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SMNTY Classics: Toph Beifong · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and Smitha and welcome to stuff.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I never told your production of ihearted you. And for
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  Speaker 1: today's classic, we are bringing back a fictional woman around
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  Speaker 1: the world that we did on tof Beifong from Avatar
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  Speaker 1: The Last Airbender, because the second season recently came out
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  Speaker 1: on Netflix and this was the first time we had
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  Speaker 1: a live action Touf played by Miaco and Miyako is
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  Speaker 1: ten years old, I believe, and she grew up loving
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  Speaker 1: the show. While the actress is not blind, the character
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  Speaker 1: is blind if you miss this episode. She wore vision
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  Speaker 1: obscuring contact lenses and worked with a blindness consultant. So
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  Speaker 1: like things about how she pours tea, measures the height
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  Speaker 1: of stairs with her feet, and speaking of feet, she
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  Speaker 1: also learned how to work with oversized silicone toof feet.
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  Speaker 1: It seems like she was really well received. Like, the
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  Speaker 1: character is very, very popular, and it seems like this
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  Speaker 1: depiction of her and the actress's depiction of her was
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  Speaker 1: really well received. I'm not so sure about the show overall,
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  Speaker 1: but you can let me know. But yeah, that was cool.
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  Speaker 1: It was cool to see an update on it. I
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  Speaker 1: was watching a trailer for it the other day. Very neat,
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  Speaker 1: so please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Anny
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  Speaker 1: and Samantha and welcome to Steff One ever told you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio? And welcome to another sub sub sub
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  Speaker 1: subsub segment. Fictional women around the World. And this was
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a listener suggestion from Taylor. Thank you. Taylor. Taylor is
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  Speaker 1: our unofficial Olympic correspondent who's written in before. So hopefully
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: we'll be hearing from Taylor soon about something. How do
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  Speaker 1: we make her official? Oh that's true. We need to
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  Speaker 1: we need to discuss this, we need to do what
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  Speaker 1: is the initiation? So today we are talking about Tough
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  Speaker 1: from Avatar, The Last Airbender and Legend of Kora. Disclaimer,
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  Speaker 1: I have not seen these shows. I have seen episodes,
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  Speaker 1: but I haven't seen the whole thing. So as always,
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  Speaker 1: I always kind of fell out of my depth when
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  Speaker 1: I do one about someone I don't know personally. Nothing
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  Speaker 1: about this Yeah, oh my goodness is very popular. But
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  Speaker 1: let me know if I get anything wrong. But we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna I think we're gonna give a good background because
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: this character is beloved Samantha, So Tough Beaifong is a
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  Speaker 1: fictional character from the animated shows The Last Airbender and
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  Speaker 1: the Legend of Korra. She was first introduced in the
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and six episode of The Last Airbender, The
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  Speaker 1: Blind Bandit, and at the time she was a twelve
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  Speaker 1: year old girl. But yes, if you have no idea
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  Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Avatar The Last Airbender is an
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  Speaker 1: animated series set in a fictional, largely Asian inspired world.
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  Speaker 1: It ran from two thousand and five to two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and eight and was followed by the Legend of Korra,
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  Speaker 1: which ran from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. In this universe,
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  Speaker 1: some people have the ability to telekinetically control the four
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  Speaker 1: elements fire, earth, water, and air, and this is called bending.
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  Speaker 1: The Avatar is the only being who can bend all
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  Speaker 1: four elements. The story largely follows Aang, the last survivor
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  Speaker 1: of his kind, Avatar, and his friends, including Tough. It
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  Speaker 1: has won So So So So So many awards and
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  Speaker 1: is viewed by many as one of the best animated
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  Speaker 1: shows of all time. It touches on things like genocide, war, politics, imperialism, sexism, discrimination,
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  Speaker 1: and choice. Those are just a few. There was a
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  Speaker 1: live action movie and Night Shyamalan did, but it was
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  Speaker 1: generally panned and accused of whitewashing, I would say, rightfully so.
