Before the Netflix Avatar series releases, Toph Beifong’s ORIGINAL Voice Actor is rewatching full episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Today, she’s watching “The Southern Raiders!” Continuing Zuko’s field trips with almost ALL of Team Avatar… except Toph… he is now taking Katara to confront her mother’s killer, Yon Rha! Let’s revisit, rewatch, and react to the original series of Avatar: The Last Airbender, before the live-action series releases on Netflix!
#AvatarTheLastAirbender #Avatar #ATLA
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Tea Time with Toph is a YouTube series starring the voice actor of the original Toph Beifong herself, Michaela Jill Murphy! Follow along with all new episodes as Michaela rewatches and reacts to Avatar: The Last Airbender, all leading up to the new live-action series releasing on Netflix! Excited for what’s to come, and thrilled to have all you Twinkle-Toes along for the ride!
Michaela Jill Murphy is an American voice, film, and stage actress. She is known as the voice of Toph Beifong in the animated Nickelodeon television series “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. Michaela’s voice has been featured in several animated movies, including Meet the Robinsons, Over the Hedge, The Ant Bully, Finding Nemo, The Emperor’s New School, and Brother Bear 2.
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I think forgiving someone for such an act isn't an option.
It's not so much about revenge, but I guess for justice.
I am not saying the same thing should happen to that person.
But you sure as hell should want that person to be unable to ever hurt anyone the same way ever again.
zutara🫂🫂🫂
Was the fact that Katara didn't need the full moon to bloodbend ever adressed? Was it meant to be a full moon but the establishing shot was left out? Was it meant to show how much power she was drawing from her rage? Or is she just that powerful at her baseline now? She did tell Hama that she was stronger than her during thier fight.
One thing it's easy to forget is how these kids' literal lives have been depending on thier respective skills improving throughout thier journey so they've really honed them to become true masters of thier elements. Even Sokka, not just after learning swordsmanship, but even more so that god level accuracy with his boomerang when he took out Sparky Sparky Boom Man.
Well, this is just me, but if someone took a loved one away from me like Katara lost her mother, I wouldn't forgive that person/people either. Forgiveness and revenge are choices, not obligations.
@2:39 well yeah – He is the rizzbender!
I try and generally fail at forgiveness, so I attempt to do nothing. Doing nothing isn't easy. The things I want to do would put me in prison and give me worse karma than I already have.
Worse, she bloodbent an innocent 10:54
Ive never liked aang in this episode this the guy that threw a temper tantrum over appa bit katara isnt allowed to be mad about the death of her mother
And yeah character development and all that but it always comes off a bit hypocritical to me
Also can we take a moment to recgonize that hama pretty much got kataras mom killed
They show up looking for a waterbender the last wanterbender and theyre arwnt taking prisoners today
They were looking for hama or even if they werent shes the reason they went from taking prisoners to killing
Personally, when Aang says "it's easy to do nothing, but it's hard to forgive." Of course she can't forgives Yon Rha, she forgives Zuko, but she should also forgive herself. She probably has unspoken and untouched trauma of blaming herself for her mom being killed. Who knows?
Forgiveness is literally the act of letting go, and has nothing to do with action. You can choose to forgive and to act at the same time. In the same vein, you can choose to hold on to all the bitterness and still do nothing. Forgiving someone who hurt you so deeply is so incredibly hard to do, which is why some people, including Katara, choose not to. But letting go is not the same as reconcilliation, making it okay or enabling crappy behavior, it's simply choosing not to let it poison you anymore. And this episode was an excellent example of what holding onto that resentment can do to you. It poisoned her until she was resorting to bloodbending, torture and attempted murder. She needed to let go.
I think certain things are impossible to forgive, but everything should be faced and dealt with. I agree with the approach Katara ultimately took, facing your trauma but not forgiving something as big as that. I would have done the same
What!! So cool – I didn’t realize Toph’s voice actor had a YouTube channel 😀 she’s my favorite character.
Greetings from Texas ✌🏼 I think Katara needed to get some closure about her past. She needed to confront her mother’s killer so that she can move on from this trauma. Maybe not kill him, but let her anger out. She did kinda blamed Zuko for this as Ozai and Azulon ordered the water tribe raids which caused the near extinction of the water benders. This was also Zuko’s chance to mend things with Katara because he’s giving her that window of closure. Thus, redeeming himself in Katara’s favor.
Also, I think letting Yon Rha live knowing that he left two children motherless for nothing is a better revenge than killing him.
“Revenge is like a poison. It can take you over, and before you know it, it can turn you into something ugly.”
I'm still scratching my head to this day wondering: how did the Southern Raiders know there was a waterbender there without also knowing who it was? If their unnamed source had witnessed it, they should at least know that a child did it. Did they just happen across an unnatural ice formation and conclude that only waterbending could make that shape?
