#rote part 3

[acornered]

the comphet is strong in this one

[napmeisnalsn]

Everyone after RoTE part 3 made Baavira into incest

[hayleysayshay]

Mad because baby Opal saying that kuvira is a “stray dog with no family” is really OOC. Like? Look at her boyfriend?

Yeah??? This is one of those things where I love Opal so I am just bewildered by this choice.

I could maybe buy Opal never considering Kuvira family or never realising Kuvira’s pain, but I don’t think she would be actively cruel in a classist way, even as a kid? When she meets Bolin she’s like ‘wow all my meals have been amazing with this cook’ and Bolin is like ‘me and Mako used to eat garbage’ and she apologised for not realising how she was coming across? Like she immediately feels bad, its not like Bolin had to explain anything to her. I think she could be oblivious as she lived a very nice life, but I don’t know why she would be actively antagonistic towards Kuvira because she wasn’t family or poor? Like she didn’t seem to like Kuvira before she destroyed her dollhouse. I don’t get it. What does she suddenly get a complete personality change at thirteen or something before she meets Bolin?

I think it really bothers me because Opal’s distrust of Kuvira is completely valid considering what happened in book 4 but they just throw in this scene to make Opal look fairly nasty by comparison, to make it seem like Opal ALWAYS hated Kuvira unreasonably, so Opal now looks unreasonable. It feels really cheap.

I think it could have worked if it was more subtle? Kuvira looking in on Opal playing with Su, wishing it was her, but never finding the words to say without coming across as blunt or rude.

I hate being like ‘it’s not canon because I don’t like it’ but like....... yeah

[hayleysayshay]

Idk if this is accurate but they also kind of made incest canon? At least pseudo incest? Uh with baatar jr and kuvira? Idgi. Whatever, they really had so many retcons thrown out to give her that ending. So weird.

Like I always interpreted the ‘she was like a daughter to me’ thing as like, Kuvira was Su’s favourite student who she got close with (‘like a daughter’ doesn’t usually mean ‘I adopted her’?) So Kuvira was close to the family but never part of it, always somewhat alone. But no, it’s explicitly clear Kuvira was adopted by the Beifongs and lived with them. Which does make everything weirder with Baatar. Idk. It just feels a bit poorly thought through and lazy.

[hayleysayshay]

It blows my mind though, how even Guan could've been the main big bad in book 4 itself and we could've avoided this mess because nobody would've wanted him redeemed oops! They should've just left Kuvira in jail, this crap did her no favors. Also god I could off for Opal because why make her so rightfully angry and throw her and her side of the story under the bus and not at all talked about in this comic? Thats the problem here, only Kuvira's side of the story was validated.

I already answered the Opal thing in a different ask, so I won’t repeat it (on mobile so I can’t link either but it’s on my blog) but the Guan thing is interesting. Like Kuvira is this hard nosed military general, but she’s overstretched and in over her head, and does not have control over the country like she thinks she does. She realises in horror she has made a worse version of the earth queen or something when Guan tried to push his more extreme vision. Then the Kuvira/Korra parallels could have worked, because like fundamentally there’s a big difference between Korra being brash and impulsive in books 1 and 2 and Kuvira being a military dictator.

[hayleysayshay]

There's like so many easy fixes that would've made it better?? Asami could've confronted her, and brought up her tragic backstory and go all "i dont believe you and here's why. I lost everything and never thought of being evil." Hell mako and bolin could've even say the same thing as their parents were killed by a gang and grew up as "delinquents" without really harming anybody. this makes me more annoyed with how easy she got it. It was so contrived so those talks didnt happen in her favor.

Like I’m salty they just sidelined Asami in favour of a Kuvira centric story with some Korra thrown in. Asami has actual conflict with Kuvira!

Korra trusts Kuvira the most out of the whole entire team, and in the comic she just sort of trusts Kuvira, because that was kind of established in book 4. There’s not any interesting dynamic to any of it. Su is weirdly nice to Kuvira? Kuvira apologises to Bataar? Idk.

