Kuvira

"I'd like to make an announcement to the world: the Earth Kingdom is no more. And from here on out, this man has no authority. I have created a new Earth Empire, and I will continue to lead it into the future myself, bringing about a new era of prosperity for my people. And let me assure my fellow leaders of one thing: anyone who crosses our borders or stands in our way will be ''crushed!"

- Kuvira's warning at Wu's coronation

Kuvira is one of the supporting characters turned to the main antagonist in Book 4 in The Legend of Korra. She is a metalbender who was formerly part of the Metal Clan in Zaofu. Prior to her departure in 171 AG, Kuvira served as both the captain of the city's guard and part of Suyin Beifong's dance troupe. Following the outbreak of anarchy in the Earth Kingdom, Kuvira was appointed as the nation's interim president and tasked to re-establish order in the country in time for Prince Wu's coronation, which earned her the title of "Great Uniter". In her pursuit of order, Kuvira offered to protect the nation's states from bandits in exchange for their loyalty. She leads an army of citizens with Baatar Jr., to whom she is engaged.

Early life
Kuvira grew up in Zaofu, where she became heavily influenced by Suyin's progressive ideology concerning modernization and self-fulfillment. She became part of the matriarch's dance troupe and eventually became captain of the city's guard.

Defending Zaofu
In 171 AG, Kuvira and the other members of Suyin Beifong's dance troupe rehearsed a routine for an upcoming recital. The rehearsal ended following the arrival of Avatar Korra and her friends.

Several days later, Kuvira accompanied Suyin's family and Team Avatar to a rooftop where they bade farewell to Opal, who left Zaofu to train at the Northern Air Temple. After the airbender's airship left the city, Kuvira used her radio to command the other guards to begin securing Zaofu for the evening. Later that night, Kuvira attacked Zaheer and his group after the four managed to infiltrate the city in an attempt to kidnap Korra. She helped the other members of the Metal Clan trap the criminals in a makeshift metal prison, before ordering them to surrender and return the Avatar. Following the group's escape, Kuvira and the other guards searched the city, albeit to no avail, as they were unable to find any traces of the four benders.

Kuvira was questioned by Aiwei, along with the rest of the city's guards, in an attempt to determine the identity of Zaheer's accomplice. When Aiwei's involvement in the attempted kidnapping of Avatar Korra came to light, Kuvira was ordered by Lin Beifong to search the city for the truth seer and determine where the tunnel underneath his home led, which she eventually traced to a dead end with no signs of Aiwei.

Stopping the Red Lotus
Kuvira traveled with Team Avatar, their allies, and several other members of the Metal Clan to the Northern Air Temple in an attempt to free the airbenders held captive by the Red Lotus. Adhering to Zaheer's demand to meet Korra alone at Laghima's Peak, Kuvira went with Suyin, Lin, Tonraq, and the other metalbenders to the base of the peak, where they prepared to use their bending to aid Korra if it became necessary. She climbed to the mountaintop with the rest of the metalbenders after Mako alerted Lin that they had been double-crossed, but was immediately blown off the peak by one of P'Li's combustion beams. Using her cables, Kuvira managed to save herself and rejoined the other metalbenders atop the cliff, where they attempted to subdue P'Li. In the midst of the battle that ensued, Kuvira used her cables to save Tonraq after Zaheer used airbending to throw the waterbender off the cliffside.

Following the fight, the group reassembled at the base of the peak, where Kuvira tended to Tonraq's wounds. While bandaging the tribal chief's arm, Kuvira introduced herself by name after the waterbender thanked her for her help and addressed her by her rank. She requested to accompany Suyin and the members of Team Avatar to a series of caves near the temple in order to rescue the missing airbender, but was ordered to remain with the injured, much to her disappointment.

Reuniting the Earth Kingdom
After the insurrection of the Red Lotus, Kuvira was appointed as the interim president of the Earth Kingdom and set out to reunite the nation, preparing it for the coronation of its new king, Wu. Kuvira left Zaofu and assembled a massive army which included Bolin, Varrick, Zhu Li, and Baatar Jr., with whom she fell in love and eventually got engaged. With modernized airships, mecha tanks, and a high-speed train, Kuvira traveled to states overran by bandits and bargained with their leaders, offering protection and supplies, provided that they pledge allegiance to her.