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  Speaker 1: There is also a live action series as of this
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  Speaker 1: year on Netflix which I haven't seen and has gotten
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  Speaker 1: mixed reviews, but I believe they are doing a season
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  Speaker 1: two and they're casting Tough Now. There are games and comics,
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  Speaker 1: are all kinds of media surrounding this, but all right
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  Speaker 1: back to our character. Tough was born blind and because
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  Speaker 1: of that has had limitations placed on her by others
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  Speaker 1: since she was very young. She is an earth bender,
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  Speaker 1: which basically means she can telekinetically manipulate and control sand, dirt, stone,
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  Speaker 1: and eventually metal. However, because of her blindness her extremely
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  Speaker 1: overprotective parents, they limited her to basic earthbending like they
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't really let her explore it. But Tough gets around
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  Speaker 1: this after she meets some badger moles through blind animals
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  Speaker 1: who naturally earthbend, and through their teaching, she learns to
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  Speaker 1: quote see through vibrations. Through her training, she earned herself
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  Speaker 1: the alias the Blind Bandit. She won a lot of
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  Speaker 1: underground earth bending tournaments. Frequently she ran away from her
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  Speaker 1: her parents, trying to escape them and learn more about
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  Speaker 1: her abilities. She eventually decided to travel with Aang and
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  Speaker 1: the others, including an earth bending teacher. Again she's twelve
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  Speaker 1: years old. Tough argued with some of the other team
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  Speaker 1: members in the beginning, even temporarily leaving the team before
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  Speaker 1: returning to teach Aang about earth bending. Tough skills proved
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  Speaker 1: essential to the team, and she brought them closer together.
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  Speaker 1: After Tough receives a letter from her mother claiming that
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  Speaker 1: she is in the city, she understands Tough now, Tough
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  Speaker 1: goes to see her, but on her way is captured
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  Speaker 1: and put into cage. Her frustration and determination to escape
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  Speaker 1: led to her becoming the first metal bender in earth
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  Speaker 1: bending history. Basically, she was able to see that earth
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  Speaker 1: in the metals through seismic actions like banging her hands
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  Speaker 1: against it. She freed herself and rendezvous with Aang and
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  Speaker 1: others soon after. She used her new found abilities to
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  Speaker 1: free herself and her companions. Tough's metal bending ability proved
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  Speaker 1: invaluable when they were low on funds. She used it
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  Speaker 1: to cheat in gambling, which did end in prison, but
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  Speaker 1: she escaped. Later. She used her truth seeing ability to
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  Speaker 1: know that their believed enemy, Prince Zuko, was being truthful
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  Speaker 1: when he had a change of heart and he was
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  Speaker 1: willing to teach Aang fire bending. After they are attacked,
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  Speaker 1: the team settled on Imber Island, were Tough enjoyed a
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  Speaker 1: portrayal of her in a play depicting their journeys. Aang
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  Speaker 1: disappears after that, and the remaining crew travels to the
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  Speaker 1: Earth Kingdom. They are able to save that kingdom, and
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  Speaker 1: Ang returns. Tough goes on to found a metal bending school,
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  Speaker 1: first with three students. The school gets caught up in
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  Speaker 1: a conflict and Tough almost gives it up, but her
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  Speaker 1: students are able to meddle bend for the first time
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  Speaker 1: and they fight and they went. Tough reunites with Team
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  Speaker 1: Avatar for a festival where she runs into her father,
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  Speaker 1: who does not speak up to say she is his
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  Speaker 1: daughter and has her escorted off the premises of the
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  Speaker 1: refinery that he co owns. Later, she confronted him and
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  Speaker 1: he all but disowns her. He does not recognize any
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  Speaker 1: of her accomplishments. When the mind starts to collapse, Tough
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  Speaker 1: uses her ability to stop it and save the workers,
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  Speaker 1: her father, her friend, and herself, but she collapses from
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  Speaker 1: the exhaustion of that soon After help ride, she convinces
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  Speaker 1: aang not to destroy the factory. So basically, he was like,
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  Speaker 1: this is bad for the earth. Tough was like, well,
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily, and she convinced him not to destroy it.
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  Speaker 1: Her school grows and her first students are now able
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  Speaker 1: to teach. Despite the success, Tough is bored. Her interest
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  Speaker 1: in teaching is reinvigorated, though, when she agreed to teach
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  Speaker 1: a lava bender named Sun over time. She acted as
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  Speaker 1: a diplomat, a warrior, a spy, participated in a political
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  Speaker 1: skirmish with bender supremacists, who are basically people that believe
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  Speaker 1: benders are better than everybody else. Was Republic City's first
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  Speaker 1: chief of police, had two daughters that both went on
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  Speaker 1: to become Earth bending masters. Helped guide her friend Cora,
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  Speaker 1: and ran for governor. She failed, but then was asked
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  Speaker 1: a run again and refused because she was like politics
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  Speaker 1: are bearable, and I'm like, okay, I see you. She
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  Speaker 1: was seen as a hero and a competent teacher. I
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  Speaker 1: believe there's a statue of her in Republic City. This
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  Speaker 1: character is independent, stubborn, brash, sarcastic, and very blunts. Due
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  Speaker 1: to her upbringing, she was eager to prove herself and
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  Speaker 1: excelled at earthbunding. She wasn't worried about her appearance, and
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  Speaker 1: she was usually covered in a quote healthy coating of dirt.
