Ty Lee

Bio

Ty Lee was a cheerful and energetic girl who hailed from the Fire Nation. As the daughter of a nobleman, she attended the Royal Fire Academy for Girls with her friends, Princess Azula and Mai. Growing up, Ty Lee dealt with six sisters who shared identical appearances with her. This caused her to feel a loss of individuality and led her to have a longing to be a unique, recognizable person, and a desire for attention from other people. Because of this, after she matured, she ran away from her home and joined a Fire Nation circus, becoming a skilled acrobatic performer and gaining more personal attention. Ty Lee was a formidable hand-to-hand combatant, often utilizing chi-blocking, a unique form of martial arts that targets pressure points located in the human body. By striking these, she was able to disrupt an individual's chi flow and temporarily paralyze them, thereby also preventing the victim from bending for a period of time. Mai and Ty Lee were recruited by Princess Azula to hunt down and capture Prince Zuko and Iroh, and later Avatar Aang and his friends. Mai later betrayed Azula to save Zuko's life, and when the infuriated princess retaliated, Ty Lee defended Mai by paralyzing Azula, which led to her imprisonment.[5] While in prison, she met the Kyoshi Warriors for a second time and befriended them. In return for teaching them how to chi-block, they allowed her to join their group. Upon their release at the end of the Hundred Year War, Ty Lee adopted their makeup and clothes, effectively becoming part of a matched set once again, though this time with the reassurance that she could become a unique individual again whenever she wanted, simply by removing her makeup and uniform.

Appearance

Ty Lee has two wavy bangs and a long braid. She wears a crop top with wide sleeves including wrist bands and shoulder pads with a collar. Ty wears baggy pants under her skirt and wears flat mary jane shoes.

Personality

Ty Lee was bubbly and outgoing, yet slightly airheaded. She was a direct contrast to Azula's cruelty and Mai's constant torpor. She took delight in her acrobatic abilities, never missing an opportunity to show them off, and often craved attention and recognition, a result of her upbringing as part of an identical set of seven sisters. These attention issues also caused her to be a bit of a flirt, which is why, according to Mai, she needed the affection of multiple boyfriends. Ty Lee showed a strong sense of loyalty to her friends, Mai and Azula. Despite her obvious differences from Mai, she had a deep respect for her, and they often made an effective fighting duo, teaming up numerous times against their enemies. Ever since childhood, Ty Lee also considered Azula as a friend, but as she got older, that loyalty seemed to have been out of fear of the princess. When she first refused Azula's request to join her search for the traitorous Zuko, Azula persuaded her by endangering her life during a circus performance. For some time, Ty Lee never disobeyed Azula's orders. However, her breaking point came at the Boiling Rock, during Azula's attempted murder of her own brother and Ty Lee's childhood friend, Zuko. When the rope holding Zuko's gondola was about to be cut, which would send Zuko along with several prisoners and friends plummeting to their deaths, Ty Lee showed concern while Azula smirked next to her. After Mai helped Zuko and his friends escape the prison, Azula threatened her life. Fearing for Mai's safety in the face of Azula's terrible rage, Ty Lee attacked Azula, finally conquering her own fears and taking a stand against her "friend" after months of obedience. Ty Lee was known not to hold grudges against her enemies despite their encounters on the battlefield: She bonded with the Kyoshi Warriors, for whose confinement she was partially responsible, establishing a fairly strong friendship with the group while they were imprisoned together;

Personality II

she showed affection for Sokka, despite the enmity between her allies and Team Avatar; and she made amends with her sisters despite their differences and disagreements. Ty Lee displayed great affection toward animals. In Ba Sing Se, she taught Bosco acrobatic moves before Toph earthbent her to the ground.

Abilities

(Agility) Ty Lee was extraordinarily agile. Even as a child, she was able to execute mid-air somersaults and cartwheels that surpassed even Azula's. Her agility continued to improve with age and she was commonly seen walking around in a headstance on just her fingers. She later developed remarkable acrobatic abilities, which allowed her to join the Fire Nation circus and perform high-wire acts with balance and grace. People traveled for miles to see her perform. Because of this, she was fast and agile in battle, able to outmaneuver almost any opponent she came across and jump exceptionally high and far, even from a stationary position. Her abilities allowed her to dodge the attacks of dozens of powerful earthbenders, who were unable to land a hit on her. She was also limber; able to twist, bend, and contort herself into positions nearly impossible for an ordinary person to achieve. These abilities also granted her impressive parkour and free-running skills, allowing her to scale almost any surface or terrain quickly and squeeze through most barriers and small spaces with noticeable ease. (Chi-blocking) Another of Ty Lee's defining abilities was her mastery of pressure-point-striking martial arts, otherwise known as "chi-blocking". With her extensive knowledge of the human body, she could strike sequences of pressure points, immobilizing her enemies to various degrees. She had the ability to paralyze a single body part or an opponent's entire body. This technique allowed her to block certain chi paths in benders to compromise their abilities. This made her especially dangerous to benders who relied solely on their bending and possessed no secondary fighting skills. Combined with her extraordinary agility, she was able to defeat dozens of powerful earthbenders within seconds. However, if her target had faced her before or was expecting her attacks, the effectiveness of her chi-blocking decreased as her opponent took measures to prevent her from using the technique;

Chi-blocking

Suki was able to avoid her attacks at the Boiling Rock, and Katara and Sokka were also able to effectively counter her when facing her again.

Trivia

Ty Lee is the first known character to have more than one identical sibling, as she has six identical sisters. In the Mandarin Chinese dub, Ty Lee's name is written as 泰麗, meaning "calm and beautiful". Ty Lee appeared to have a crush on Sokka, as she mentioned that Sokka was cute. When she, Mai and Azula found Aang, Sokka and Katara, she said, "Azula, you were right — it is the Avatar ... and friends", directing the last part of the comment toward Sokka as her look grew more flirtatious. Later, when confronting Sokka in the Earth King's throne room, she cheerfully described their fight as dancing. Though arrested at the Boiling Rock, Ty Lee was not held there, as she bonded with the Kyoshi Warriors in prison and only Suki was held at the Boiling Rock. Ty Lee was the second known outsider to join the Kyoshi Warriors, Sokka being the first. She was also the first known Fire Nation native to join them. Ty Lee was one of the few natives of the Fire Nation that did not have black hair or golden eyes. Avatar Extras described Ty Lee as the Avatar version of a Valley Girl. In the non-canonical "School Time Shipping" episode, Ty Lee was shown to have some attraction to Haru. Ty Lee went to the circus because she did not feel different among her six identical sisters. Ironically, by the end of the series, she joined the Kyoshi Warriors, who all dress and look alike, differentiating only by each girl having their own personal hair accessory. Ty Lee's chi-blocking fighting style is similar in principle to Gentle Fist, the fighting style of the Hyūga clan from the popular manga/anime series Naruto; both use martial arts to block a person's internal flow of energy, though in Naruto this is referred to as chakra rather than chi. Ty Lee was the only person in the series to whom Azula ever apologized. Ty Lee's pink, acrobatic outfit symbolized her bubbly demeanor and optimistic outlook on life.