 My daughter is blind. She is blind and tiny and helpless and fragile. She cannot help you Who is Toph Beifong? Toph is tough, helpful, fun She's the daughter of the wealthy Beifongs and Toph is the most powerful earthbender in the world She also invented metal bending Toph is a 12 year old girl. Oh and Toph is blind We watched Toph at her strongest and most powerful Toph at her happiest and we also saw her at her lowest and weakest and Sometimes a Toph just right in the middle when we first meet the blind bandit It is quickly established that she is blind and that's all the show tells us about her blindness The characters don't sit there doubting her ability or sit there in disbelief It is told to us and the show continues on as it should and From Aang, Katara and Saka, that's the only reaction they have That's it. They move on to see Toph as her own person with her own identity This reaction contradicts Toph's parents greatly Toph's parents see her disability as an immense crutch They see Toph not as a girl who has hopes and dreams and abilities But as this girl as their daughter who is blind fragile and helpless And this is reflected by the way her existence as her daughter of the Bayfons is hidden Because they believe if people find out that their daughter is blind They may try to hurt her or them In two books we learned why Toph is the way she is why he acts the way that she does We learned that her parents treated her in a way that is very overprotective and that's tripped her of her own agency Which causes her to feud with Katara later on Toph doesn't want to be told what to do and where to go She craves freedom Her discovering metal bending was more than just learning a new bending art It was innovation and it was that very freedom But Toph is more than just a blind girl Now I want to look at Teo. Teo was only shown a few times in the series and Teo is an airwalker a group of people who reside in the northern air temple and the fabricated gliders to cruise the sky imitating the airbenders before them and Teo carries the spirit of the airbenders inside of him as he is playful and very talented with this glider that he and his father built in addition to being an aerial ace Teo is a brilliant mechanist as he has built his own glider and the second time he encounters Aang He's applies the avatar with a brand new glider Also due to a flood that occurred in his home village when he was young Teo was paralyzed from the waist down But Teo is more than just a guy in a wheelchair And third let us look at Minghua in the Legend of Korra series Minghua is a member of the Red Lotus a group of benders and non-benders who follow the anarchist-like philosophies of their leader Zaheer and the airbender guru Lahima Minghua when not fighting is very laid-back and has a sarcastic crew humor along with her But Minghua always defends her team no matter what cause She is also a very ferocious waterbender Who was once captured by the likes of Saka Tanrock and Fire Lord Zuko and She always found new innovative ways to waterbend She was amongst the deadliest members of her team when it came to individual combat due to her aggressive style of waterbending and Her inventive use of ice In addition her swift mobility in combat Also Minghua doesn't have any arms Instead she uses waterbending to create water tendrils as arms and uses them so efficiently in combat Minghua is more than just a woman without arms And finally Korra Korra is the avatar a Headstrong brash, but passionate one Korra has been through a lot a bloodbender a spirit bender an airbender and a metal bender These are tasks that Korra had to face in her life, but that airbender who was here Damaged Korra the most not only physically but mentally as well Korra suffered through depression PTSD and Korra was once injured to the point where she could not walk needing a wheelchair and This wheelchair stripped Korra's thoughts and her identity But Korra was more than her temporary disability She may not have thought that she was when she was injured, but she was Now disabilities have shaped their lives and their experiences Toph specifically has insecurities about it She has anger towards the people around her about it when they try and help her because of those experiences and Iroh teaches her that not everybody sees her only as a disabled She has friends that love and care about her and that helping her asking her if she needs help Isn't because of the fact that she's blind, but rather because she's loved Toph being blind is written as an addition to her character and it is one of the things that makes her so powerful Because she can't see her earthbending is improved and she has a seismic sense Toph waits and listens and it adds a layer to her personality and her perspective on the world She treats people as the way that they should be treated not for the way they look But how they treat others and how they treat her These characters need to be treated like real people Mostly these characters have to be treated like other characters They need to have lives likes and dislikes challenges and breakthroughs It is also worth noting that when writing disability you cannot dismiss the fact that they are disabled In the last airbender, they do not run around and act like Toph can see Rather they face it head-on making jokes about it bringing it to light But they never focus on it. It is never a main focal point of an episode or for her These characters need to be well-rounded their entire persona cannot be based around the fact that they are disabled if this is the case You create a character simply because you're trying to fill a box or a quota They have to be dimensional If you are going to put your viewer in a different perspective in their perspective you have a duty to do it properly