Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra continued the fantasy story of Avatar: the Last Airbender, and this time, the world has moved forward 70 years. Avatar Aang is gone, replaced with the hot-headed Avatar Korra, along with her friends Mako, Bolin, and Asami to form the new Team Avatar.
But Korra has other friends and allies too, from her air bender teacher Tenzin (son of Avatar Aang) to Lin Beifong, one of Toph Beifong’s two daughters. At first, Lin and Korra really butt heads, but they learn to get along and fight the forces of evil together. What are ten things to know about the new chief of police and master metal bender Lin Beifong?
Lin has a last name, a rare thing
Lin belongs to the Beifong family, along with her famed mother, her half-sister Suyin, and Suyin’s own family. This makes Lin a rarity in the Avatar world, as most people there seem to have no last name. Not even Aang had one. But the Beifongs are a noble and powerful family, so it stands to reason that the members maintain their name to announce who they are. Toph did this to secure ferry tickets in The Last Airbender, for example. By contrast, Lin seems to have no interest in the aristocratic life. To her, “Beifong” is just that: a name, and nothing else.
Her scattered family
It takes a lot to unite the Beifong family, as they have all gone their separate ways. After an incident in a flashback featuring Lin and Suyin, the three main Beifongs all split. Toph struck it out on her own, and became a master of the swamp (a bit like Yoda!). Suyin traveled the world and settled in Zaofu with her husband, and Lin became chief of police in Republic City. Lin probably didn’t feel lonely about this, though, since she left her half-sister and mother on bad terms. This Beifong operates alone!
She can hold a mean grudge
Many aspects to Lin’s life are based on her difficult family life, and most of Lin’s grudges come from that. She got over Tenzin breaking things off with her, but other mental wounds have proven deeper.
For decades, she resented Suyin for disgracing their police chief mother, and they even came to blows over it, earth bender style. It took some acupuncture and a final showdown with Suyin to finally mend that rift, and later, Lin finally made peace with Toph, too. Quite a burden Lin carried until then.
She followed her mother’s lifestyle closely
What does a proper Beifong look like? This seems to change across the generations. Toph’s parents were strict and controlling, and to spite that, Toph gave her daughters a great deal of freedom. Suyin went wild with this hands-off approach, but Lin felt the need to be closer to Toph’s lifestyle and thus became an exemplary police officer. Lin didn’t want to run wild, she wanted to impress her tough mother. But Lin wasn’t sure if Toph ever approved of that or not.
Lin is capable of self sacrifice
Lin is a no-nonsense police officer in Republic City, and that means risking her life to protect the citizens from Equalist attacks, rogue spirits, and more. Lin is rough and abrasive, but not selfish or cold. She deeply impressed Tenzin and Meelo when she bought time for the air bender family to escape by taking on two Equalist airships alone.
Lin knocked one out of the sky, and damaged the other before the Equalists captured her. Lin later refused Amon’s deal to keep her bending in exchange for giving up Korra’s whereabouts.
She’s not sentimental
At least, not much. Lin doesn’t seem to remember anything with fondness, and she only made a light joke about how she wrecked Air Temple Island after Tenzin broke up with her. And she has nothing but bitter memories of her family, meaning that Lin very much lives in the here and now. And for the most part, she’s not impressed with Zaofu and its features, and she only keeps the mission in mind (escorting Korra away from Zaheer’s path of destruction). It’s good to be practical, but this pressure wears down on Lin’s psyche over time.
Madam Police Chief
Like her mother, Lin ranked as the chief of police, and she handled the job with great skill. With ease, Lin could order squads of metal benders to secure a perimeter, fight the equalists, conduct a search, and more. On screen, nearly all the metal bender police officers appear to be men, and it’s not clear if Lin stands as the only woman among them or if the other women are simply never seen. All the same, at least Lin hold a high rank! All the police officers look up to her without question.
Her scar
As soon as Lin appeared on screen in The Legend of Korra season 1, fans probably took note of Lin’s cheek scars. Fiction often gives scars to tough characters as an accent mark, but Lin’s scars in fact mirror her mental ones. When Lin confronted her wild half-sister during a car chase, the sisters clashed, and Lin’s metal whip was reflected back at her. This gave her the scars, and unlike Lin’s mental ones, these scars never healed.
Earth sense
Here’s another way Lin followed the footsteps of her famed mother: literally! From her childhood onwards, Toph was deeply familiar with the basics of earth bending, using this art for more than just fighting in arenas. Toph could sense and thus “see” nearly anything if she stood on the ground, and Lin can do much the same. For the most part, Lin uses this skill to scan a whole base or find hidden rooms, rather than use her feet as eyes 24/7. This helps her find Hiroshi Sato’s hidden workshop, and she also locates her captured police officers in an Equalist base using this sense.
Her history with Tenzin
Lin is not totally cold-hearted; in fact, she used to date the one and only Tenzin! Both of them are children of previous Team Avatar members, but they’re certainly not related. No part of this romantic invovement was ever shown, but Lin definitely took it seriously, since she flew into a rage when Tenzin left her. As for why they broke up? Pema came along, and not only did she desire Tenzin, but she felt that Lin was simply the wrong woman for him. We’ll have to take Pema’s word for it. And the air bender kids probably would have turned out very different if Lin was their mom instead!
