“ | I was...more of a rebel. Mom wasn't too happy with how either of us turned out. When I was sixteen, I left home to explore the world. I sailed the seas on a pirate ship, joined a traveling circus for a while, and lived in a sandbender commune in a desert. It took me a while, but I finally realized what I was looking for was a family. So I bought this plot of land, found a brilliant architect who later became my husband, and created a place I could truly call home. | „ |
~ Suyin explaining her past to Korra. |
Suyin Beifong, also nicknamed Su, is a major character in The Legend of Korra, appearing as a major character in season 3, the overarching protagonist of season 4, and a major protagonist in the sequel comic series Ruins of the Empire.
She is the younger sister of Lin and the daughter of Toph who after leaving her teenage criminal ways, started a family and founded the safest city in the world Zaofu as a beacon of hope and progress and adopted the orphan Kuvira into her family to raise and nurture her talents. She is the former mentor and archenemy of Kuvira.
She was voiced by the late Anne Heche.
Her Good Ranking[]
What Makes Her Close to Being Pure Good?[]
Background[]
- Although she once became a getaway driver and accidentally scarred Lin as a teenager, she abandoned her criminal ways after being exiled from Republic City and took it upon herself to travel the world and rediscover herself for decades. She would eventually reach out to Toph and Lin to reconcile and although Lin refused to meet her, she did reconcile with Toph. She would then repeatedly try to reach out to Lin to apologize and mend their relationship, but Lin refused any attempt at reconciliation. Despite that, she would tell stories to her children idolizing Lin as a heroic figure.
- She created and led the entirely metal city of Zaofu as a place that encouraged everyone to pursue their talents and interests and provided a safe haven for former criminals who abandoned their ways and wanted to change for the better. She dedicated the city in honor of her mother and turned Zaofu into the safest place in the world.
- She took in an eight year old orphan Kuvira to be part of her family, nurturing Kuvira’s talents and saw the talented girl/protege as her own daughter despite her troublesome behavior.
Book Three: Change[]
- She took in a former pirate to be her chef and rehabilitated him. She would later take in her old friend Varrick, who was on the run from Republic City and offered him a chance at redemption by working as head of her technology department, believing that people could change.
- She sent a request to Team Korra to train her daughter Opal as an airbender once Opal gained airbending skills as a result of Harmonic Convergence.
- She bowed before Team Korra and politely greeted them when they came to Zaofu, making sure to know all of their names before they came, and once she found out that Lin was there, she wanted to greet her and was only disappointed that Lin never mentioned her, revealing to Team Korra that Lin was her sister.
- She admitted to Lin that while her actions broke their family apart, she was trying to get it back together again and that Lin was the one keeping their family apart, but convinced Lin that they shouldn’t argue about the past but instead focus on the present and why Team Korra was here, revealing her daughter Opal was the new airbender.
- She introduced Team Korra and Lin to her family and specifically Opal, before inviting them all for dinner, praising each member of her family and telling Team Korra and Lin what a blessing it was to have children (much to Lin’s mocking).
- She pointed out how horrible the Earth Queen was and how outdated the monarchy was, believing the Earth Queen should move ahead with the times or step down.
- She defended Varrick from Lin, arguing that her chef had once been a pirate but had changed, and people could change in general and shouldn’t be punished for life because of their mistakes.
- She told Korra of how her life would be perfect if Lin had been a part of it, motivating Korra to get Opal to talk to Lin to repair Lin and Suyin’s relationship, but after Lin lashed out at Opal and made her cry, Suyin points out Lin had no right to treat Opal that way even if Lin had a problem with her.
- She taught Korra metalbending, complimenting her for quickly learning the skill and congratulating her for being the first metalbending Avatar in history.
- She offered to teach Bolin metalbending, telling him the only thing holding him back was his own insecurity and happily agreed to train him when he shyly asked her.
- Although she battled Lin when Lin attacked her, it was in self-defense as Lin attacked her first in anger about their past and she (albeit angrily) asked Lin if she had got the anger out of her system after a while in their duel before feeling remorse when Opal called them out for fighting.
- Although she said because of her lone wolf behavior as to why Tenzin broke up with her, this isn’t a Kick the Dog moment, as Lin was too stubborn to say her sister changed and was too irritable to everyone.
- She let her daughter go to the Northern Air Temple to become an Air Nomad and went to Lin telling her it was fine that she inspired Opal to be independent, remorsefully telling Lin that she had been overprotective of Opal in response to Toph giving Lin and Suyin too much freedom, but she wanted Opal to be happy and pursue her dream and apologized to Lin for her past actions, telling Lin how proud Republic City was to have her and how proud their mother was of Lin. She then offered to move on with Lin and offered Lin a place to stay in her house with her family and help co-lead her dance regiment before agreeing to Lin’s terms that Lin wouldn’t show up at her house and attack her again, shaking her sister’s hand and reconciling with her.
