YMMV / The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Kuvira:
    • Was she acting out of pure altruism, a wish to repay Korra for saving her life, or just a desire to get back in Suyin's good books when she offered her help to the heroes?
    • Did she genuinely regret the Earth Empire's end, or was she just telling Guan what she thought he'd want to hear?
    • Also, she claims to be against brainwashing, yet she has no trouble trying to do it to Guan and Dr. Sheng near the climax. Was she lying when she expressed her previous disapproval? If not, did she want to give them a taste of their own medicine, or did she see it as the best/most efficient/only way to stop them?
  • Hou-Ting's presence to King Wu asked about his intentions. Did he have the best of intentions of giving the power back to the people or was he finding another way to slack off and escape his duties?
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Asami enacting her Betrayal Insurance on Kuvira. The lady deserved it even if she wasn't betraying Korra at the time.
  • Baatar Jr. hasn't been forgiven for allying with Kuvira, with Suyin being the exception. Korra's only working with him for pragmatic reasons but makes it clear she doesn't like him personally. Being under house arrest is worse for him than it is for his siblings, who still have memories of that wooden cage in the pit and Opal is happy to snark about his actions. Break the Haughty is quite satisfying.
  • Kuvira has no response when Baatar Jr. refuses to accept any of her apologies for trying to kill him in her bid to conquer Republic City. She tries to argue he would have done the same if the roles were reversed, but Baatar Jr. reinforces that no, he would not sacrifice someone he loved to achieve his goals. What's more, the fact that she loves him isn't enough to convince him to take her back. Kuvira gets a Heel Realization that this is no one's fault but hers, and it seems to spur her Character Development.
• Ho Yay: Wu and Mako are back in full force, including Wu actually telling him "I love you."
  • In the last book, the two may have been taken to light Ship Tease levels. In the first, they start off with their usual Ho Yay situations like Wu fainting into Mako's arms in one side of a panel as President Moon does damage control, but in the last, when Mako and Bolin are finally both de-brainwashed, there's essentially a teasy panel where Opal jumps to hug Bolin, and Wu's the one who does the same to Mako, exclaiming "I got my brain back!" (referring to Mako) as he does, with Mako actually looking affectionate back.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • In Part 2, Kuvira singlehandedly fighting her way out of Guan's camp, taking out Guan, the brainwashed members of Team Avatar, a pair of soldiers and a mecha-suit along the way. This ends up enabling her to ruin Guan's plan to ambush and capture Korra.
  • Later on, Toph, Suyin and Kuvira fighting side by side against Guan's army, all three using their earthbending to take out a good number of his soldiers and mecha-suits.
  • Baatar Jr. has truly reformed and is making amends for supporting Kuvira. Despite the fact that his siblings are awkward around him and Opal is being a Deadpan Snarker, he hasn't stopped trying.
  • The Surprisingly Realistic Outcome that Baatar Jr. refuses to accept Kuvira's apologies or reconcile with her. She can argue Never My Fault for conquering the Earth Kingdom and imprisoning her family, but Baatar Jr. tells her they both crossed a line with their actions and he learned that she didn't love him enough to negotiate for his freedom. What's more, he says that if she had been the one held hostage, he wouldn't have freaking shot at her in to conquer the city.
  • A testament to Baatar Jr's genius; he manages to figure out a way of undoing Guan and Dr. Sheng's brainwashing in less than a day. Not to mention that most of that time was spent trying to find the right settings to use, before he decided to use an unaffected test subject to determine them. Had he done that early on, he could have finalized the solution much earlier.
  • Much like the battle in "Operation Beifong", we get to see three generations of the Beifong family fighting side by side in the final battle, with Opal blowing Guan's soldiers away with airbending, Suyin taking down a mecha-suit with her metal cables, and Toph slamming two mecha-suits together with her earthbending.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Guan's method of "recruiting" troops via brainwashing surely brings to mind the First Order’s brainwashing of troops. Soldiers are indoctrinated to the Earth Empire’s ideologies upon joining, and those who falter or are deemed too weak to serve are subject to reconditioning. And in Part 2, he captures and brainwashes Asami, Mako and Bolin. Kuvira only just manages to escape the same fate.
  • Guan's head scientist explaining that she's improved the Dai-Li's technique so that it's now (apparently) permanent. No "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight. Even though Baatar Jr. manages to undo the brainwashing, it still takes a while.
  • Wu's vision of Queen Hou-Ting.
  • At the end of Part 2, Wu gets captured by Guan, who straps him into the brainwashing chair...
• Salvaged Story:
  • Toph is given a bigger role as the Krew convince her to run for governor of her homestate, after her limited appearances in the show were seen as They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.
  • For those who thought it was rather unnatural that Asami didn't express any significant emotional response towards Kuvira for killing her father in the finale (especially since she had just reconciled with him then and there), it's finally made clear that Asami is livid at Kuvira for killing her father.
  • Likewise, for people who thought Suyin was hypocritical for forgiving Bataar Jr. and not Kuvira, her reasoning is explored more after Kuvira's trial. Suyin is angry that Kuvira tried to kill her son and thinks an apology is enough to make up for that as well as the whole conquering Zaofu and subverting its purpose as a haven. Bataar Jr. for her suffered punishment enough due to Kuvira trying to kill him and realizing everything she promised, including their love, was a lie. Kuvira for her part does point out that Suyin and the other Earth Kingdom politicians in scapegoating her when she at least is trying to make amends. That being said, the story very much highlights their conflict is goes beyond ideological differences.
• Tear Jerker: Everyone's reaction to Asami, Bolin and Mako being brainwashed. To be sure, they remain professional, but Korra and Opal are visibly torn having to fight their loves, Korra especially. It gets even worse for Korra, though. After capturing Asami, she continues the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, and she's heartbroken when Asami calls her an enemy, but tries to remain strong.
  • In part 3, it gets worse. The still-brainwashed Asami smacks Korra's hand away, and you can see just how much it hurts Korra, emotionally. The subsequent attempts to help Asami fail over and over again, and you can tell just how helpless Korra feels and how desperate she is, that she volunteers to help with Baatar's experiments.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many have pointed out the Selective Enforcement Kuvira is going through given that she waged wars of aggression for three years on President Raiko's mandate. This is a legitimate defense for Kuvira to bring up.
  • Several villains in this series have fought for a cause that was arguably justified, or managed to avoid breaking any actual laws, but this comic takes it to the next level by having Guan "interfere" with the election by legally running for office and not using any force. This provides a fine example of how Democracy Is Flawed, makes Team Avatar Powerful and Helpless against someone they know is evil, and creates some Dramatic Irony by having Guan defeat democracy using democracy... at least, for a few pages. After it's revealed that Guan is brainwashing people into supporting him, any validity that his side had is rendered null and void.