Baba Yaga in Coven

Baba Yaga in Coven Baba Yaga is trying to save Avril, and I still wouldn't want to be one of the people depending on her to keep a promise along the way. Coven puts her in a position I found interesting because she's helping the person I want to see escape, but she keeps doing things that make that alliance uncomfortable. She can recognize the coven has gone too far. She can object to what the Crusaders have done to witches. That doesn't mean she suddenly cares about everybody caught between those two groups. Spoilers for Coven, including the ending. Her history with Liza makes the situation worse. Baba once supported the approach Liza argued for after Salem: peace had failed, so the witches should strike first and terrorize anyone who might resist. By the time she's helping Avril, she admits she left the coven after realizing their self-righteousness was helping perpetuate the problem. That's a meaningful admission, especially from somebody who still has a lot of anger of her own. But look at how she handles Tyrea. They infiltrate the Crusaders together, Tyrea gets shot, and Baba trades information about the coven for Avril. Tyrea is left wounded, accusing her of betrayal. When they meet again after Tyrea survives and rejoins the fight, Baba gets Avril's location out of her and shoots her in the head. She has a goal, and somebody else's idea of what she owes them doesn't reliably survive contact with it. Dartanian runs into that almost immediately. He wants to talk to the other Crusaders before she kills them. He sees people who have been manipulated, while she sees the men responsible for killing witches. They have to work together to get Avril back, but the argument doesn't disappear just because they've agreed on a destination. Their disagreement at the underwater station is one of the better scenes for that. Baba discovers witches being held and experimented on. Dartanian worries that releasing them will strengthen Liza, and he wants to keep the weapons developed through that research. Baba destroys the armory. To her, keeping it is another insult to the people used to build it. I understand why she's furious there. Dartanian's argument that destroying the research makes the deaths pointless is pretty hard to hear when you're standing where the victims were held. It also doesn't erase how quickly Baba can turn around and decide somebody else doesn't deserve mercy. She knows enough about the coven's defenses to guide the rescue. She warns Dartanian about crystals that induce visions, acts as the distraction while he goes for Avril, and recognizes when Liza tries to fool her with a vision of Avril defending the coven. Eventually she realizes she can't beat Liza herself and goes to find Avril. That willingness to admit she needs the younger witch is important. She doesn't have a solution for everything just because she's been around longer. Then one of the witches surrenders during the final battle, and Baba refuses mercy. The spiders turn on the woman and kill her. That's the kind of moment that keeps me from reading this as a straightforward redemption story. Dartanian's death brings the disagreement back in a different form. Baba initially treats it as payment for the witches he's burned. Avril sees somebody who was trying to change, and she's devastated. Baba does feel sorry for him, but she still can't give Avril the answer she wants. Avril finds her own answer in the resurrection spell. Whether bringing Dartanian back is going to be a good thing remains unresolved, but I appreciated that she doesn't just accept Baba's judgment of him. Baba helped save her life. Avril can be grateful for that and still disagree with what she considers justice.