The Earth Empire
She forced President Raiko to pardon Varrick for his crimes and allow him back into Republic City, where she and her allies attended Prince Wu's coronation. Before the coronation, she falsely promised to step down as the Earth Kingdom's new leader. During Wu's inaugural speech, she took over and announced her plans for the Earth Empire, saying that leadership should not be decided by birthright and that any who stand in her way would be crushed, metalbending the Kyoshi medal of freedom given to her by Wu for emphasis. This earned her massive support from the crowd, except for all the world leaders. When Bolin found himself questioning Kuvira's words, she reassured him that "being crushed" was "simply a rhetoric meaning that she meant business".

The world leaders chose Suyin as their spokesperson, sending her to go speak with Kuvira on their behalf. Kuvira admonished her for not stepping up and fixing the Earth Kingdom, while Suyin retorted with the fact that she didn't want the power. Kuvira threatened Suyin, saying that she knew what would happen to Zaofu if she did not join her. Meanwhile, she had Varrick collect spirit vines from around Republic City to construct a new technology, stating it was now his number one priority.

Invading Zaofu
With Zaofu as the last remaining territory that had not yet been united with the rest of the Earth Empire, she gathered her army and marched on her former home. However, with the other world leaders watching her closely, she wanted to make the attempt to negotiate with Suyin using her trust in Bolin. Meanwhile, Varrick was experimenting with the spirit vines to create a superweapon, but the energy from the vine caused an explosion, and the engineer resolved to put a stop to the project. Kuvira responded by threatening to kill him, to which he agreed to continue the research. Bolin attempted to convince Suyin that Kuvira only wanted the best for the world, but Opal brought up that Kuvira throws dissenters into prison camps. Suyin makes it clear that she will not hand over Zaofu, and Kuvira gives her a day's warning before she takes the city by force.

During this time, Korra arrived in Zaofu and attempted to reason with Kuvira, informing her that her methods were wrong. Kuvira responded by telling her how hard the decisions she had to make were, and Korra admitted that she knew the feeling, resolving to talk things over with Suyin once more before an official siege began.

Soon after, Bolin posed a lot of questions to Kuvira regarding her methods, to which she responded by threatening him. Bolin joined Varrick and Zhu Li in deserting the army, but Baatar Jr. caught up to the trio and arrested them. Kuvira sentenced all three of them to a correctional facility, but at this point, Zhu Li turned on Varrick and pledged her loyalty to the warlord. Kuvira decided to give her one more chance, but left the other two deserters to their punishment.

Later that night, Suyin and her twin sons attempted to sneak into Kuvira's camp to assassinate her, but they were discovered when they unwittingly attacked Zhu Li while she was asleep. Kuvira knew she would try a sneak attack and held them hostage, informing the Zaofu citizens that Suyin violated the negotiation. The next morning, Korra attempted to negotiate peacefully with Kuvira one last time, but she instead proposed a duel, stating that the victor could do as they wished with Zaofu.

The warlord proved to be more than a match for the Avatar, until she entered the Avatar State, leaving her opponent dazed. Just as she was about to land the finishing blow on Kuvira, she began hallucinating Anti-Korra in Kuvira's place, and collapsed. Kuvira restrained her, but just as she was about to kill her, Opal and Jinora, who were observing the battle, interfered. The warlord sent her army to attack Zaofu, and even after Jinora called her siblings for reinforcement, they could not win, and were forced to escape with Korra in tow.

After the battle, Kuvira declared herself victorious, becoming the new ruler of Zaofu. She announced to the citizens that anyone who did not bow before her would be imprisoned along with Suyin and her sons. The only ones who refused were Baatar and Huan, who were immediately arrested. Meanwhile, Baatar Jr. had witnessed the apparent deaths of Bolin and Varrick, as well as the destruction of the spirit vine machinery, but he was certain that he could resume the research with the help of Zhu Li. Kuvira agreed to this, and ordered the dismantling of Zaofu's domes.

Constructing A New Weapon
Some time later, she traveled with Baatar Jr. and others from the Earth Empire military to the Foggy Swamp after discovering that the roots of the Banyan Grove Tree could produce an even more powerful superweapon, and she ordered them to harvest the vines until there was nothing left. Meanwhile, her actions had consequences in Republic City when the Spirit Wilds turned hostile and began imprisoning the populace in the Spirit World, which Kuvira may or may not have been aware of at the time.

