Why Kuvira is a villain?

When I watched the fourth season of Legend of Korra I empathized Kuvira even more than Korra. Kuvira is often seen as a villain. I don’t exactly understand why, so I decided to compile this brief analysis of her actions. Kuvira made her first step towards the nation leader when she left Zaofu. But before we speak of Kuvira, let’s take a look at the world that formed her personality. By the moment Hou-Ting queen was assassinated, the Earth Kingdom was already hanging between life and death. You see, if immediately after the monarch is killed by a refugee the guards start robbing the palace in a rush, the palace they were supposed to protect – this is a clear sign of the future catastrophe. And the catastrophe wasn’t late in coming. The entire capital city was nearly burned out in one night, not to mention provinces. Afflictions brought to people with the chaos of anarchy and following civil discords are well known. It wasn’t that bad all around, nevertheless. The Zaofu city stood aside from this storm. A number of technology innovations allowed Zaofu to effectively ignore things happening with the Earth Nation. The question of whether it was advantageous to the Beifong family to rule the island of order in the sea of chaos is rhetorical. However, for one guard the answer to this question was not so obvious. Despite growing in pupilage of Suyin Beifong, Kuvira felt aloofness as most adoptive children do. In suffering of the Earth Nation she saw the reflection of her own feelings and thought of sharing the fate of other people. She tried to talk about this with Suyin, but her pleases to intervene were rejected. Suyin refused any interference and explained her position to Kuvira by the idea of giving freedom of choice to people. Apparently, she either didn’t identify herself with the Earth Kingdom Nation and thus never felt Nation’s suffering is her own, or set a high value on the advantage Zaofu received from this chaos. Also, we can presume that living in peace and comfort of Zaofu she simply didn’t want to put here hands to a dirty and hard work of resurrection of the state. Any way, her position is disgraceful – not only doesn’t she help people herself, but the Zaofu matriarch also tried to stop Kuvira from doing something. Kuvira didn’t want to just sit in the platinum Fiddler’s Green and watch the great civilization dies. With loyal followers Kuvira arrived to the destroyed capital of the Kingdom, Ba Sing Se, and sorted out the mess there by force. At this moment other leaders interfered. They permitted Kuvira to move battle actions out of Ba Sing Se and start restoring order in the country. A civil war is free from traditions, as anyone familiar with the history knows. Not relying on traditions, but applying her power, Kuvira followed the footsteps of those leaders who made states all by themselves. Using her strength and intelligence, she decided to return the Earth Nation its former glory and power. She couldn’t rely on ranks or social status. Such things do not mean much in the flames of civil discords and chaos, if mean anything at all. Kuvira relied only on her strength and determination. Her methods were harsh and therefore efficient. Her path was tough but rewarding. Kuvita isn’t good or bad, she is just what she had to be to do what must be done. Do the best and let fate do the rest. Provinces damaged by chaos surely see a savior in her. It is easy to give people t-shirts, but making people gladly wear them – that requires not just a leader, but a mercurial leader, a leader who can help people. But of course there were people in the chaos who just made profits from it. Let us remind the governor of the Yi state. Think of what happened in the first episode. Kuvira offered protection from bandits in exchange to resources. What state doesn’t need resources? Weren’t they needed to the Earth Kingdom? That’s a fair deal, yet the governor didn’t agree. Why? Because the profit from selling resources in the domestic market is seriously different from that of foreign sales. Ok, moralists can recall a food episode. But it is also not as simple as it seems. The province left out of food will never produce resources – there’s nobody to get them. Kuvira would be forced to resolve this issue anyway. Add here her motivation clearly spoken in the thirteenth episode – helping the Earth Nation – and the situation becomes absolutely transparent. Further actions of Kuvira become clear thanks to words of President Raiko. In the third episode he explicitly says that decisions of Prince Wu will be controlled by Republic people. Conclusion? Kuvira knew about the plot to set a Republic puppet on the Earth Kingdom throne and never was going to let this happen. We should notice, how delicate Raiko operates. First, it lets Kuvira to restore the order and to start recovering the country, and then removes her using Wu as a proxy, effectively putting her aside from any real power. As a result, the Republic gets the restored state and an idiot monarch. At the same