Warning: Some SPOILERS lie ahead for Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2!Toph has finally made her debut in Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2, and is going to be coming into her own in season 3.

Played by Marvelous and the Black Hole‘s Miyako, Toph Beifong is the daughter of a wealthy family in the Earth Kingdom who spent much of her childhood being coddled by her parents due to her blindness. Unbeknownst to them, she had been building and perfecting her earthbending abilities, with Gordon Cormier’s Aang, Kiawentiio’s Katara and Ian Ousley’s Sokka inviting her to join their group after seeing her skills in an Earth Rumble in the hopes of training Aang.

Ahead of the show’s premiere, ScreenRant‘s Tatiana Hullender interviewed Miyako for our Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 cover story. When asked about how Toph’s journey is going to change in the upcoming season 3, the star began by sharing that “we grow to love Toph” in the next season, and feeling that “the audience understands her” better after her live-action debut in season 2.

Miyako also explained that by the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2, “she also reaches her own understanding” and has “an expanding worldview” following her interactions with Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s Uncle Iroh, coming to realize “things are not black-and-white,” which is often a “really big theme in young person media“:

Miyako: She learns that she can choose where she wants to be. She doesn’t have to pick between her family or her found family; she can have both, but she needs to just put herself first. I think that that’s a really strong and mature thing to be able to do as a kid in a live-action series. In season 3, her world gets bigger, and we all know she gets stronger with earthbending and metalbending. I think she has a stronger bond with everybody because they’ve been through so much at that point, and I think that’s what really defines her in season three 3.

Miyako went on to warmly share that she likes “seeing her reach a maturity” come Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3, especially given it’s one that “a lot of kids know how to reach” in the real world. She even pointed to her own growth as an example of the differences in maturity among young people, with the Netflix series allowing her to overcome some of her fears about growing up:

Miyako: When I was a kid, I was so worried about turning 18. I was so nervous about it. I was like, “I’m not ready for that.” But I did it, and I realized that, during filming of season 2, I grew up so much. I could see it in myself, and I feel like that’s what we see in Toph. She realizes that she’s grown up and made decisions for herself, and we see her take pride in that.

For much of Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2’s run, Toph serves as an expectation-skewering addition to Team Avatar in their adventure. She frequently turns the tables on those underestimating her because of her blindness, proving herself to be one of the most capable earthbenders in the world. While often being an abrasive personality in most situations, Toph also shows a completely different side in high-class societies by acting more reserved and polite.

Arguably the biggest element to Toph’s arc in Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 is finding a way to better embrace Aang, Katara and Sokka as potential friends or, as Miyako puts it above, found family. Much like the original animated series, the Netflix remake often shows her pushing everyone away with her unfiltered personality, though slowly warming up to the group with some of their actions, including Katara using her waterbending to soak a trio of mean young women who quietly insult Toph at a Ba Sing Se party.

With Miyako’s tease that Toph is starting to find herself in Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3 marks an intriguing one after where season 2 left the central characters. While Katara uses the Northern Water Tribe’s spirit water to keep Aang from dying, he is seemingly left in a comatose state, while the Fire Nation remains ever on the march to conquer the world. Given the stakes are higher than ever, now is the perfect time in the series’ story for her and her cohorts to really start cementing their maturity if they hope to succeed.

Be sure to check out some of our other Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2-focused coverage with:

Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.