Curate, connect, and discover
Since this was technically discussed with you about the HFM, I thought to ask a bit more on the hypothetical of Mako's death. If he did died when he destroyed the mech, do you feel that Korra would still be willing to forgive Kuvira (excluding all the crap from ROTE)?
Interesting question.
My inititial response would be like ‘yeah I think Korra would be more pissed off at Kuvira.’
But thinking about it, I think Kuvira and Korra would still reach an understanding. I think sometimes people miss that Korra doesn’t really offer forgiveness, she offers her understanding and empathy. In a way, pity. This is why I like the ending of the show despite not liking Kuvira much. Korra has grown enough to see herself in Kuvira and that’s why she reaches out. She says what Kuvira has done was wrong, but sympathises with her. So I can see Korra offering this to Kuvira even if Mako dies, even if it’s angrier and colder.
Though I think this hypothetical proves why having Mako dying would be a bad idea. Because Korra talks to Kuvira and then she’s told ‘oh yeah she killed Mako.’ I think it would force something of a different response by Korra after the original surrender by having her acknowledge Mako’s death, or the writers would have to come up with something different entirely, which means a reworking of the whole ending. Because in the show she doesn’t hear that everyone is okay until after the speech with Kuvira. So they either treat Mako’s death as an afterthought to the scene or they re-work the whole thing entirely which means they likely drop the Korra/Kuvira comparisons. Which means reworking the show and themes and this is why I think Mako’s death is just a very messy way to end the show in general.
But say in a hypothetical version where Korra learns of Mako’s death before she confronts Kuvira, I could see a version of what we get in the show, but colder and angrier. Because I still think that Korra after everything she learnt in the show would still want to understand Kuvira even if she’s pissed.