Baatar Jr.

Baatar Jr. is the anti-villain turned to the later supporting character in The Legend of Korra. He is Suyin Beifong and Baatar's eldest son, half-nephew of Lin Beifong, first grandson of Toph Beifong, and former fiancé of Kuvira. As Zaofu's engineer, he was responsible for enacting his father's designs. However, after Earth Queen Hou-Ting's murder and the Earth Kingdom's subsequent decline in stability, he left Zaofu together with Kuvira to reunite the nation, much to the disapproval of his mother. He turned back to his family, however, after he could not understand why Kuvira would shoot at him with her spirit energy cannon when he was captured by Team Avatar.

Engineer at Zaofu
While Suyin hosted a dinner for Avatar Korra and her friends, Baatar Jr. and his father passed by the dining hall, where the latter informed the matriarch that they would have to eat in his office as they had a major breakthrough regarding the remodeling of a tram station. After the two left, Suyin proudly remarked that Baatar Jr. was an engineer who was responsible for handling all of his father's projects.

He later attended Opal's farewell dinner and subsequently accompanied the rest of the dining group to the rooftop, where they watched Opal depart for the Northern Air Temple for airbending training.

Traveling across the Earth Kingdom
After the Insurrection of the Red Lotus, Baatar Jr. made plans with Kuvira behind Suyin's back to leave Zaofu and stabilize the situation in Ba Sing Se and the rest of the Earth Kingdom.[1] Although his mother made it clear that if they were to leave, they would never be welcomed back in Zaofu, Baatar Jr. left anyway, as he took it as an opportunity to rise from underneath his father's shadow. His departure led to a falling out with his mother, who saw it as a betrayal and who deemed Kuvira's quest an unjustified seizure of power.[7] At some point, he entered in a romantic relationship with Kuvira, which progressed to the point that he proposed to her, which she accepted.

Annexation of the State of Yi
By 174 AG, he traveled the Earth Kingdom by train. When Bolin reported to him that two more states had agreed to join their alliance, he happily took the reports from him and relayed the message to Kuvira, stating that they had reached ninety percent of their goal. He was about to celebrate their achievement with Varrick, Zhu Li, and Bolin by drinking some tea, though when Kuvira stated that she refused to celebrate until the Earth Kingdom was reunited completely, he digressed and put his cup back down. However, the contents ended up being spilled on his clothing when their train suddenly halted due to an earthen obstruction on the tracks caused by bandits.

After Kuvira cleared their path, they continued on to the state of Yi, where Baatar Jr. found his sister Opal. He greeted her in a friendly matter, though when he asked how their mother was doing, Opal snapped at him, dismissing his question since she believed he did not care anyway. After the governor of Yi ordered Kuvira and her army to leave the state, Baatar Jr. retreated with everyone else to the border of the state, where they would wait a day for the governor to reconsider. When he did, they all returned and Baatar Jr. witnessed his fiancée claim the state in the name of a united Earth Kingdom.

Baatar Jr. arrived at Republic City together with Kuvira and the rest of the army a day before Prince Wu's coronation as the new Earth King. Upon checking in to the Republic City Four Elements, Baatar Jr. curtly greeted his mother. Upon being greeted as "Baatar Jr." in return, he haughtily corrected her by saying he went by just "Baatar". He started to gloat about his and Kuvira's accomplishments, believing that his mother felt regret about passing up on the opportunity to be a part of the movement. Displeased that his mother denounced their accomplishments as something good, he merrily announced that Kuvira would be an official member of the Beifong family through a marriage with him, urging his mother to get over her grudge with his fiancée. When Suyin did not react and merely said she was glad Kuvira was stepping down after Wu's coronation, Baatar Jr. briskly wondered if she preferred to be ruled by Wu, referring to him as a "royal idiot".

The following day, Baatar Jr. attended Wu's coronation and applauded and cheered when Kuvira publicly denounced Wu's authority and claimed power for herself, renaming the Earth Kingdom the "Earth Empire". When his mother later came to speak with Kuvira, Baatar Jr. retreated with Bolin to the adjacent room to give the ladies some privacy.

Conquering Zaofu
En route to Zaofu, Baatar Jr. smoothened out his uniform before joining Kuvira to look out of the window to the passing landscape, contently noting that by the same time the following day, his mother would have signed the treaty that surrendered Zaofu to their control and the Earth Empire would entirely be united. He was cautioned by his fiancée, however, to not get ahead of himself, as securing the metal city would not be as easy as he made it seem. Upon hearing Kuvira refer to the city as his hometown, Baatar Jr. darkly denounced it as his home and declared to be ready to take it by force. However, he was once more reeled in by Kuvira, who stressed the importance of handling the situation with diplomacy, considering the eyes of the world were upon them, a task for which she wanted to use Bolin even though Baatar Jr. had his doubts in regards to the reliability of the earthbender.

