Kuvira


 * This article is about Suyin Beifong and Baatar's son who joined Kuvira's army. For his father, see Baatar.

Baatar Jr. is Suyin Beifong and Baatar's eldest son, nephew of Lin Beifong, and the fiancé of Kuvira. As Zaofu's engineer, he was responsible for enacting his father's designs. However, after Earth Queen Hou-Ting's murder and the subsequent decline of the Earth Kingdom's stability, he left Zaofu together with Kuvira to reunite the nation, much to the disapproval of his mother.

Engineer at Zaofu
While Suyin hosted a dinner for Avatar Korra and her friends, Baatar Jr. and his father passed by the dining hall, where the latter informed the matriarch that they would have to eat in his office as they had a major breakthrough regarding the remodeling of a tram station. After the two left, Suyin proudly remarked that Baatar Jr. was an engineer who was responsible for handling all of his father's projects.

He later attended Opal's farewell dinner and subsequently accompanied the rest of the dining group to the rooftop, where they watched Opal depart for the Northern Air Temple.

Traveling the Earth Kingdom
After the Insurrection of the Red Lotus, Baatar Jr. made plans with Kuvira after Suyin's back to leave Zaofu and stabilize the situation in Ba Sing Se and the rest of the Earth Kingdom. Although his mother made it clear that if they were to leave, they would never be welcomed back, Baatar Jr. left anyway, as he saw it as an opportunity to rise from underneath his parents' shadow. His departure led to a falling out with his mother, who saw it as a betrayal and who deemed Kuvira's quest an unjustified seizure of power. At some point, he entered in a romantic relationship with Kuvira, which progressed to the point that he proposed to her, which she accepted.

Annexation of the State of Yi
By 174 AG, he traveled the Earth Kingdom by train. When Bolin reported to him that two more states had agreed to join their alliance, he happily took the reports from him and relayed the message to Kuvira, stating that they had reached ninety percent of their goal. He was about to celebrate their achievement with Varrick, Zhu Li, and Bolin by drinking some tea, though when Kuvira stated that she refused to celebrate until the Earth Kingdom was reunited completely, he digressed and put his cup back down. However, the contents ended up being spilled on his clothing when their train suddenly halted due to an earthen obstruction on the tracks caused by bandits.



After Kuvira cleared their path, they continued on to the state of Yi, where Baatar Jr. found his sister Opal. He greeted her in a friendly matter, though when he asked how their mother was doing, Opal snapped at him, dismissing his question since she believed he did not care anyway. After the governor of Yi ordered Kuvira and her army to leave the state, Baatar Jr. retreated with everyone else to the border of the state, where they would wait a day for the governor to reconsider. When he did, they all returned and Baatar Jr. witnessed his fiancé claim the state in the name of a united Earth Kingdom.



Baatar Jr. arrived at Republic City together with Kuvira and the rest of the army a day before Prince Wu's coronation as the new Earth King. Upon checking in to the Republic City Four Elements, Baatar Jr. curtly greeted his mother. Upon being greeted as "Baatar Jr." in return, he haughtily corrected her by saying he went by just "Baatar". He started to gloat about his and Kuvira's accomplishments, believing that his mother felt regret about passing up on the opportunity to be a part of the movement. Displeased that his mother denounced their accomplishments as something good, he merrily announced that Kuvira would be an official member of the Beifong family through a marriage with him, urging his mother to get over her grudge with his fiancé. When Suyin did not react and merely said she was glad Kuvira was stepping down after Wu's coronation, Baatar Jr. briskly wondered if she preferred to be ruled by Wu, referring to him as a "royal idiot".

The following day, Baatar Jr. attended Wu's coronation and applauded and cheered when Kuvira publicly denounced Wu's authority and claimed power for herself, renaming the Earth Kingdom the "Earth Empire". When his mother later came to speak with Kuvira, Baatar Jr. retreated with Bolin to the adjacent room to give the ladies some privacy.

Conquering Zaofu
En route to Zaofu, Baatar Jr. smoothened out his uniform before joining Kuvira to look out of the passing landscape, contently noting that by the same time the following day, his mother would have signed the treaty that surrendered Zaofu to their control and the Earth Empire would entirely be united. He was cautioned by his fiancé to not get ahead of himself as securing the metal city would not be as easy as he made it seem. Upon hearing Kuvira refer to the city as his hometown, Baatar Jr. darkly denounced it as his home and declared to be ready to take it by force. However, he was reeled in by Kuvira, who stressed the importance of handling the situation with diplomacy, considering the eyes of the world were now upon them, a task for which she wanted to use Bolin even though Baatar Jr. had his doubts in regards to the reliability of the earthbender.

When a shock rattled their train, Baatar Jr. and Kuvira swiftly made their way down to the last wagon where Varrick was conducting his experiments on spirit vines. As the inventor shut down his project, wary of the destructive possibilities of the spirit energy, Baatar Jr. wondered why the engineer suddenly cared about the consequences. After Kuvira threatened to kill Varrick if he did not resume his testing, Baatar Jr. left with her back to their own wagon, where they summoned Bolin to have a meeting with them. Baatar Jr. sat relaxed on the couch while his fiancé explained Bolin's task to him.

Personality
As an engineer in Zaofu, Baatar Jr. enjoyed working with his father, and aspired to follow in his footsteps. Over time however, he grew tired of having to live in his parents' shadows, which led him to join Kuvira in her campaign to restore order in the war-torn Earth Kingdom. Since then, he had distanced himself from any part of his former life, even dropping "Junior" from his name.

As Kuvira's second-in-command, he became ambitious and ruthless, in contrast to the intellectual-oriented individual he once was; he has no qualms threatening the lives of defenseless individuals, such as doing so to Varrick to get Bolin to surrender.

Trivia

 * Baatar Jr. is the first known person in the World of Avatar to be named directly after a parent.
 * He stopped going by Baatar Jr. after joining Kuvira.