Legend of Korra – A love letter to Lin Beifong

Dear Lin Beifong,

So I really loved your mom, Toph, in the original Avatar series. Like,  a lot. I loved her so much that I often just don’t watch the first season of Avatar because she’s not in it, and everything seems kind of lame and subpar without her. And so when I doubted you would be nearly as cool as your mom was, it wasn’t personal so much as I doubted anyone could ever fill the place in my heart reserved for Toph Beifong.

I’m really sorry about how wrong I was.

Love, Me

But seriously, you guys, Lin Beifong. How do I begin to describe Lin Beifong? She’s flawless. (I hear her hair is insured for $10,000! I hear she does car commercials … in Republic City! One time, she metalbent at my face. It was awesome.) I just love everything about her. I love that she’s brash but still has vulnerability. I love her backstory with Tenzin. (Also, called that she was the one Pema was referring to last week!) I love how it’s a very mature, adult story, the idea of loving someone but ultimately knowing they’re not right for you, and I love that she deals with it in a very human way — namely, mostly maturely and with grace, but with some lingering bitterness.

And for the record, can I just say, as much as I love Lin, I think Tenzin made the right choice? Clearly he’s a family man who wanted to settle down and have kids. Can you imagine Lin Beifong settling down and having kids? No. And I always reject this idea of someone stealing another person from a relationship — I hated it when Brangelina started and I hate it now. You can’t “steal” someone, and if someone strays in a relationship it’s the fault of the person who did the straying. As a single person, you have no responsibility to anyone because you are single. If you’re in a relationship, it is, presumably, your job to say “sorry, I’m in a relationship” to anyone who expresses interest. (I say presumably because you could have an open relationship and while I am not down with that idea, it’s not really my place to judge what works for other people. Unless it happens on a TV show. In which case it’s my job.)

Their relationship actually reminds me a lot of Korra and Bolin’s, but older. Bolin, like Tenzin, is a sweet guy who sees this asskicking lady and thinks “she’s totally awesome and I totally love her!” and that’s great! We need more dudes in the world who think asskicking is a sexy quality in ladies! But both Bolin and Tenzin are also the types of guys who probably would not be well-served in a relationship where the lady in their life did not put them first. And that’s okay! Both Bolin and Korra and Tenzin and Lin still make awesome bros! And that’s why there are different types of ladies and different types of dudes in the world! Because people have different needs! End rant on a long-held personal vendetta of mine!

But anyway, Lin Beifong: seriously awesome, and I can’t wait to see more from her. In fact, I need (and by “need” I mean “require to lead a happy and fulfilled life”) her to teach Korra metalbending so the two of them can go around bringing justice to Republic City and being awesome. Lin will teach Korra to respect laws and rules and the existing structure of the city, and Korra will teach her to lighten up and have fun. In fact, screw Amon, I would watch an entire show in which that was the premise. And I would watch it because Lin Beifong is really, really, really awesome.

Really.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on May 14, 2012 @ 14:06 EST5EDT