Toph Beiphong and Derpy

[ManaMinori 4,149]

Does it seem strange to anyone else that Avatar: the last Airbender can have a blind, badass character that's part of the main cast, and no one complains about, but Derpy, a background character with derp eyes and an odd voice has to get "censored" and changed, because she's offensive?

Will we ever get a truly "handicapable" pony, like Toph, who can hold his/her own, and have interaction with the mane6 or CmC?

[Black Sabbath 2,488]

You're comparing apples and orangutans. 

 

I mean, all Derpy did in the last roundup was breaking a bunch of stuff and annoy Rainbow.  Toph, on the other hand, was shown to be an incredibly talented earthbender who was able to take of her self despite her disability. 

Edited February 10, 2017 by Yamet

[cmarston1 5,964]

Toph actually has a personality and is a character and not a prop, so she isn't the same as Derpy. Plus Scootaloo, being a pegasus who can't fly is pretty much a cripple and is a major character.

[Jeric 46,884]

I adore what Derpy represents, but comparing the Pony character who has limited canonical character building to a fully realized and explored Toph sets the argument you are trying to make on very unstable ground.

 

When it comes down to it, the show (not the fans) need to make the argument you are making through the use of dialog, story, and character progression.

 

All the great defenses of Derpy don't amount to anything unless the people with the biggest platform and largest visibility say their piece.

 

Though it wasn't their intention to offend, the ambiguity of the scene was just poor writing in general. Justified or not, parental reaction was completely in line with what I would have expected. So yes, her censorship makes sense, because they missed a good opportunity in development of Derpy over a low effort fan nod that wasn't that approachable to general audiences not familiar with the fandoms take.

 

What doesn't make sense is how few people call out the staff for their garbage handling of her first significant speaking moment. The made up for it in Season Five ... but damn they screwed up here.

[Luminance 2,187]

Despite Toph's disadvantage, it became her most important trait and in return, she utilized it to help not only herself as a character but to show others characters too that she can independently strong. Derpy on the contrary, wasn't seen in the same matter as Toph because of her portrayal as a character just for appearance. Derpy was handled poorly in that regard and in return had created the supposed edit. Whether the two are similar is extremely hard to see as these two characters are very contrastingly different in their approach to the fans and throughout their very own portrayal in the show.