When a shock rattled their train, Baatar Jr. and Kuvira swiftly made their way down to the last cart where Varrick was conducting his experiments on spirit vines. As the inventor shut down his project, wary of the destructive possibilities of the spirit energy, Baatar Jr. wondered why the engineer suddenly cared about the consequences. After Kuvira threatened to kill Varrick if he did not resume his testing, Baatar Jr. left with her back to their own cart, where they summoned Bolin to have a meeting with them. Baatar Jr. sat relaxed on the couch while his fiancée explained Bolin's task to him.

Arriving at Zaofu, Baatar Jr. led Kuvira and Bolin to the room where the rest of the Beifong family was awaiting them. With a grand gesture, he swung open the double doors, though the two parties merely greeted each other with tension. When his parents tried to reason with him, stating that he belonged in the metal city, Baatar Jr. angrily asked them why, as he perceived his time there to have been spent in the shadow of his father. He stood by as Kuvira gave his family a twenty-four hour ultimatum to surrender the city, before returning with his fiancée to their camp.

In Kuvira's personal tent, Baatar Jr. told Bolin that sending off dissenters to a reeducation camp was merely one of the hard truths of the army, a necessity for a united Earth Empire. Baatar Jr. later escorted Avatar Korra to see Kuvira, before making his way toward Varrick's quarters, asking the guards in front of the door if they had seen Bolin. Learning that the lavabender had been by though was sent away, Baatar Jr. grew suspicious and ordered the guards to open the door. Finding the cart to be deserted with the ceiling hatch open, the engineer deduced that Bolin and Varrick had deserted, prompting him to give chase.

Each piloting a mecha suit, Baatar Jr. and two corporals tracked the three deserters, who had each taken a mecha suit as well, down in the nearby forest. Catching them by surprise, Baatar Jr. struck Bolin's mecha suit with an electricity bolt, before charging straight for Varrick. His assault was thwarted by Zhu Li, however, which enabled Bolin to recover and tackle him to the ground. In the ensuing struggle, Baatar Jr. managed to get the upper hand and delivered a strong blow to the center of Bolin's suit, knocking it on its back. Building up momentum by jumping in the air, he charged another electricity bolt and completely destroyed Bolin's suit with it. The earthbender managed to escape, causing Baatar Jr. to continue his assault with his flamethrower. He was forced to run, however, when Bolin broke his attack by launching a large boulder at him and toppled a tree in his direction. Baatar Jr. managed to avoid damage and found Varrick scrambling through the forest. Capturing the inventor, Baatar Jr. threatened to kill him in order to force Bolin and Zhu Li to surrender.

The fugitives apprehended, Baatar Jr. escorted the threesome to face Kuvira, where he stood by as Kuvira sent Bolin off to a dissenters' camp, locked Varrick away under military supervision to continue his spirit vine experiments, and pardoned Zhu Li as she pledged her loyalty to the army commander.

The following morning, Baatar Jr. was on the train that escorted Bolin and Varrick away from Zaofu on Kuvira's orders. He made his way to the prisoner holding cart to take the inventor to his new laboratory in order to continue weaponizing the spirit vine energy. As Varrick reminisced about always being greeted in the morning by his assistant with a hot cup of tea, Baatar Jr. dismissed the wish as something to be fulfilled when he started working. He was not amused when the eccentric inventor wanted to stall by pointing out that he usually only worked in the afternoon from 3:45 until 4pm and order one of the guards to roughly manhandle Varrick to force him to cooperate, as Baatar Jr. wanted to learn how the spirit vine device worked. When Bolin woke up due to the commotion, Baatar Jr. ordered him to go back to sleep as they only needed Varrick and added that Bolin would need his energy upon arriving at the reeducation camp. He made it clear to Varrick that he was expected to work, as he would be supervising the work and one of the guards would assist. When Varrick spooked the guards by retelling how the experiment created an uncontrollable blast of energy last time they tried it, Baatar Jr. wearily agreed that Bolin would assist.

As Varrick was tinkering at the machine containing the stasis capsule with a spirit vine sample in it, Baatar Jr. ordered the inventor to walk him through every step of the project. He told Bolin to be quiet when the earthbender excitedly noted to convert the weapon into a source of clean energy per Varrick's original plans for the device. He continued to chastise Varrick for wanting to limit his invention to clean energy, believing it was their responsibility as scientists to push the boundaries of the possible once a discovery was made. When Varrick jabbed at him that he would not know anything about scientific discoveries as he could not even "discover a wolfbat if it was building a nest in [his] butt", Baatar Jr. called the inventor "pathetic" and corrected him on the fact that wolfbats did not build nests. As Varrick continued to point out that Baatar Jr. would never know how it felt to "give birth to genius only to have it kidnapped and raised by fools", the second-in-command irritatingly asked if he was done with his rambling, threatening to order the guards to roughly force him to continue his work.