- She hosted a farewell dinner for Opal, complimenting her for being a good daughter, sister and friend, kissing Opal on the cheek before raising her glass to lead a toast in Opal’s honor.
- She surrounded the Red Lotus with metal panels when they tried to kidnap Korra and escape with the help of Lin, Wei, and Wang.
- She saved Team Korra and Lin from being killed by P’Li.
- She formed a successful plan to rescue Korra by having Bolin take out P’Li’s third firebending eye while she and Lin went down on metal cables to grab Korra, defeating Ghazan to prevent him from attacking them.
- She defeated Zaheer by cutting his airbending glider to prevent him from getting Korra from Lin, forcing him back on the ground and making him retreat.
- She agreed to be questioned when Lin accused her of working with Zaheer and held no grudge against Lin when she was obviously innocent.
- While she treated Hong Li rather harshly when everyone thought he was the traitor who got the Red Lotus into Zaofu, grabbing him by the collar and throwing him against the wall whilst berating him for being a traitor to the Metal Clan during Li’s interrogation it was arguably justified considering that everyone thought he was the one that helped the Red Lotus nearly kidnap Korra again and once she finds out Aiwei was the real traitor and Hong Li was framed, she has a remorseful expression.
- She bought Team Korra some time to track Aiwei by pretending to be on Lin’s side that they should go back to Republic City before giving Team Korra a fully loaded Jeep to go hunt down Aiwei and the Red Lotus and bring them to justice while she covered with Lin. Once Lin found out, she pointed out to Lin that she couldn’t control the Avatar’s every move and that Lin was overreacting before Lin set out to literally try and control the Avatar’s every move.
- She tried to contact the Northern Air Temple of Zaheer’s plot, but once that failed, she decided to go with the entire force of the Metal Clan to the temple to stop Zaheer.
- She formed a plan to have Mako, Bolin and Asami go to rescue the airbenders while she, Lin, Tonraq and the Metal Clan go to Laghima’s Peak to stop Zaheer.
- She killed P’Li to save Lin, who P’Li was about to kill.
- She told Zaheer to surrender and give up Korra before trying to stop him when he jumped off a cliff and gained the ability to fly.
- She congratulated Bolin for lavabending, telling him she knew he had the potential for something big and he just needed to believe in himself.
- She informed the rest of the group about Zaheer’s new ability to fly and told Kuvira and her guards to stay with the injured while she and the others went to rescue Korra.
- She blocked the second Red Lotus’ guard attack to allow Asami to jump in and knock him out and get the keys to free all the captive airbenders, hugging Opal upon seeing her.
- She and Lin encased Zaheer in a rock shell after Korra and Jinora defeated him.
- She saved Korra and the Avatar cycle by bending Zaheer’s metallic poison out of Korra’s body, preventing Zaheer from successfully ending the Avatar reincarnation cycle.
- She attended Jinora’s airbending master ceremony, smiling as Tenzin praised Jinora.
Book Four: Balance[]
- She refused Tenzin and Raiko’s offer to take control of the Earth Kingdom after the Earth Queen’s death, telling them that she didn’t want to impose her ideals on others, especially a whole kingdom, and telling Kuvira when she confronted her that marching down in Ba Sing Se would only lead to war.
- Although she told Kuvira that she would never be welcomed back if Kuvira left to conquer the Earth Kingdom with Baatar Jr and her security force, Suyin was right about how conquering the Earth Kingdom was wrong and ended up turning Kuvira into a fascistic tyrant (and it doesn’t even matter because Ruins of the Empire has her reconcile with Kuvira).
- She greeted her son warmly despite Baatar Jr. being cold towards her and pointed out that Kuvira was conquering those who opposed her and not doing good. She later confronted Kuvira when she overthrew Prince Wu and proclaimed an Earth Empire, calling Kuvira out for being just another tyrant and revealing she knew what happened to those who refused to submit to Kuvira.
- She organized a meeting with Kuvira, Baatar Jr and Bolin, refusing to give up Zaofu and trying to convince Baatar Jr to come back to her, stating that everything he did had gone against what she and her husband tried to teach Baatar Jr. She then called out Kuvira for bringing Bolin to try and manipulate them before telling her to leave and that Zaofu would never accept Kuvira as leader despite Kuvira’s threats.
- She greeted and hugged Korra when she returned after being gone for three years, asking her how she was before informing Korra of the Kuvira situation when Korra insisted on focusing on that instead of her personal life. She revealed to Korra her and Kuvira’s past and how their relationship turned sour.
- She refused to bow and surrender to Kuvira even if Kuvira promised to free her if she did and told Opal to leave her behind and escape with Korra and Tenzin’s children, telling Opal she, Wei and Wing would be fine.
- She hugged Toph after being reunited and rescued by her, Lin and Bolin.
- She reunited with and hugged Opal before going with Lin and her twin sons to buy Opal and Bolin time to rescue Zhu Lin by battling Kuvira’s superweapon. Once Toph refused to help them fight Kuvira, she asked her mother to look for her husband and Huan.