time Kuvira is proclaimed a monster, which leaves her without a single opportunity to influence the situation in the country after her dismissal. Brilliant victory of the Republic was obtained without firing a single shot, as all shots were fired by Kuvira. It is worth to mention that the agreement between Prince Wu and politicians of the Republic is not necessary to overthrow him. Such a miserable monarch can easily turn his country to a prey for foreign entrepreneurs, even if he doesn’t actually want that. Demonization of Kuvira was made by Raiko and Suyin. They were able to enlist sympathies of leaders of other nations. These leaders were glad to see a weak, easily manipulated monarch on the throne of the Earth Kingdom. They could not control Kuvira. Even blackmailing proved to be inefficient against her. But they weren’t able to destroy her reputation among people of the Empire. Could Kuvira count on clemency of Republic’s politicians and businessmen? No. Even Asami has her sins: she tried to recover her company’s fortunes by selling firearms. And by the way, an attempt to set up a puppet government is a casus belli. Kuvira who spent three years on recovering the order takes the power. Idealists can moan about “non-democracy”. But other nations live with governors who retain their authority until they die or leave the post on their own accord. So why the Earth Nation should be different? Besides, it is people who possess the authority in the first hand, chosen representatives go second. And Kuvira did have a huge support of population. Further follows even more ridiculous incriminations. Slavery? The country is destroyed and desolated, restoration requires huge material resources, funds and human labor. Yes, Kuvira does organize people to do these works, yes, they work hard and are not paid well. But otherwise it would be impossible to recover everything that was broken. Devastated country isn’t Kuvira’s fault, but she takes responsibility for restoring it, and it is silly to blame her for that. Militarization? Kuvira knows for sure the neighbor state wants to set a puppet government, and also she knows leaders of other nations agree with that. So how she is supposed to secure her kingdom? Ok, yes, the leader of the Fire Kingdom rejected intervention. But she did this because she didn’t want war. What kind of war can be with a country that lacks army? Every action of Kuvira is totally reasonable. The next accusation is the only serious one, so we should review it in details. First of all, where all those firebenders and waterbenders are from in the Earth Kingdom? Not an easy to answer question. Before the Ozai aggression all nations lived on their lands. After he was overthrown, on the territory deprived from the Earth Kingdom, a Republic was born, where different nations live together. But why would people living in a peaceful dynamically growing city go to the Earth Kingdom that’s already going to the bad stretch and displaying suspicions to aliens? How many of such people can be? I would assume, there’re no hordes of them and they are mostly young. That, plus the fact that such people can easily throw fireballs and arise huge tides, makes them very dangerous to the newborn country, a country just few month ago boiled in the anarchy chaos. Also, Kuvira knew about the plot against her and knew the other leaders are willing to overthrow her. Anti-spy hysteria is inevitable in such conditions. The episode with Jinora catch confirms this. Kuvira ended up in a situation when either all foreigners must be isolated in a camp, or almost all military forces must be spread across provinces in hopes this will help against diversions. So Kuvira chose the first option, but this choice is incomparable with the choice of Ozai. Ozai occupied lands of other nations, Kuvira merged lands of her own nation. Ozai wanted to destroy people of other nations, Kuvira wanted to protect lives of her people. Even when alone with Baatar, Jr. she never talked about people of other nations as lesser human beings. Even refugees from the camp admitted that their duress was due to safety reasons. And there was no agitation of deficiency of other nations in the Empire. Kuvira wanted to unite all territories of the Earth Kingdom, not to take those territories from them. There would be no extinction of any kind in case the Republic was defeated. Most likely, they would be simply let out, and even would be paid compensation after 50 years. Such methods may seem too severe, but the situation the Earth Empire and Kuvira herself were in was no better either. Kuvira didn’t want to spare lives of her soldiers, so she decided to acquire a super-weapon to guarantee the nightmare Fire Nation warriors wreaked during the Hundred Year War never repeated. Varrick attempted to call it quits paid for it deservedly – either the Earth empire will have the super-weapon, or there will be no neither the super-weapon, nor Varrick. Kuvira who promoted his release from persecution has the right to do it. This is also confirmed