Balance is key…
Sometimes you need violence to get the point across, and sometimes words will do just fine
It's likely Yon Rha is the one that owns the house and is taking care of his mother. I'm pretty sure that sort of thing would be the norm in the Fire Nation
8:26
Oh that frame was the best!!😆😆😆
Forgiveness IS doing nothing. No retaliation, no getting reparations, no getting justice; Forgiveness, quite frankly does not exist in my personal philosophy. If someone wrongs me and I WILL get some form of retribution; tenfold. I will absolutely overkill my retribution. To send a message, to anyone who might try to wrong me in the future. It's like Ender says in the movie Ender's Game when he beats the living snot out of the kid that's trying to bully him. He tells Harrison Ford that "the first retaliatory hit was self defense to stop THAT specific bullying event. Every other hit that followed was to prevent any and all other potential bullying in the future." And not just by the bully either. The Bully's lackey's were watching as Ender just continued to kick the kid while he was already down and they looked afraid that Ender had lost all his sanity and gone savage AF.
And this is a man that not only murdered Katara's mother, but enjoyed doing it. He relished in killing Waterbenders.
But most importantly it's smug, condescending and arrogant for Aang to assume he KNOWS what Katara NEEDS in this moment. Yes, he lost his entire culture to genocide, BUT Katara is not HIM. I have far too much personal experience with that situation; people telling me that I had mourned long enough after my mother died. Or when I decided to simply remove my father from my life by cutting off any and all contact these same people telling me I should call and forgive him because it will be good for me.
My thoughts exactly. They said he retired, not got fired. As a member of a Waterbender Raiding company you would figure he would have had SOME form of payment for his service. Even Ozai has to understand the value of rewarding his soldiers with compensation. He actually has rewarded what he considers to be good service. He promoted Xaio to Admiral and gave him a HUGE fleet even after he lost a duel to Zuko. It kind of makes me wonder if the Fire Nation just revoked every privilege he ever had once he retired. Taking his home, his saved wages for services rendered; and just threw him out on the street.
I think katara is totally valid. And, how she went about it in the end was honerable? Respectful? She make the person. She wanted revenge on have fear and regret, without having to hurt them. Ideally thats great.
I agree with Zuko and Katara all the way.
this episode was incredible for me for a number of reasons but specifically when I watched as a kid was eye opening. i had left a very toxic friendship and a lot of people around me were telling me to forgive them but seeing katara not forgiving him or taking revenge but still getting closure in a sense by facing that trauma gave me an approach to deal with that friend. serious shout out to all the incredible writers of this show who broke down this topic in a great way for kids to process and understand
Yon Rha:😰 You can take my mother 😈That would be fair. Katara:😨Ah 😡F🤬K YOU!!! 🦵🏻💥. Yon Rha:😖GAH!!! Katara:👿 Now we’re Even. Jerk!
Asking Katara to kill his own mother! Yon Rha deserves a kick to the face!
RE: Forgiveness
There was a piece by Scroobius Pip that talked about 4 lessons that changed his life and one of them was "If you can't forgive and forget, then how's this – Forget forving and just accept." To break that down, you don't have to forgive somebody who hurt you, but you don't have to dwell on either. You can carry on without forgiving them or forgetting the pain and without aiming for revenge. It happened, sometimes nothing changes that and nothing will make it feel better. If you can't put it behind you then the only thing you can do is live with it, and you won't be able to do that without accepting that you can't change what has already happened.
Michaela is a Tokka shipper confirmed
Well I just realized that, if the couple at the camp did do the deed. How much did Toph unfortunately witness via earth radar/sense? That poor kid can't catch a break 🤣
I kinda expected Katara's va to join you in this episode.
I don’t believe in forgiveness, i believe in letting go and moving on. Forgiveness is only necessary when you want to move one with someone, but when things are so big and you don’t want a relationship or bond with that someone, forgiveness is not necessary
One of my favourite theories about ATLA is that Hama, the blood bending woman is partially responsible for Kya's death.
"I'm not taking prisoners today" is probably because the last one developed blood bending and broke out of prison, which probably made the fire nation a bit scared of trying to imprison water benders.
The timeline fits too, Hama broke out of the prison before they returned to the south pole, which we can figure out because of Kataras age.
Spooky stuff.
So glad you're doing all these, so awesome to watch.
It's very complicated and there's no one-size-fits-all answer, which Avatar hints at where other shows tend to focus on picking a side. Revenge can create a cycle. Imagine a situation where the Fire Nation soldier was NOT a sad, pathetic man. Imagine instead he had a family of his own living a contented life of comfort and wealth. Would Katara have been able to stay her hand then? And if so, what about his children who would want revenge against the woman who took away their father? And then if they come for their revenge, would Katara's children avenge her?
However, there are times when only revenge can heal wounds. Think The Princess Bride. Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. This pain was buried so deep in his heart that this six-fingered man could come into his life for just a brief moment and take everything from him – murdering his father and disfiguring him. In the end there (Spoilers, sorry), Inigo eventually has Rugen at his mercy. "Offer me money. Power too. Offer me anything I ask for…"
And what happens at the end of these two revenge stories are two different paths. And I dare anyone to convince me that one is right and the other is wrong. Katara realizes that killing this man won't bring her mother back, so there's no reason to kill him. Inigo realizes that killing this man won't bring his father back…so there's nothing that can save him.