"So she surrendered after her mecha suit was destroyed and she realized the battle had been lost?"
"No – she was defiant past the very end, refusing to give up or accept that it was over. She was so determined to kill me, she risked her own life firing the spirit cannon at me."
The men across the table from the Avatar took notes. "What happened after the cannon went out of control?"
"I threw myself in front of her and Bent the Spirit Energy. I had no idea such a massive surge of energy would rip open a new Spirit Portal – I was simply trying to direct it away from the two of us."
"So she surrendered because you saved her?"
"No, she kept arguing and defending her actions even after that. She was completely unapologetic."
Korra's interviewers exchanged some confused looks (not their first in the past hour) as they wrote some more notes. "What happened next?"
"I told her I understood her pain, showed her some empathy, let her know she was not alone, and then she instantly realized what she'd done was wrong, regretted the measures she'd taken, felt sorry, and gave up."
The wide-eyed members of her audience said nothing, merely blinked, scratched their heads, raised their eyebrows, or cleared their throats; some mouths were hanging open. Two people sitting by side turned to each other and shook their heads.
Only the world leaders, highest-ranking members of the White Lotus, and most influential players in the recent war had been invited to hear Avatar Korra's account of her confrontation with Kuvira in the Spirit World in person. Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang's wife Master Katara were among them, but neither of them were there. They were in a cave beneath Ba Sing Se, where they'd been imprisoned by Azula and the Dai Li. They were bonding and starting to empathize with each other after realizing they'd both lost their mother. She was offering to help him, and he was on the brink of accepting. Then she was running. He was listening to his uncle explain that now was the perfect time to change his ways and give up his life of villainy, to realize what he'd been doing was wrong and to stop. He was running after them. They were facing each other by a pool of water. He had the perfect opportunity to change and do the right thing... and he didn't take it. A few hours' conversation with a sympathetic person hadn't been enough to make him abandon all his hopes and ambitions. Yet now, a few seconds' conversation with a sympathetic person had been enough to make someone abandon all her hopes and ambitions. Each of them narrowed their eyes, asking, Do you believe this?, then shook their head, answering, Not for a second.
Once the last question had been asked and everyone was dismissed, the two of them lingered outside the building's double-doors, waiting for Korra. She came out surprisingly quickly. "Korra," the Waterbender said.
Korra inclined her head towards each of them in turn. "Katara. Lord Zuko."
"We need to talk," said Zuko.
"All right." The three of them were silent until they'd strolled a little bit down the street. After ducking under a particularly thick patch of spirit vines, Korra asked them, "What is it?"
"We were just talking about your encounter with Kuvira," Katara explained.
"What about it?" asked Korra, not nervously – in fact, she sounded as if their interest didn't interest her at all.
"About how much it reminded us of an... encounter of our own many years ago," Zuko answered. "You've heard of what happened the day Ba Sing Se fell during the Hundred Year War?"
"Of course."
Zuko didn't blame either of the two women for finding it too awkward to go into detail, so he took up the task himself: "That day, my uncle tried to convince me that what I was doing was wrong, just like you say you did with Kuvira."
"Yeah," Korra conceded. "Great parallel, isn't it?"
Zuko continued: "And, in spite of everything I'd done and how I'd treated her and her friends, Katara showed me sympathy and made me realize how much we had in common."
"I know," Korra said flatly.
"But it didn't work." They all stopped. Zuko turned and faced her, then waited for Korra to look up at him before he went on. "That wasn't enough to make me see the error of my chosen path. That's never enough. Real people don't change in a heartbeat – it's a long, painful, complicated process that involves many different forces."
Korra turned from him to Katara as the latter began speaking: "A little sympathy and kind words do not instantly humble a tyrannical dictator who showed absolutely no signs of remorse or hesitation prior. Aang joked about trying to make Fire Lord Ozai 'good again,' but nobody took that seriously."