in a duel with Korra, or to be more exact, in the fact the duel took place. Kuvira didn’t want to hide behind her soldiers’ backs so he faced this battle herself, while clearly understanding she has tiny chances against Avatar. Finally, the thirteenth episode also confirms this fact. Soldiers who saw what Avatar can do and who lost almost all allies, request to let Kuvira go. They do not flee, they do not surrender. They are willing to die for their commander, but not be ashamed. Yet Kuvira doesn’t want to sacrifice them. She admits her defeat. Gradually, Kuvira’s dream comes true. Her new goal is Zaofu. Or, exactly, technologies of this feud. With these technologies, Kuvira planed to make life of the entire Earth Nation easier, but for Beifong their monopoly was too precious to share. So precious that Suyin with her sons attempted to assassinate Kuvira. The attempt failed, but would-be killers were left alive. Perhaps, Kuvira didn’t want to set Baatar Jr. against herself. Zhu Li who also tried to kill Kuvira is sentenced to death, executed immediately. Too cruel, some says. But Zhu Li committed a number of serious crimes: sabotaging a secret military object, passing secret information to a public enemy, treachery (Zhu Li was an Empire officer) and attempt to murder a commander in chief. Did Beifong family have rights to protect their monopoly? Yes. But Kuvira also had rights to make Zaofu technologies a property of the Earth Nation people. Interests of the majority prevail over the interests of minority. After taking Zaofu, Kuvira warns that all dissidents will be deported to the camp, takes platinum for here giant robot and leaves. And again – we can’t say anything bad about her. The weakness of Kuvira is the weakness of the newborn state. It is insane to wait for leniency from the just rebuilt order. At that moment the chaos was simply too close to allow any recusancy. Now Kuvira has only one goal – Republic, and she wants to take it as quickly as possible, to finish the unpleasant weighty deal and start doing something much more immaculate. March to the Republic had two main reasons: the first one is Kuvira’s strive to ensure safety of her state (the Republic was behind all plots against the Empire including the creation of the military coalition against Kuvira). The second is the old territorial dispute resulted in the Republic became independent, and the Earth Kingdom lost a part of its territory. Kuvira tried all the time to unite the country without victims. Raiko, who believed sacrifices are needed to save economic concerns of the Republic, was punished for his self-conceit by Kuvira’s huge robot. Kuvira never wanted war, but if the matter could only be solved with blood and steel, she fearlessly accepted the challenge. She wasn’t into changing authority structure in the Republic, she needed the empire tax. Kuvira entered the city when she was attacked by Korra and her friends. And that was what really put civilians in danger. But in fact it wasn’t Kuvira who started hostility in the city. Kuvira even tried to turn off the broken super gun, although she could just run away and let Korra deal with this problem alone. But Kuvira’s honor wouldn’t allow her to do so. But here is where the Prince Wu could show his talents – he calmed people down with senseless crap and entertained badgermoles with a dance. Give an order to open fire in spite of your boyfriend is a real virtue. A real leader must be able to sacrifice personal to public, otherwise he or she isn’t a leader at all. Kuvira refused to abandon victory just because of one man (she simply didn’t know then that the Avatar cannot be destroyed at all), so blaming her for this is absurd. And the suggestion of her boyfriend to leave and rule together revealed either a fool or a coward in it. Leaders of other nations already decided to put Kuvira in a cell or kill her, and that decision was led by the same old president Raiko. This means, Baatar Jr. Really believed this nonsense, or simply was scary. Even without her huge robot, Kuvira continued fighting. She knew Avatar is immensely stronger, but being a true warrior Kuvira was ready to honorably fight until the end. If only she knew what awaits the Earth Nation after loosing the war. Wu, apparently as agreed with Raiko separated a big and strong country to multiple small and weak ones. Leaders of these countries will be elected democratically. But the elections will be paid by Republic businessmen, and all decisions will be formed in political spheres of the Republic according to its interests. So, Raiko with the help of Wu implemented the old principle “divide et empera”. Resume: Kuvira tried to make Earth Nation live better until the very end. She wasn’t afraid of blood, but never wanted it. She didn’t hide behind soldiers, but could sacrifice them if necessary. Her enemies were able to destroy her deeds, but they cannot ruin the memory of it. She had many enemies, but all of them were enemies of the state. Among leaders shown in the series, she is the best.