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  Speaker 1: She was generally barefoot and sometimes purposely uncouth to rebel
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  Speaker 1: against her aristocratic upbringing, like she would burb and spit
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  Speaker 1: and all those things. She was very comfortable with her blindness,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes joking about it or calling it out when people
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  Speaker 1: would hand her pieces of writing or posters. As she
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  Speaker 1: grew older, she did become more cynical, and her relationship
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  Speaker 1: with her daughters grew strained, but she still kept an
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  Speaker 1: touch with those that she cared about. And here's just
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  Speaker 1: a quote to illustrate this character. So one of the
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  Speaker 1: characters says, it's so dark down here, I can't see
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  Speaker 1: a thing, and she says, very sarcastically, oh no, what
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  Speaker 1: a nightmare. Her skill in earth bending was also unique
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  Speaker 1: because she'd been taught more about the nature of it
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  Speaker 1: outside of rigid teachings of a lot of others, so
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  Speaker 1: she kind of learned it outside of structures. I guess
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  Speaker 1: her style was derived from Southern praying mantis, which is
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  Speaker 1: a type of kung fu. She was weak to air
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  Speaker 1: attacks and didn't like traveling by air subs that she
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  Speaker 1: couldn't feel the earth beneath her feet. She went on
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  Speaker 1: to learn sand bending too, and of course yes, metal bending.
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  Speaker 1: So there are a lot of reasons this show is interesting.
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  Speaker 1: But the show creator is consulted with professional martial artists
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  Speaker 1: for the show's fighting styles. A big one four tough
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  Speaker 1: is called neutral jing. Essentially, this involves listening, reacting, balancing
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  Speaker 1: attacks and defense, and predicting and opponent's next move. Some
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  Speaker 1: behind the scenes stuff. This character was originally designed as
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  Speaker 1: a sixteen year old male jock type. It was very
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  Speaker 1: muscular in foul mouthed. I believe in the original pilot
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  Speaker 1: he's in it, but they redid the pilot so it's
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  Speaker 1: not the one we saw, but he was in like
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  Speaker 1: the one they were showing networks and stuff. As the
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: show got closer to airing, the idea was pitched that
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  Speaker 1: they should change it to a young girl, in part
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  Speaker 1: for humor, because they thought would be kind of funny.
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  Speaker 1: They have this like girl who's spitting and all this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. Some have said it was refreshing and feminist.
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  Speaker 1: Ab a character have two children with two different men
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  Speaker 1: and never be questioned about it, although some lamented that
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  Speaker 1: her relationship with her daughters tarnished her legac. However, others
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: argue that that is from the pov of her daughters,
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  Speaker 1: so you're not kind of getting her whole side of
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  Speaker 1: that story. But I did think that was interesting. I
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  Speaker 1: wasn't expecting that when I was reading this from my
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  Speaker 1: experience with the show, I didn't know that there was
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: all this other like comics and all this other stuff
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  Speaker 1: that explores what happens when they get older. And I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: didn't know she had two daughters two different dudes, And
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  Speaker 1: was like, that was it. Nobody cared. I like it,
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  Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, this is a really fascinating character. I
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  Speaker 1: had a lot of fun researching her, and she's a
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  Speaker 1: fan favorite. People love her. The creators were saying, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they kind of fought. Some of them weren't on board
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  Speaker 1: with changing her to a young girl, and now they're like,
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  Speaker 1: this is my favorite character. I'm so glad that we
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: did this. And I the original jock dude that was
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: gonna be her is in an episode, so if you
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: love Easter Eggs, they did include him. Yeah, yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: I thank you so much Taylor for the suggestion. Again,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: if I got anything wrong, please let me know. If
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: you have any thoughts about this, please let us know.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: You can email us at Stephania mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Never Told You. We have a YouTube page, we have
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a tea public store, and we have a book you
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to our super producer Christina or executive producer Maya, and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Stuff I Never Told You is production by Heart Radio.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: out the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.