"Some of her soldiers said Kuvira seemed remorseful for a second after she thought she'd killed Baatar, Jr.," Korra pointed out.
"Not remorseful enough to give up," said Zuko. "She kept fighting as hard as ever after that. Did he or what she did to him come up during your conversation?"
"Not at all," she replied in the quiet, almost flat voice she'd been using since they'd started. "We didn't make the slightest allusion to it. Any sorrow she felt in that moment had zero role in her sudden regret and decision to surrender."
"Then why did she?" The girl turned away from Katara, who paused for a second before continuing: "Korra, this isn't some hack play written by an amateur who has no concern for depicting realistic characters or scenarios. We live in the real world where unrealistic things like less than two minutes' conversation with the heroine instantly making a powerful dictator see the error of her ways, regret everything, and give up do not happen."
"Sadly, it takes far more to convince villains to change," Zuko added. "If it was that easy, Katara and Uncle would have had no trouble convincing me to give up."
Korra shrugged and tried to sound nonchalant – unconvincingly, as she didn't even bother to try to smile. "So it was unrealistic and the kind of thing only a 'Mary Sue,' as Jinora would call it, does. Are you questioning whether Kuvira really gave up? You think she lied so she could bide her time to escape prison and start all over again?"
"That's certainly possible, but unlikely," Zuko assured her.
"Are you questioning whether I was being sincere?" Korra asked next. "Do you think I was just playing the 'good cop,' giving her her sympathy fix, flattering her, and kneeling before her, just to get her to surrender before she did any more damage?"
"That's also possible," Katara said with a nod. "But also unlikely."
"Then what are you asking?"
Zuko leaned towards her and asked, "What really happened in there?"
When she didn't answer, Katara asked, "How did you really make Kuvira instantly regret everything she'd done and realize she deserved to be punished? Losing the battle hadn't been enough to make her realize surrender was the only rational response, so how did you make her admit everything she'd always denied up until a few seconds before that?"
Korra waited, looking back and forth between the two people who knew how implausible her story was, until she finally sighed and sagged her shoulders. Without looking up, she said, "You won't believe me."
"Try us," said Zuko.
After another second or two, Korra took a deep breath and raised her head. "Okay. Here's what really happened. There's only one thing that can have that effect on people..."
"You had to know what you were doing wasn't right."
Either she was too stupid to know she'd acted like a dictator (contrary to many demonstrations of her intelligence), she knew but was in denial, or she knew and didn't care but had only wanted power all along. Regardless, she refused to admit it. "I was trying to help my people! Su turned her back on the Earth Kingdom, you were gone, I had to do SOMETHING!"
Korra wished she could make the woman see the error of her ways, but it was ludicrous to think a few sympathetic words from her would defeat the strong, great, powerful, indestructible Kuvira. (What did Jinora call that? When all a previously-strong woman's power and drive conveniently vanished? Chickification or something?) But as a female hero, she couldn't overpower her enemy by superior strength, skill, and power and send her back, defeated in combat, to be unwillingly punished for her crimes like Aang had done with Fire Lord Ozai. No, her enemy had to surrender of her own free will. That was the only way evil dictators could be stopped – convincing them to give up their tyrannical ways of their own free will. But how could she accomplish that in the few seconds they'd been allotted for this confrontation?
Korra reached to her waist and pulled a coil of golden rope from her belt. She took a few steps back from Kuvira and began twirling the lasso in the air above her head. "With my Lasso of Regret, you will feel bad about your actions and give up!"*
The lasso encircled Kuvira's waist and arms and tightened. Instantly, all the fight and anger went out of her. "You're right. I'm sorry."*
Korra turned around and faced her audience of two. "I didn't lie. I did instantly make her feel bad about her actions and give up, and she instantly decided I was right and felt sorry. So what if I used words or a magic lasso to do it?"
*This concept and dialogue taken from the beginning of The Powerpuff Girls Season 3 episode "Super Zeroes."