph if she can see where she’s going, to which Toph calmly responds, “No.” That’s right, Sokka, you should feel bad.
“I’ve held books before. They don’t exactly do it for me.”
Naturally, any episode that revolves around a library and also has a blind character is going to spur more than a few jokes, and the season 2 episode literally titled, “The Library” was no exception. The gang decides that they could all use a vacation, each taking turns on where they want to go, causing Sokka to choose a long-lost Library in the middle of a desert as his destination (nice pick, Sokka).
Against all odds, they end up finding the building, but Toph decides that she’ll pass on the opportunity. When Katara asks what Toph has against libraries, she responds with the line above.
“It looks just like him to me.”
We already stated that one of the reasons the gang decided to go to Ba Sing Se was to rescue Appa (although they had already decided to go there to inform the Earth King of the solar eclipse as Appa was being stolen, but we digress). Once they reached the city, finding Appa proved to be more difficult than the group thought it would be, forcing them to make signs of the sky-bison and hang them up all over the capital.
But when Sokka’s likeness of Appa is less-than-accurate, Aang and Katara rightfully tell him that his design isn’t very good, causing Toph to chime in that the painting couldn’t be more perfect in her eyes.
“I’ll roll your whole head.”
This next one isn’t technically a blind joke, it’s just one of the best comebacks to a blind joke that Toph ever made.
Throughout the series, Toph and the gang made constant witty remarks about her blindness, most of them being in good-nature. However, in season 3 when Aang and the rebels invaded the fire-nation and run into Azula, the princess makes a comment about Toph’s blindness by implying she couldn’t see Azula rolling her eyes at her. Toph immediately comes back with a line that we would’ve loved to see her fulfill, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to see it play out that way.
“There it is!”
It’s John Cena! It’s actually just Toph Beifong, but the scene where she waves her hand around in front of her non-seeing eyes just like the famous WWE wrestler is laugh-out-loud hilarious. As we stated, the gang spent most of the season 2 episode, “The Library” searching for the actual library in a vast desert as they rode atop Appa’s back.
After hours of searching and no luck, Toph shouts out the line above and points out into the emptiness, causing everybody to look with excitement. When everyone realizes that Toph has played them for fools, she waves her hand around in front of her blind-eyes to add insult to insult.
“It’s so dark down here, I can’t see a thing.”
While Sokka may have been dehydrated and exhausted when he forgot that Toph couldn’t see in the desert, there was no excuse for this one (which makes it all the more hilarious). When the gang finally reaches the city of Ba Sing Se, they’re immediately met by a giant fire-nation drill that’s trying to penetrate the capital wall. Team Avatar tries to prevent the drill from breaking through, which includes a moment where Toph conceals the group by earth-bending a tunnel underneath it.
Once in the tunnel, all light is extinguished and Sokka voices his displeasure at not being able to see anything. Luckily for him, Toph was right there to make a snappy comment that shut him right up.
