I’m Going To Be Very Harsh When I Say That I Think They Should (and Probably Will) Kill Kai At The

I’m going to be very harsh when I say that I think they should (and probably will) kill Kai at the end of Dragons Rising.

Warning: Major spoilers for the series

1: Listen, I love Kai, he's my favorite ninja but Kai is outrageously useless in this series and I wish I was making that up. His role as the main character was taken after season one and it only got worse from there. Through half of the first 10 seasons, his personality was awful and basically boiled down to being the cocky overbearing one who was too protective and hot-headed for his own good. This was good when he was just some snobby kid from the middle of nowhere, but he continued to be loud and abrasive to everything for the entirety of the show, and when he wasn’t diving head first into something stupid he was acting like an idiot with no leash. He constantly struggles to regulate his emotions and we have rarely seen him vulnerable enough to connect to. (It’s so rare that it feels out of touch with his other reactions) That’s gotten slightly better over the years but now that he’s taken a backseat he feels so boring and his character development is stale. (Zane has a similar issue where his character feels overly bland)(good luck out there Zane Fans y’all need it)

2: Kai is the fire ninja but, good god is he terrible at his job. He loses his powers to Lloyd in season 3 which was fine because all the other ninjas were struggling with it too. But then came season 4 which took his powers again and brought in Skylor who just felt like a second Kai who was slightly more manipulative and not as much of a jerk. And yeah he was honestly fine after that, never being too in the spotlight to matter while simultaneously helping out from the back end. Then came seasons 11-16. I have never seen a man struggle to keep ahold of his OWN element for that long. He loses it to Aspheera, he loses it in Prime Empire, his element is practically useless in seasons 13 and 14, and their elements don’t even work properly in season 16 due to the vengestone! He’s so garbage in these seasons I honestly think you could’ve taken him out of them and nothing would have changed! Even in Dragons Rising, Wyldfire just FEELS like a replacement character for Kai because I don’t care how different they say “heat” and “fire” are, it’s basically like getting a second Kai from the previous seasons and while Kai himself feels more mature and doesn’t flip a lid at every minor inconvenience, it feels like they only wrote him that way so you could tell the difference between him and his reincarnation. He’s so bad at being the fire ninja, that it feels like they made a second ‘fire’ ninja, only to give him a purpose to redeem himself.

3: We’ve gotten all of Kai’s arcs wrapped up. He saves his sister, saves his parents, and he finds a good spot in life. What are we supposed to be rooting for here? Him to live out a happy life while simultaneously being an annoying secondary (nearly background) character to everyone else? He feels so stale. So finished. What else are we supposed to do for him? He’s gotten his happy ending and now the only thing really pushing him is training Wyldfire, and even then, there’s only so much he can teach before they’ll start to feel too similar to each other. After the Fire and Heat arc is finished, what else does he have left to do? Nothing. Honestly, I could see him becoming more central to the plot purely because they want to wrap up his character and kill him off.

4: “But the other ninja will-“ be devastated! It’s exactly what they need! Specifically, I want him to sacrifice himself at the end. He’s already shown he can and will to protect his family. Once Kai finishes most of his training with Wyldfire and dies, she’d only be more egged on to be “just like him” and carry out justice. She’d be more of a central focus. And she feels out of touch with the other ninja so she could use the recovery time to bond with Lloyd and Nya over their shared brotherly relationship with him. Speaking of Lloyd and Nya, Lloyd is desperate to follow in Wu’s footsteps, this gives him another reason to carry on and could be a great arc in how he continues to deal with his mental health so he doesn’t turn into his father. Nya is devastated when she lost Jay, imagine how she’d react to losing the brother who raised her. Terribly! It gives way to show her change in attitude, gives her a moral reason to lose her cool, and if we eventually get Jay back he could comfort her while also showing regret for missing those short times from his memory loss. Cole and Zane may not be the primary focus but even then, they had a close relationship with Kai, it would be like Nya’s death all over again but now with the knowledge of how to react to it. They could care for the others, make their bonds stronger, and honestly, I want to find out how Zane reacts with Wyldfire since this would be one of the very few reasons for them to come together. Even Arin and Sora would be affected because their entire team would be in a state of depression. They can further their bond with Lloyd and finally feel like they have connections with the other ninjas while trying to help them out of their funks (or even possibly try to take over their jobs which could lead to some gold old hurt/comfort in the form of failed missions because they didn’t have the right experience for the job)

Honestly killing Kai at that point would give him a much deserved heroic ending and just like Nya's death, can be used to further their resolve and create a shared bond through the ninjas who don’t interact often. My only problem would be if they bring him back. Don’t do that. Keep him dead. Maybe do a special episode where he helps them from beyond the grave like Master Wu is doing, but don’t bring him back to life. It would only ruin the dynamics further. (Unless his power has moved on, in which case, having him show up momentarily like a spirit in the sunset for a new fire ninja to see would be very inspiring for a future character)