THE DOPH: The Story So Far...
PlatinumBender asked if I wanted to come up with some The Doph headcanon stuff for the The Doph page. I am not good at that stuff, but I did want to do up something THE DOPH related, so here I go. I would have submitted this post there, but I needed to upload images from my laptop.
I am not much of a shipper, I think that needs to be said. Not to say I do not love the various relationships of Avatar and Korra, but I was never really into the whole shipping war thing and I am more a a guy to accept what happens and analyse things. There are canon ships like KATAANG and then the non canon ships like ZUTARA, I make the distinction between the two.
But then The Duke and Toph met, you could say it was the first ship I really got behind, the first ship that was not blatantly said to be “They are going out now” that I really liked.
Now many may think that this ship is a joke a “Oh they met so they must be shipped”, but no when you really look at the interaction you can see there is more.
I was asked to write some The Doph headcanons, but I am terrible at those type of things. So instead I will write this post which will hopefully be just as good (massive hopfully)
Our tale begins in The comic “The Bridge” where Pipsqueak and The Duke are caught stealing from the ship, they join the group and this is where The Duke and Toph meet for the first time. We later see that they stand next to each other as they try to go undercover through a Fire Nation barricade.
After Aang had regained consciousness the undercover group were attacked by A fire nation ship, Toph protected The Duke during this battle as Pipsqueak gave Toph rocks to fire back.
He also showed her where to Aim the rocks. What a team :)
Then when the Serpent arrives scaring everyone, The Duke also scared but his hand on Toph’s shoulder, causing a bit of embarrassment between the two, but showing that the two trusted each other enough to protect each other.
The two are then separated when Toph must leave to find Aang, who had run away. They do not meet again until the invasion.
While on the subs on the way to the Fire Nation, the two sit next to each other, showing that they are friends. Toph is seas sick and The Duke offers her his trademark helmet if she needs to get sick, further showing how much he cares for her.
During the invasion itself, Toph goes with the other earthbenders while The Duke goes with Pipsqueak. When the invasion failed, he and the rest of the younger members of the invasion fled on Appa, he had to leave his friend Pipsqueak behind, but was with Toph.
In “The Western Air Temple” after Toph storms off after arguing with her friends about dismissing Zuko, her friends cannot find her as she has been gone a long time, it is The Duke who offers to look for her with Haru and Teo.
In “Swordbending” The Duke and Toph are among those who watch Zuko and Sokka have a swordbending battle, when Toph puts up a Zuko sign upside down, it is the Duke who helps her out by turning it the right way for her.
In “No Benders Allowed” The Duke as a non benders is allowed into Sokka’s Bendless Boomerangers club. Soon he lets everyone in except Aang, and when Aang does come in we see Toph and The Duke eating next to each other with The Duke giving Toph a foot rub and we know she does not like people touching her feet.
In “The Firebending Masters” when Aang and Zuko return and demonstrated their Dancing Dragon form, Toph and The Duke are next to each other.
In “The Southern Raiders” Toph and The Duke are separated again, when Azula attacks the temple the Main Team Avatar are forced to separate from The Duke, Teo, Haru, Chit Sang and Hakoda.
Toph and The Duke are not reunited until after the end of the war. They meet at the coronation of Fire Lord Zuko and immediately The Duke hugs Toph, and she hugs back.
When Aang is presented to the crowd, The Duke and Toph are sitting atop Pipsqueak and The Hippo respectively cheering him on.
The Duke has not appeared in The Promise yet as Toph is focused on starting her Metalbending school, but I know I am awaiting the next time they meet.
So in summary as you can see Toph and The Duke are at least close friends, at the moment the two are very young, but in a few years I think it has to happen.
This is a main character and a minor character, he appears in only 9 episodes, 8 of which after Toph is introduced, the amount of times these two are either interactive or just standing or sitting next to each other really shows that the creators made an effort to show their closeness.
So who is Lin’s father ?
In my opinion it is The Duke, his helmet becomes a family heirloom.
How much do you like THE DOPH.
