History Characters / TheLegendOfKorraEnemies

A captain in Suyin's metalbending corps and one of the members of her dance troupe. After the fall of the Red Lotus and the Earth Kingdom's descent into anarchy, she is hired by the United Republic to restore order to the Earth Kingdom in preparation for the coronation of Prince Wu, heir to the throne. Believing him unfit, she instead unites the region and reforms it as the new Earth Empire, with herself in charge.

Following the Earth Queen's death, the Earth Kingdom collapsed into anarchy, divided and full of bandits harassing the population. Kuvira, Zaofu's captain of the guards, was hired by the world leaders to reunite the Kingdom and bring back order in preparation for Prince Wu's ascension to the throne. Despite her rather drastic methods, she proved effective at the task, gaining popularity as "the Great Uniter". When the time came for Prince Wu's coronation, however, she refused to hand over power and proclaimed herself the new official leader, renaming the nation Earth Empire.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: He is the first person to lose his bending to Amon and apparently loses his position as the Triad's boss soon after.

** Despite having openly renounced the traditional Earth Kingdom rule, Kuvira still defines the parameters of her Empire in accordance with the old Earth Kingdom borders, and uses this as her justification for why Zaofu, which was ''not'' thrown into chaos by the Earth Queen's assassination, must be treated the same way as any other region, and assimilated.

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: She manages to defeat Korra and conquer Zaofu. And while Bolin and Varrick escaped, Bataar has seen enough of the spirit vine experiment to be able to restart the project with Zhu Li's help.]]

* DangerouslyGenreSavvy: In "Battle of Zaofu", [[spoiler:she deduces that Su would attempt to take her out at night, and so ordered Zhu Li to sleep in her bed as a decoy, managing to capture Su and her twin sons as a result. She also knows that the airbenders in Korra's entourage won't go down without a fight, and should she beat Korra, they will come running and thus break the terms of the agreement. However, she also has her entire army behind her, so if Korra did manage to beat her, she could give the order anyway to invade Zaofu or aid her in combat]].

* ClothingCombat: Not only is her armor fashionable, the back is actually several layers of stacked metal sheets which she can use to restrain opponents in combat.

* [[redirect:''PrettyBoy'']] I'm surprised nobody mentioned it before; Desna is a definite pretty boy, so much that he's mistaken as an "attractive lady" by Bolin in "Rebel Spirits"

-->'''Opal:''' This isn't about equality, you just want control.

* TheConqueror: Though she's called the "Great Uniter", that's more or less a euphemism for an impressive series of conquests solidified by {{Leonine Contract}}s, or, when that fails, she'll simply conquer by military force. She was tasked with uniting to deal with bandits, but after she finishes that, she decides to conquer nations [[spoiler: like Zaofu]] which were not under siege by bandits.

* JustToyingWithThem: Pretty much sums up her "[[CurbStompBattle fight]]" With Korra. She clearly sees Korra as no threat to her and throughout the battle, she constantly taunts and mocks Korra with an arrogant smile on her face, goading her into using into the Avatar State. It nearly bites her in the ass when Korra actually does. She only won due to Korra [[spoiler: seeing a vision of Dark Korra]].

* VillainBall: Zigzagged. After defeating Korra in a one-on-one fight with the understanding that if she did so Korra would have to leave Zaofu and let Kuvira continue her invasion, she tries to kill Korra. She had literally nothing to gain from doing this, and it only served to pointlessly escalate the conflict and give Korra even more motivation to stop her. On the other hand, Killing Korra meant eliminating the one of the few people in the world who could defeat Kuvira. Korra gave her word to leave Zaofu, but not not to protect other places like the United Republic.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Despite having openly renounced the traditional Earth Kingdom rule, Kuvira still defines the parameters of her Empire in accordance with the old Earth Kingdom borders, and uses this as her justification for why Zaofu, which was ''not'' thrown into chaos by the Earth Queen's assassination, must be treated the same way as any other region, and assimilated.

* PragmaticVillainy: Makes a point of trying genuine diplomacy with Zaofu rather than her usual tactics so as to retain public approval for the Earth Empire. When it's clear they won't budge, though, she falls back on invasion.

* SmugSmiler: When not being TheStoic, she is this instead.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: She is the series's first female BigBad. [[note]]Ming-Hua and P'Li were female villains in Book 3, but Zaheer served as the main villain while they served as his CoDragons.[[/note]]

* VillainBall: After defeating Korra in a one-on-one fight with the understanding that if she did so Korra would have to leave Zaofu and let Kuvira continue her invasion, she tries to kill Korra. She had literally nothing to gain from doing this, and it only served to pointlessly escalate the conflict and give Korra even more motivation to stop her.
** Killing Korra meant eliminating the one of the few people in the world who could defeat Kuvira. Korra gave her word to leave Zaofu, but not not to protect other places like the United Republic.

* KilledOffForReal: Korra finishes him off by using her spirit pacification technique on him, much like how she defeated Vaatu.

* StupidEvil: After defeating Korra in a one-on-one fight with the understanding that if she did so Korra would have to leave Zaofu and let Kuvira continue her invasion, she tries to kill Korra. She had literally nothing to gain from doing this, and it just pointlessly escalated the conflict.

* EvilCounterpart: To Korra and Su

* EvilTwin

* EvilCounterpart: To Korra

* AmbiguouslyEvil: Does she have greater designs for her Earth Empire, or is she really taking over because she feels she can do a better job than the failures which have preceded her? Her comments after the reveal seem to tend toward the former, given she's [[spoiler:going after Zaofu]].

** To Prince Wu: He is incompetent, foppish, and inherited the Earth Kingdom, she is efficient, austere, and worked hard to reach where she was. It's not purely positive, however. Wu acknowledges his own shortcomings and accepts criticism from someone, while Kuvira is known to put dissidents into concentration camps.

* TheEmperor: After Wu's coronation she abruptly declares herself the new ruler of the reunified Earth Kingdom, renaming it the Earth Empire.

* StupidEvil: After defeating Korra in a one-on-one fight with the understanding that if she did so Korra would have to leave Zaofu and let Kuvira continue her invasion, she tries to kill Korra. She had literally nothing to gain from doing this, and it just pointlessly escalated the conflict.

** She admonishes the governor of a territory for letting his pride get in the way of making a smart decision, but Kuvira herself is incredibly smug, arrogant, and overall full of herself, unable to take even an ounce of criticism and loves to show off her power.