- She and Lin disoriented Kuvira’s superweapon to save Bolin, Opal and Zhu Li, and she then dueled Kuvira to try and stop her.
- She thanked Toph for rescuing the group and was happy to see Lin and Toph finally reconcile.
- She requested to talk with a captive Baatar Jr, trying to reason with him and telling him how his and Kuvira’s plan was madness. She then apologized for anything she did that might have hurt him and told him how it broke her heart to see him leave her and the family, begging Baatar Jr to come home and rejoin their family, and crying when Baatar Jr refused to and coldy stated that Kuvira was his family now.
- She carried an injured and unconscious Baatar Jr to safety and took all the wounded to Asami’s office after Kuvira fired at the warehouse. She never left Baatar’s bedside and comforted him when he woke up, accepting his apology and assuring him that while it might take some time for his siblings to forgive him, they would work through it as a family. She even defended Kuvira when Baatar Jr asked how Kuvira could fire her superweapon at him, her fiance, by telling Baatar Jr that Kuvira was a complicated person.
- She saved her sister and twin sons from being crushed by Kuvira.
- She was saddened to see when Kuvira crushed Hiroshi Sato/Hiroshi’s heroic sacrifice.
- She expressed concern for Korra when she decided to face Kuvira again since Kuvira nearly killed her last time, but regained confidence in Korra when Korra told her this was different, and she, along with Lin, disabled Kuvira’s superweapon, helping save Republic City.
- She helped arrest Kuvira with Lin and told her former student that she was going to answer for all her crimes.
Sequel comics[]
- In the sequel comic Ruins of the Empire, she confronted Kuvira for pleading not guilty to her crimes, telling Kuvira the whole world saw what she did and that feeling sorry wasn’t enough as Kuvira would have to take responsibility for her crimes.
- She rescued Kuvira and decided not to restrain her, and later got everyone onto her airship to escape from Commander Guan.
- She told an anxious Kuvira that she would eventually have to face Baatar Jr and freed a brainwashed Asami from her cell, telling her that she could enjoy living in the estate while the heroes found a way to free Asami from her brainwashing and denied that it was another form of imprisonment, but instead, Asami would be watched for the safety of herself and others.
- She refused to intervene in the Earth Nation’s democratic elections to take down Guan’s army, pointing out that it would lead to mass chaos and turmoil and telling the group they needed to let the vote go forward and see how it turns out regardless that Guan was running.
- She tried to convince Kuvira not to volunteer as Baatar Jr’s test subject for the potentially dangerous process in freeing Asami from brainwashing.
- She informed Korra and Asami that Kuvira knocked out her guards and escaped Zaofu, but told Opal that she refused to believe Kuvira had betrayed her, and was instead willing to give Kuvira the benefit of the doubt unless proven otherwise.
- Once she spotted Kuvira battling Guan and his troops, she went down with Toph and Opal to help Kuvira, taking out a mech suit during the fight.
- She stopped Kuvira from killing Commander Guan, motivating Kuvira to spare Guan’s life and get Guan to peacefully surrender.
- She was happy that Kuvira confessed to all her crimes and apologized to Kuvira and told her that she could have been a better mentor and mother figure, even though it wasn’t her fault as Kuvira herself points out that she should be the sorry one and thanked Suyin for never giving up on her even at her worst. She convinces President Zhu Li (who became president in the previous sequel comic Turf Wars) and the tribunal to release Kuvira into her custody, with the final scene of the comic being her assuring Kuvira that she will always be part of the Beifong family.
What Prevents Her From Being Pure Good?[]
- She has a lethal moment when after Kuvira threatens to attack Zaofu unless she surrenders, she tells Korra to “demolish” or in other words kill Kuvira and her army to stop Kuvira. Once Korra rejects that in favor of negotiations with Kuvira, Suyin decides to go with her twin sons at night to infiltrate Kuvira’s camp and kill her in cold-blood. However, in her defense, when she goes to kill Kuvira, she defends Kuvira’s army to her sons by telling them that most were forced to fight for Kuvira, and that once Kuvira was gone, they would stand down and would have no reason to fight. Also of course, she ends up reconciling with Kuvira and accepting her back into her family in Ruins of the Empire and even before that and Kuvira’s redemption, she defends Kuvira to Baatar Jr by telling him she is a complicated person. However, she never actually apologizes to Kuvira nor showing remorse for trying to kill her.
Trivia[]
- She is one of the five characters in the Avatar series to be Near Pure Good so far, alongside Katara, Sokka and Korra.
- Alongside Sokka and Korra, she is one of the few heroes in the Avatar franchise to actually kill someone. Ironically, they are all Near Pure Good.
External Links[]
- Suyin Beifong on the Heroes Wiki
- Suyin Beifong on the Avatar Wiki
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Avatar: The Last Airbender The Legend of Korra See Also |