In Avatar, some people, called ‘benders,’ can telekinetically control an element of …show more content…
His approach is more direct: he uses the powerful word ‘war,’ a choice that may be part of his performing masculinity: men are viewed as strong, so they wouldn’t shy away from talking about war. He also may have been trying to make Toph uncomfortable to persuade her to help. Then, there’s a sudden shift in Toph’s tone. She raises her voice, both in pitch and volume, to call the guards to scare away the trio. When they scatter, Toph speaks timidly to the guards, sounding much more like one would expect of a twelve-year-old blind girl. The raised pitch is more feminine, and she says she “thought” she heard someone, which implies that she was mistaken, just a silly little girl, and she says she got scared, because that’s what society, particularly her protective parents, expects of her. This drastic change reveals how people may perform their gender differently the expectations of them given their current