Avatar: The Last Airbender is a fantasy animation series starring the young hero Avatar Aang and his quest to restore world peace after the dreadful Hundred-Year War. Along the way, Aang must learn to bend the four elements, and in Season 2, earthbending took center stage. Bending dirt and rocks has never been this exciting.
Aang chose the prodigious Toph Beifong to teach him the ways of earthbending, and between them and other Earthbenders in Avatar, it was proven many times that this just might be the best bending style of the four. The earth can do incredible things in the hands of a master bender, and fans always look forward to more.
10 Toph Defeated Several Earthbending Athletes
In Book Two: Earth, Aang and his friends witnessed the sheer power of Toph Beifong in an underground bender arena, but at first, Toph refused to join the Gaang. Then a handful of vengeful Earthbender athletes attacked Toph one night while under orders, and Toph got to work.
Toph fought on her own, using the fundamentals of Earthbending to repeatedly outmaneuver her foes and vanquish them without suffering a scratch. This is because Toph learned from the badger-moles themselves, so her solo battle was a sight to behold.
9 Aang Built A Zoo
When Aang and his friends had some free time in the "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" episode, Aang decided to put his new earthbending skills to good use. He found a zoo that was in terrible shape, and the animals were miserable. Being a lover of animals, Aang decided to do something.
Aang built a brand-new zoo with earthbending and a bit of waterbending in an open pasture, then summoned all the animals with his bison whistle. This incredible act of earthbending saved the zoo, made the animals happy, and showed how constructive bending can be. It's about more than fighting.
8 Aang Destroyed The Fire Nation's Drill
During the episode "The Drill," Aang needed to use his three elements to take down that monstrous Fire Nation machine, starting with waterbending to damage the drill's internal structure with Katara's aid. Then, Aang went outside, held off the mighty Azula, then used air and earth to finish the job.
Aang formed a large, hard rock wedge and drove it right into the drill's weakest point, and that incredible earthbending feat was sufficient enough to destroy the entire machine and force Azula's group to retreat. That earthbending saved the entire city of Ba Sing Se from disaster.
7 Earthbenders Used Coal To Fight
In Book One: Water, Aang couldn't yet bend earth, but side characters like Haru certainly could. Aang and Katara decided to rescue a large group of captured Earthbenders aboard a metal platform prison, and Aang used his airbending to provide them with the coal found deep inside the platform.
Haru, his grandfather and the other prisoners immediately used the coal to fight back against the Fire Nation guards and fight for their freedom, including dumping the warden into the ocean after capturing him with a wide disk of compressed coal. That was resourceful and exciting.
6 Toph Held Up An Entire Library
Aang and his friends later arrived at a massive underground library in the middle of a desert, but the library started sinking even deeper when Wan Shi Tong turned against the Avatar. So, it fell to Toph Beifong to grip the library's exposed tower and prevent the entire structure from sinking under the sands.
Toph used all her strength to keep the library exposed just long enough for Aang's group to escape, which is a remarkable feat. No other bending style could have saved the day like that, but a powerful Earthbender can manage it.
5 Kyoshi Created Her Own Island
In a flashback during the "Avatar Day" episode, Aang and the others got a peek at the life of Avatar Kyoshi, one of the mightiest Avatars to ever live. In that flashback, everyone saw Kyoshi use earthbending on an awesome scale to break a piece of land away from the Earth Kingdom to create today's Kyoshi Island.
Kyoshi did this to protect her home from the wrath of Chin the conqueror, and to this day, Kyoshi Island has its own unique culture and strong defenses. Not even Aang or Toph ever created their own island home.
4 Toph Invented Metalbending
Toph Beifong made history as the world's first metalbender when she realized that impure metal is an expression of the earth, and can be bent with the right application of skill. She did this to escape a metal carriage that her captors locked her into, and those captors were shocked to see Toph escape.
Metalbending has many useful applications even in Aang's and Toph's time, let alone in Avatar Korra's heavily industrialized era, and that shows how flexible and effective earthbending can be. Toph became Avatar's own pint-sized Magneto.
3 King Bumi Retook Omashu Single-Handedly
At one point, Fire Nation forces captured the city of Omashu, and to Aang's shock, King Bumi didn't put up a fight. He merely sat around for months on end. That's because Bumi was practicing neutral jing, waiting patiently for the right moment to strike as a true Earthbender.
During Sozin's Comet, Bumi made his move. He used incredible feats of earthbending to wipe out the entire Fire Nation garrison in Omashu to retake his city, and he even humorously defaced the Fire Lord Ozai statue with more earthbending. He was a one-man army, thanks to earthbending.
2 Aang Defended Himself With Earthbending
During his climactic battle with Fire Lord Ozai, Aang slowly fell behind, even though he had all four elements at his disposal. Out of desperation, Aang formed a hardened rock sphere with himself inside, all to buy time against Ozai's wrath.
Aang needed more than a rock ball to win, but this was an effective defensive move that required a great deal of force to break, even from Ozai. When the rock ball was finally destroyed, Aang entered the Avatar State to turn the tables on his opponent.
1 Toph Became Iron Man
While Aang was fighting Ozai, a team made up of Sokka, Toph and Suki attacked the Fire Nation armada, and this is where Toph shined. She used advanced metalbending to coat herself in metal from head to toe, becoming Avatar's version of Iron Man.
With that metal suit, Toph overwhelmed every soldier aboard the ship, and that allowed Suki and Sokka to commandeer it and use it against the other zeppelins in the fleet. No way could have Sokka and Suki defeated all those guars alone – they needed an Earthbender's aid.