She planned to test her superweapon by destroying a nearby abandoned town, but during the testing, Baatar Jr. kept noticing that parts of the machinery were either damaged or missing. Without her knowing, Zhu Li was intentionally sabotaging the weapon, and when she was discovered, Kuvira ordered the guards to chain her in the abandoned town so she would be killed in the blast. During the second test of the weapon that was intended to kill Zhu Li, she discovered too late that the Beifongs had escaped their prison, and they successfully changed the trajectory of the blast so the town would remain unharmed. A battle ensued, and Kuvira dueled and was victorious against Suyin, leaving the Beifongs surrounded until Toph toppled the entire battalion. The Beifongs escaped with Zhu Li in tow, and she informed them that Kuvira planned to attack Republic City in two weeks.

Attacking Republic City
Kuvira then sought to correct the "grave injustice" than Aang and Zuko had committed by retaking Republic City for the Earth Empire. After her speech, Baatar Jr. confessed his love for her, and she told him they could finally marry and rule their empire together after taking the city, embracing him. Having suspected Zhu Li escaped with the information about her attack, Kuvira commenced the invasion a week earlier than planned. Unknown to even her own soldiers, she had constructed a giant mecha, where she would place her superweapon. She used it to destroy a guard post and almost shot down Team Avatar when they went to cut the rail lines, which they thought she needed in order to transport her weapon to the city.

When she arrived in the city, she demonstrated her weapon's power by destroying a few structures, forcing Raiko to surrender. However, unknown to both parties, Korra and Iroh planned to capture Baatar Jr., who was supposed to discuss the terms of surrender with the president. Once he had been captured, Korra told him that he would never see Kuvira again if she didn't leave Republic City alone, and agreed to let her have the Earth Empire. Baatar contacted Kuvira with the same information and proposed that they settle down in Zaofu, and after confessing her love to him, she locked on to Baatar's location and fired her cannon, destroying the mechs that Varrick and Asami had been constructing.

Though Team Avatar was supposedly crushed by the blast, Bolin's earthbending saved them. A number of tactics were used to bring down the giant mecha suit, including lavabending the suit's legs and trapping it within an electromagnetic pulse blast, but all failed. The one that works is two hummingbird suits (piloted by Varrick and Zhu Li in one and Asami and her father Hiroshi Sato in the other) drilling a hole inside the suit with plasma saws designed by Hiroshi during the Equalist revolution. Though the plan worked and Team Avatar managed to get inside the hole, it cost Hiroshi his life, ejecting his daughter from the hummingbird suit before he himself was crushed by the giant metal hand of the mecha suit.

Kuvira, now beginning to lose control of the situation, orders the suit to be put on lockdown to find the intruders. When she finds her spirit energy weapon to be useless on the suit, she uses the sole functioning arm of the giant suit to rip off the arm and throw it aside with Lin and Suyin still inside. Korra blasts her way in to the control room and battles Kuvira once more, now more evenly matched. However, during their battle, Mako's lightning attacks cause a massive explosion, splitting the suit in half. Korra and Kuvira fall out from their half, and it seems as though the fight is over. However, Kuvira, not ready to give up, attacks Korra when she is distracted, but rather than fight her, she runs off into the Spirit Wilds. She continues to run from Korra until she finds her spirit energy cannon hanging from the vines, and uses it in a last attempt to destroy Korra. But she finds herself unable to turn the weapon off once it goes berserk and wreaks havoc on the city. She is about to be destroyed by her own weapon until Korra protects her from the blast. The collision between Korra's bending and the cannon's blast causes a massive explosion which destroys the wilds but creates a new spirit portal, in which Korra and Kuvira find themselves after the chaos dies down.

Defeat and Surrender
Kuvira, unable to cope with her failure, breaks down in front of Korra, refuting Korra's attempts to connect with her and reiterating how Su turned her back on her and Korra disappeared for years, leaving Kuvira with the mindset that she absolutely had to do something to restore balance to the Earth Kingdom. Korra's words, however, seem to affect Kuvira, as she returns to the physical world with Korra and orders all remaining Earth Empire soldiers to stand down. Kuvira, admitting Korra's power was something she could never compete with, surrenders herself to the authories and apologizes to Su for the pain she caused her and her family. She is then taken away to be tried for her crimes.

Trivia

 * Kuvira is voiced by Zelda Williams, daughter of the late Robin Williams.
 * Kuvira is the first main Legend of Korra villain to be female.
 * Kuvira is the first main antagonist of Legend of Korra to be introduced in the preceding book and the second in the franchise after Azula. In addition, she is the first main antagonist to start out completely as an ally.