While Varrick continued adjusting his invention, Baatar Jr. closely studied the machine, understanding how the current interacted with the vine and how there was a directional tube, though he failed to grasp the meaning of a device at the base of the machine, as it looked like it would direct the energy to back where it came from. Although he asked about the specifics of the piece of equipment Varrick was working on near the power source, he never received an answer. He skeptically eyed the inventor as he tried to get his machine to work by tapping and kicking it. When it finally sprung to life, bathing in a purple light, Baatar Jr. inquired after the source of an incisive ticking that filled the wagon. Learning it was a timer, he irritatingly asked for more details and was shocked to learn that it was for a bomb that would go off five minutes later. As Varrick explained that it would destroy all his research and everyone in its vicinity, Baatar Jr. grew furious and stated the inventor to be bluffing. He pointed out that he would not let Varrick blow everything up as he was working for Kuvira, a job that no one was allowed to quit. Snapping his fingers, he ordered the guards to apprehend the inventor, though changed his mind when Varrick revealed to have a remote with which he could set the bomb off immediately. Forced to leave Bolin and Varrick on their half of the train, Baatar Jr. commented that Varrick was "insane", only to receive the quick answer that they had known that from the moment they hired him. He kept an eye on the disconnected wagons via a telescope and was shocked to witness it explode, having been under the impression that Varrick had only been bluffing. Commenting that the inventor was crazier than a "sewer pipe elephant rat", he ordered the rest of his crew to set course back to Zaofu.

Baatar Jr. arrived at the metal city in time to attend his fiancée's victory speech to the Metal Clan. He grew angry when he noticed that his father and eldest brother defied Kuvira's rule by refusing to bow to her. He stalked over to his family and yelled at his father to kneel before Kuvira, stating her to be his rightful leader. When they refused and his father told him he was disappointed in him, he ordered them to be taken away, before leading the rest of the Metal Clan in a cheer to hail the Great Uniter.

Afterward, Baatar Jr. followed Kuvira to his family's personal garden and reported to her that he was certain that Varrick and Bolin had perished in the explosion, along with the spirit vine research, though reassured his fiancée that he could replicate the technology with the help of an assistant. He also received the order to begin dismantling the domes protecting Zaofu.

Readying the spirit energy cannon
Baatar Jr. traveled along with Kuvira and the air fleet toward the Foggy Swamp. Making his way to the banyan-grove tree, he examined the surrounding roots with a probe, concluding that they were infused with spirit energy more powerful than in the samples taken from Republic City, prompting Kuvira to order her battalion of mecha suits to start harvesting the roots.

Baatar Jr. returned to a factory near Zaofu, where he continued to weaponize Varrick's technology with the help of Zhu Li in the form of a spirit energy cannon. Upon the weapon's completion, Baatar Jr. ordered his crew to test the power core to make sure that the demonstration in Kuvira's presence the following day would run smoothly. With the energy capsule loaded, he told Zhu Li to initialize phase one, though soon retracted the order when she reported that there was a problem with the condenser backing up. When the override failed to respond, Baatar Jr. ordered for all the workers to evacuate, since the cannon was about to explode. Although Zhu Li urged him to leave as well, he ignored her and manually shut the machine down by removing part of its circuitry. Much to his shock, he found a cracked channeling ring and ordered all the workers to disassemble the entire cannon to check every part for irregularities, since it needed to be perfect by the next day. He was surprised to find Kuvira inspecting the cannon later on, as he had not been expecting her until the next day. He reported that they had encountered some malfunctions, though reassured her that they should be ready for the demonstration.

The next day, Baatar Jr. proudly fired up the cannon on Kuvira's order. When the machine malfunctioned again, he was shocked to find the error had been caused by a missing distributor pin. He reported to Kuvira that he had locked it in place himself the day prior, eliminating the possibility of it having fallen out. Asked if the missing object could cause the cannon to fail, he noted that it could cause the cannon to explode. After Kuvira discovered the malfunction to have been caused by Zhu Li's sabotaging, Baatar Jr. was ordered to chain Zhu Li to a tower located in the abandoned village that was the target of the cannon. Afterward, he set out to fix the cannon, though his work was interrupted by the blaring of the factory's alarm, alerting them of the escape of the Beifong family held captive underneath the facility. Asking whether he should postpone the test, he was ordered by Kuvira to continue his work and to fire when he was ready. As such, he fired the cannon later on, though when he spotted Opal in the target town, he urged Kuvira to stop the test. His plea came too late, though the weapon's trajectory was altered when his mother, twin brothers, and aunt rattled the cannon with their earthbending, causing the shot the miss.