I prefer my version in my head. Obviously I’m not saying I’m a fantastic visionary who gets it instead of the writers. But it plays on what I actually want to see in TLOK. So basically: Korra is captured and brainwashed instead of Asami. Asami is upset that her girlfriend is gone, and she doesn’t even have Mako or Bolin to confide in. She has never felt more alone in her life, she has no family. All she has is Kuvira, who killed her Dad. Not great company, but you could have them pay lay off each other. Yes I am in love with the version in my head. Yes it would probably have just as many problems as the comic. But I feel like it would be messier than the comic we got.

[hayleysayshay]

I feel like something that could’ve been done about the redemption arc is to focus more on Kuvira’s mentality while she was a dictator. Yes she did evil things but she ultimately wanted for the Earth Kingdom to become whole again. If they focused on that rather than pretending Kuvira was ignorant to the evil things she did, it might’ve played out differently. “Yes I did bad things but I did it for what I thought was good, I was wrong” seems much better than “I didn’t know”

(This has been sitting in my drafts for a few days I’m sorry.) This is one of those things where I sort of agree. But like saying a bit of fascism is okay if you had good motives isn’t that appealing either.

Truth be told, they were never going to really be able to wrangle the political messaging of Kuvira. I don’t know if I could ever buy her as being truly sympathetic. To an extent, order was definitely needed in the power vacuum of the Queen’s death. It’s not like she was a solider, she was a leader, she positioned herself as the leader and took pride in it when all was good, especially when the other leaders respected her, and then she didn’t mind when they feared her. I feel she bares all responsibility. I don’t think personally I would ever really look past this to ever truly engage with her as a character.

On the other hand, if it is was a good story, it’s a good story. This is fictional, after all. My interpretation is not everyone’s interpretation, and I also liked part 1 as I thought it was setting up conflict between Kuvira, Asami and Korra. I thought Kuvira would examine her flaws and learn to be a better person and take responsibility for her actions. In part 3 it seems to happen because she hurt her family, and she realised brainwashing was bad. It didn’t seem like a natural progression . Also any personal conflict people had with Kuvira was lost when the brainwashing subplot was introduced— a villain worse than Kuvira to retcon her as reasonable by comparison. This isn’t an engaging story, and it makes all the problems I had with Kuvira worse in my mind. Her sad backstory now seems more trite and there to be use as cheap sympathy, and her comparison to Korra isn’t really explored anymore apart from the idea that they’re both fairly... confident? Brash? I was just disappointed. I thought they would tell a story of personal differences and outlooks coming tinto clash with each other against a uniting threat, but there was no exploration of what motivates anyone. Kuvira was just a sad child, and this translated to dictatorship... how? I also don’t really see why Kuvira gave a guilty plea other than her family was sad by her actions. Does she still think she was right at the end of ROTE 3? How far does her regret actually go?. I think it’s just the lazy, consequence free way they did this story that I don’t like. Kuvira re-unites with her family, no other character really learns anything apart from Wu (best character development, 10/10).

So yeah. I don’t think I ever would have been won over completely by Kuvira, no matter what angle they took, but they could have done something more engaging and interwsting, something that actually explored the flaws of the characters, not just throw some sympathy at one. Like Kuvira admitting guilt is a good end of a redemption arc if what came before it actually felt like a redemption arc. IDK. There’s an interesting story here, somewhere.

[hayleysayshay]

Oh yeah, I brought up how (lol it is a realistic thing irl but not something i want to see in fiction) nepotism rigs trials and testimonies? Like congrats Kuvira, because you are related to a noblefamily, you get privileges to be handed like 5 or 10 "second" chances. Meanwhile, the Red Lotus doesn't get the same treatment smh

Like Zaheer should be in prison. So should Kuvira. They could have just had the Beifongs visit her in prison in an attempt to try and make up I guess, instead of being rewarded with home imprisonment in a lovely mansion??