<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=166717.msg7813808#msg7813808">Quote from: Karma on 03-03-2013, 01:08:22</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">By the way, the Toph/Sokka plot (and really the whole story) is a setup/transition for Korra. It establishes bender families with multiple types of bending within them, metalbending being popularized, and if I recall correctly, that city ends up becoming Republic City.</div></div></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">But it's the Aang&amp;Zuko plot that establishes families with multiple styles of bending in them.  Toph never even meets the Fire Nation Earth Bender girl, and Sokka only meets the girl for a second to repeat the "it's funny when fat guys date hot girls" joke.  The only person they have any sincerely profound effect on is Katara who sees them as a future reflection of Aang and herself.  She isn't even involved in that side of the story until the last few pages when she's basically all "Fire Nation get out, I don't trust Zuko because he's a crazy jerk just like his dad!" despite the fact that in the series she was literally the only main character who had no reason not to trust Zuko.<br/><br/>We aren't told at all what happens to the city, but once again that was all the focus of the Aang&amp;Zuko plot.  Though, I thought Republic City was on the water and Yu Dao is in a valley surrounded by mountains.  Given how Zuko and the Earth King both got there, it actually seemed to be smack in the middle of a canyon.  Granted, an Avatar has moved an entire city before, but we're not shown that's what happened in this story if it's supposed to be what happened.<br/><br/>I'll grant that the lines about "This is a new world we're building", as well as Aang making an active choice to distance himself from his past to make his own way, all poitn towards the kind of world that exists in Korra.  But all of that stuff happens without Toph or Sokka's involvement.<br/><br/>Toph's story does establish her as teaching Metal Bending, but there didn't need to be a story involving 3 1-dimensional characters we don't even see Earth Bend fighting the "mean kids dojo" to establish that.  It was already established in one page when they showed us the Beifong Metal Bending School... it's an entire reveal that could have been handled via exposition, "Hey Toph, what have you been doing?" "I'm teaching Metal Bending now... I love yelling at people." "Okay, wanna get involved in the main story?"<br/><br/>Honestly, it didn't really <em>need </em>to be established at all.  The very fact that she discovers Metal Bending in the first place means it is possible, so when we flash forward 100 years into the future and see people Metal Bending we don't need it established that Toph taught it to 3 losers at a school and took up 1/3 of a far more important story to do so. *laughs*  Once somebody can do something (barring a case where that person is something special like the Avatar) it can be assumed that other people will later come around to do it just as well or better, particularly when we're sliding down generations like this.  We actually would have needed more of an explanation if there hadn't been Metal Bending in Korra, since that would require the entire Earth Kingdom outright ignoring or actively rejecting what is arguably the greatest advancement in their art.<br/><br/>I think it's far more likely they just didn't want to not include Sokka and Toph, but didn't know what to do with them so they wrote up a quick B-Plot and stuck it in there, or they had the story sitting around and it wasn't big enough to make a thing of its own so they made it the B-Plot in here.  It happens all the time.  But the problem with B-Plots is that if a story can be told with those elements completely removed and not lose anything of substance, you really have to ask yourself if it's worth keeping those parts in if you have to sacrifice time on the bigger story you're telling.  Particularly given that Toph's story has more of a wrap-up than the story about Yu Dao.</div></div>