"The Blind Bandit" is an episode from the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which airs on Nickelodeon. It is the sixth episode of the second season of the series.
As result of the Fire Nation's invasion of the Omashu, Aang struggles to search for an Earthbender to teach him the art of earthbending. Aang and company discover an underground earthbending tournament where they encounter a blind girl named Toph who possesses extraordinary earthbending abilities. After witnessing her powerful skills, Aang desires for Toph to be his earthbending teacher, but other complications prevent the recruitment.
The group stops by a street corner market within the town of Gaoling thanks to a green satchel that catches Sokka's eye. As the others wait for him to come to a decision on his purchase, a man passing out fliers walks by and hands them one. It is a coupon for a free earthbending lesson of an Earthbending Academy belonging to a Master Yu. Aang naturally takes the offer, but he quickly finds that Master Yu cares more about having him pay for lessons then he does about teaching him earthbending. As they leave the courtyard, they hear from a pair of students about Earth Rumble VI, a Lei tai tournament featuring several powerful Earthbenders. Seeing yet another opportunity to find an skillful teacher, Aang asks where the tournament is to be held, but the boys are less than cooperative to provide the location. That is until Katara uses her "feminine charm" to win them over, which involves freezing them to the walls.
At the literally underground tournament, the three are treated to a variety of colorful contenders, including a large sumo-like wrestler, a tunneler who expresses gopher characteristics, and a particularly unpopular contender who apparently claims allegiance to the Fire Nation. But the one that stands out the most is a powerful but rather obnoxious and inflated Earthbender named The Boulder, who is able to defeat every challenger he comes across. Sokka completely gets into it, but neither Katara nor Aang are very impressed, Aang commenting that the Boulder is "just listening to his muscles." The Boulder goes on to defeat several other contenders, until he works his way up to the final round versus current champion, The Blind Bandit.
The literally blind Earthbender turns out to be Toph, a small, twelve-year-old girl. Before their matches begins, the Blind Bandit taunts The Boulder, who originally retained but swiftly overcomes uneasiness towards the prospect of fighting a blind child. The Boulder yells and begins to take a step forward, but before his foot can even touch the ground, Toph instinctively kicks up her foot and sends out a trail of churned earth forward that arches just before him. When the Boulder's heel touches the ground, it meets the trail, making him suddenly drop down and perform a painful split. The Blind Bandit follows up with a chopping motion that jolts three small, slanted rock pillars which ejects him out of the ring straight into the walls of the stands.
Recalling Bumi's last advice, Aang notices the Bandit's techniques, especially how she waits and listens carefully to the movements of her opponent, and realizes that she is precisely the type of person Bumi said would make a good earthbending teacher. He also comes to the realization that she is the mysterious girl in white he saw in his vision in The Swamp.
The announcer of the tournament, Xin Fu, offers a large sum of gold to whoever can defeat the Blind Bandit in a match. Seeing an opportunity to speak with to the Bandit, Aang enters the ring. While Aang wants to talk, the Bandit is more than ready for a fight, and refuses to engage in conversation. Unfortunately, she is not ready to face an Airbender, and is effortlessly defeated when Aang blows her off the ring. The Blind Bandit takes badly to her humiliating loss, and storms off, refusing to listen to even one word Aang has to say.
Later, Aang and the others return to Master Yu's academy try to gather more information on the Blind Bandit. Interrogating the same, now quite intimidated boys Katara previously "asked" about the tournament, the three aren't able to receive much information on the elusive Blind Bandit, until Aang remembers the flying boar he also saw with the girl in his vision. The boys inform them that the flying boar is the symbol of the Bei Fong family, the wealthiest family in the town.
Meanwhile, The Boulder speaks with Xin Fu about the fight. The Boulder states that he was watching the fight and saw nothing make contact with The Bandit when she was thrown from the ring. Not realizing that Aang was airbending, the two come to the conclusion that the Bandit took a dive so that she could share the prize money with Aang.
Aang and company travel to the family's large estate, where they see the symbol above the main gate and proceed to sneak around back and over the estate's wall. Their attempts at stealth are almost instantly rebuttled by a sudden surge of upchurned earth that sends them screaming and flying into the air and back down into the bushes. They confronted by the Blind Bandit, now wearing the same dress Aang saw her wearing in the Swamp. Even after being emparted with the situation regarding Aang's mission, the girl, Toph, doesn't feel the need to help them in any way, and calls the house guards to chase them off.
That evening, Toph, her father Lao, and her mother Poppy are meeting with Master Yu, who reveals that he is training Toph strictly at the beginner's level, basic earthbending forms and breathing only, under her parents' wishes. Trying the direct approach, Aang uses his Avatar title to gain a formal audience with the entire Bei Fong family. He initially attempts to get her father to talk her into helping him, but Toph uses her earthbending to keep him from saying anything revealing. Her parents and teacher are completely unaware of her true skill, to the point of believing that she could never even dream of mastering the bending art, and for her own reasons she clearly wishes to keep it that way. After numerous earthbending interruptions, Aang retaliates with a forced sneeze, bringing the dinner to both a premature end and into everybody's face.
After dinner, Toph approaches Aang to call a truce, and takes a walk a with him through her garden. As the two walk, Toph shares the relationship she has with parents, who see her as a weak and fragile child due to her blindness, and treat her as being far more helpless than she really is. It is why she began sneaking out of the house and mastering earthbending on her own, secretly competing in tournaments and greatly surpassing her "teacher" in skill. Aang offers Toph complete freedom as well as happiness by coming with him on their travels. She comtemplates the offer but despondantly states that it is not the life for her. Toph suddenly drops to her knee and states that they are being ambushed. She grabs Aang and the pair make a run for it but are cut off and captured with two dropped metal cages by Xin Fu and his stable of Earthbenders, who want their money back.
Katara, Sokka, Toph's father and mother, and Master Yu find a note demanding ransom money for her safe return. The family is ready to pay, and the siblings volunteer to accompany them with the transaction.
Back at the underground arena, Xin Fu returns Toph for the ransom, but intends to turn Aang over to the Fire Nation for an even heftier reward. Seeing that they are greatly outnumbered and outmatched, Katara pleads with Toph to help them rescue Aang, but Toph's father refuses to let her, believing her to be helpless against them. Toph, on the other hand, agrees, and proceeds to single-handedly defeat Xin Fu and his entire stable of wrestlers, using a cloud of dust as cover, and taking them out one by one. In the process, she reveals to her parents and teacher her true character.
Later, Toph apologizes to her family, saying that she loves fighting, and she only snuck out because they sheltered her too much. Unfortunately, the recent events have only convinced her family to tighten their "protection" of her, planning to have her watched at all times, and then forbid Aang and the others from returning to their household.
As Aang and the others get ready to leave, Aang expresses remorse at losing the opportunity of learning from such a one-of-a-kind teacher. Suddenly, Toph runs up to them, saying that her father changed his mind, letting her travel with them. After exchanging quick glances with his sister, Sokka wisely offers to leave quickly before her father "changes his mind again." Toph is ready to go, but first she wants to show Aang something. Aang hops down, and she promptly launches him into a tree. Toph, declaring them even, demands to have her championship belt returned. Sokka, sitting on Appa's back [off-screen], throws the belt at Toph, but she, unable to sense its airborne object, gets struck in the face by it and knocked to the ground. Aang, still in the tree up to this point, finally falls flat on his face as well.
Meanwhile back at the Bei Fong estate, Toph's father has come to the conclusion that Aang has kidnapped his daughter. With a large sum of money, he hires both Master Yu and Xin Fu to go after them and do whatever it takes to get her back.
