Metal Clan

Running from 2012 to 2014, “The Legend of Korra” was the sequel to Nickelodeon’s award-winning series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (2005-2008). Picking up 70 years after the end of the original series, the sequel follows the adventures of Avatar Korra, a brave and determined young woman who has taken on the role played by Avatar Aang in “The Last Airbender”. In the years between the two series’, the world of Avatar has gone through and continues to experience momentous change. Korra must learn how to fulfill her role as the Avatar while simultaneously battling political resistance, all-out war, violent separatist groups, and supernatural powers that the world has not faced for thousands of years.

One of the groups that Korra encounters during her travels is the Metal Clan, who reside in the city of Zaofu. While their name is something of a misnomer – the members are not all physically related – this group is fairly unique in the world of Avatar: The city of Zaofu is located in the Earth Kingdom, one of five principle nations in the series, and the people of this nation practice the art of earthbending (i.e. the psychokinetic ability to manipulate soil, rocks, sand, gems, and other earthly matter). A rare subskill of earthbending is the ability to manipulate refined metal, something that for many centuries was believed to be impossible. The city of Zaofu and the Metal Clan were founded by Lin Beifong, whose mother, Toph Beifong, invented the technique of metalbending during the time of “The Last Airbender”. Most residents of Zaofu are earthbenders who have learnt the art of metalbending and incorporate it into many aspects of their daily lives.

The symbol of the Metal Clan takes the basic insignia of the Earth Kingdom – a circle with a square hole in the center – embellishes it with a series of stripes that form a cross, and encases everything within a double-layered octagon.