Conquering Republic City and capture
After the successful test of the spirit energy cannon, Baatar Jr. traveled back to Zaofu with Kuvira, where he witnessed her address the troops and announce their plans to invade the United Republic of Nations. As she finished her speech, he retreated with her out of sight, where he told her that he was honored to march into Republic City by her side and that he loved her. In turn, Kuvira thanked him for all his support, noting that she could have never achieved her goals without his help and looked forward to marrying him after they claimed victory over Republic City, before sharing an embrace.

Realizing that Zhu Li, who knew about their plans, had warned the United Republic, they launched their attack a week ahead of schedule in order to keep the element of surprise. Only a few hours away from Republic City, they were discovered by Team Avatar, though Baatar Jr., traveling per airship, was told by Kuvira to let the team flee back to Republic City, confident that even without the element of surprise, no one could stop them.

Arriving at Republic City, Baatar Jr. proudly noted that they had completed their goals, after Kuvira forced President Raiko to surrender the city by sinking the United Forces battleships in a matter of seconds, and set course to Air Temple Island in order to present the president with the terms of the Earth Empire. Before he could reach his destination, however, Baatar Jr. was overpowered by Tenzin, Bumi, and Korra, who kidnapped him and took him to a Future Industries factory.

When Korra entered the Avatar State and lifted him in the air to force him to reveal how they could stop the enormous mecha suit he had built, Baatar Jr. smugly called her bluff and was put down again. Laughing and sarcastically asking her if that was truly her best idea, he noted that they had lost the battle even though they refused to accept it. When his mother walked up to him, Baatar Jr. instantly dismissed her and reaffirmed his belief that they were only doing what was right, even if that meant having to take the lives of those who refused to surrender. He refused to come back home with her and coldly declared Kuvira to be his new family. Baatar Jr. relented, however, when Korra threatened to make it her life's mission to keep him and Kuvira apart and he agreed to contact his fiancée to try and convince her to cease her conquest of the United Republic. Calling Kuvira, Baatar Jr. told her that he refused to live his life separated from her and urged her to stop her advance, so that they could return home and get married, a statement Kuvira agreed with and she told him she loved him. After being released from his bonds, Baatar Jr. was shocked to learn that Kuvira was aiming the spirit energy cannon at them and fired.

Although he managed to survive the explosion, Baatar Jr. was rendered unconscious and was carried out from underneath the rubble by his mother and Bumi. He was taken to Asami's office with the rest of the injured, where his mother laid him down on a camp bed. As he regained consciousness and noticed his mother by his side, he apologized for betraying her and the rest of their family. He was heartbroken as he did not understand how Kuvira could deliberately aim the spirit energy cannon at him after he gave his life to her. Sitting up, he lamented how Wei, Wing, and Opal would never forgive him, though Suyin comforted him by pointing out that, while it might take some time, they would work through it as a family.

Baatar Jr. later joined Team Avatar and their allies in Asami's workplace and revealed that the enormous mecha suit was powered by spirit vine energy and thus impervious to electromagnetic pulse attacks. When they later planned to saw a hole through the platinum armor of the suit with plasma saws attached to hummingbird mecha suits, Baatar Jr. told Korra that the suit could be powered down from inside the engine room by switching the two emergency levers off at the same time.

Personality
As an engineer in Zaofu, Baatar Jr. worked closely with his father. Over time, however, he grew tired of living in his shadow, which led him to join Kuvira on her campaign to restore order in the war-torn Earth Kingdom, leaving Zaofu against his mother's wishes. In the years following, he progressively distanced himself from any part of his former life, denouncing Zaofu as his home and dropping the "Junior" from his name; according to his mother, he turned his back to all his parents had tried to teach him.

As Kuvira's second-in-command, he became ruthless, finding the goal to justify the morally questionable tactics Kuvira's army employed, to the point where he had no qualms threatening the lives of defenseless individuals, as evidenced by his threats against Varrick in order to force Bolin and Zhu Li to surrender or his willingness to employ a weapon of mass destruction. Despite this and his resentment toward his family, he could not bring himself to truly harm them, as he tried to stop the firing of the spirit energy cannon upon seeing Opal in the target zone. In addition, his love for and trust in Kuvira was so strong that he could not bear the thought of a life without her, preferring to surrender than to lose her. After this trust was shattered by her firing the energy spirit cannon at him, he turned on her and helped Team Avatar to stop her conquest.

Abilities
Baatar Jr. has demonstrated considerable skill as a mecha suit pilot, capable of repelling earth-based attacks and launching quick counterstrikes. He is also a skilled engineer, having assisted his father in developing many technologies in Zaofu. Following his departure from the Metal Clan, Baatar Jr. demonstrated his abilities by replicating Varrick's work on spirit vines, eventually developing a spirit energy cannon capable of blowing a hole through a small hill. He was also capable of manufacturing a mecha suit that stands above twenty-five stories high to transport said cannon.