Ba Sing Se airship captain

:This article is about the captain of a Ba Sing Se airship. For other similar uses, see Captain (disambiguation).
This Ba Sing Se airship captain is the leader of a four-man group of airmen tasked with prisoner transport. En route to Ba Sing Se to deliver Korra and Asami to Earth Queen Hou-Ting, his ship crashed and he had to make his way out of the Si Wong Desert with the others on a makeshift sand-sailer.
== History ==
At Fort Bosco, the airship captain oversaw his crew load Korra and Asami onto the airship. Upon Korra's plea to free her so she could protect the queen against the Red Lotus, knowledge she had gathered after talking to Zaheer in the Spirit World, he dismissed her as insane herself, as she was the one speaking of "terrorists" and the "Spirit World". The moment he entered the ship's cargo bay, the vessel took off and he made his way over to the cockpit, where he oversaw his co-pilot navigating the ship over the Si Wong Desert.
As they were flying over the fourth quadrant of the desert, the captain was startled when their escaped prisoners suddenly burst into the cockpit. Upon noticing the damage Korra had accidentally inflicted upon the ship by airbending the co-captain against the controls and breaking them, he sent out a distress signal to Ba Sing Se, alerting them of the Avatar's escape and their imminent crash-landing's location. However, he was knocked unconscious against the control panel himself when Korra flung his co-captain against his back, breaking the radio in the process.
Emerging from a hatch on the ship's roof, the captain overheard Kong starting to panic due to their predicament of being stranded in the desert and told everyone that rescue was on its way as he had radioed Ba Sing Se before they went down. When Asami proposed to work together to repair the airship, the captain denied the request, stating that the ship nor the girls were going anywhere, as the women were still in their custody and they had a duty to transport them to the Earth Queen. Even when Korra warned him about the dangers of fighting the Avatar, he would not budge in respect of the orders he had been given. When Asami believed she saw a sand dune moving, the captain dismissed it as a typical mirage one would see in the desert. However, they soon realized there was something lurking beneath the sand and, under the pressure of his crew, the captain relented and gave the order to repair the ship.
After Korra airbent the ship out of the sand dune and the necessary repairs had been made, the captain stood with the rest outside of the vessel while Kong tested out the engine. Although the test was a success, the captain was forced to flee for his life lest he be crushed by falling debris as a sand shark emerged from the sand and destroyed the ship, dragging most of it underneath the desert's surface. The captain calmed down Arik when the soldier began to panic due to the loss of their supplies, reminding him of the rescue ship that was a few hours from their location. He grew agitated by Asami's claim that they may not have that time to spare and briskly told Korra that they were out of walking distance of the desert's border, before ordering a still-panicked Arik to get a hold of himself. Upon Asami's suggestion to build something to provide them all with an escape out of the desert, he sarcastically asked if she wanted to make metal wings and "flap real hard". However, hearing her suggest constructing a makeshift sand-sailer out of the ship's remaining material, the captain consented and promptly ordered his crew to gather all the metal they could find among the wreckage, adamant about not being an easy target for the sand shark.
Just as they finished welding their new transportation together, the sand shark reappeared, forcing the captain and the others to make an immediate escape without first testing the vehicle. After evading the creature twice, the beast nearly swallowed them when it came up underneath them, but Korra saved them with her firebending, allowing the group to escape safely to the Misty Palms Oasis. Reaching the oasis by sundown, the captain thanked Asami for getting them out of there, complimenting her intelligence. When Korra apologized to him for having caused them all to be stranded in the desert, he released her from his custody, jokingly suggesting that her conflict with the queen was above his pay grade. Telling her she had a tough job, he saluted her and wish her luck. Turning to his crew, he was asked by Arik if they had been in the desert for too long or if they were really seeing a dragon just outside the town's wall. Noticing Druk as well, the captain sighed and suggested they get a drink, deciding to leave for a local cantina.
== Appearances ==
=== The Legend of Korra ===
==== Book Three: Change (易) ====
== Trivia ==
* The captain has a hook for a right hand, which he usually keeps hidden in the pockets of his uniform. This makes him the third character to have a prosthesis, after the mechanist and Combustion Man.
** The idea for the captain having a hook was pitched as a reveal at the end of the episode after storyboard artists Hyun Joo Song and Sol Choi kept drawing the captain with his hands in his pockets.
== References ==
fr:Capitaine du dirigeable de Ba Sing Se
ru:Капитан дирижабля
Category:A to Z
Category:Characters
Category:Characters with disabilities
Category:Earth Kingdom characters
Category:Legend of Korra characters
Category:Minor characters (Legend of Korra)
Category:Soldiers