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[Warning: This essay contains spoilers for Warrior Nun seasons 1 and 2. This essay is also being written as the last in my Warrior Nun character essay series. I highly recommend reading everything else I’ve written on this blog about Warrior Nun before diving into this one. With that out of the way: Please enjoy “Warrior Nun: How Ava Became A Hero”.]

Ava is Warrior Nun’s bravest hero. And her evolution into a hero is a perfect journey.

When Warrior Nun opens, Ava Silva has died at the tragic young age of 19. It’s unclear how she’s died, though the show tries leading the audience into believing it had to do with her accident when she was younger. When Ava was a young girl, her parents were killed in a car crash that left her paralyzed. She ended up being taken care of in an orphanage run by nuns in Spain, trying to smile and laugh through the pain despite everything that had happened to her. However, her coping mechanism couldn’t stop her from dying, which is why she’s present in the basement of the Church when the plot of the series kicks off.

A group of nuns, who viewers later learn are Mary, Beatrice, and Lilith, arrive with an injured Sister Shannon. As context of the series would later reveal, Shannon was the current Warrior Nun, a nun in the Order of the Cruciform Sword (OCS) who acted as the group’s de facto leader, on account of having an ancient holy device called the Halo in her back. The Halo gives every Warrior Nun unique powers and lets them see the demonic entities trying to wreck havoc on the world. The Halo is also implied to have some form of sentience, rejecting and accepting Warrior Nuns throughout its hundreds of years on Earth. However, one key element of the Halo for every Warrior Nun is that it gives Warrior Nuns unique healing powers. These powers make it so the Warrior Nun can only be killed by divinium, a holy element originating from the armor of Adriel—the being who gave humanity the Halo in the first place.

When Mary, Beatrice, and Lilith drag Shannon into the Church, she’s been hit by a divinium bomb, shrapnel piercing her body. Shannon ends up dying, but not before instructing her fellow nuns to hide the Halo from whoever is pursuing them. Another nun is handed the Halo, quickly hiding it in the deceased Ava’s back before being killed. Then, an unprecedented event transpires: Ava comes back to life. Scared, confused, and having no idea what’s going on, Ava escapes the Church. She discovers that she can walk again, which overjoys her. She also learns she has unique superhero-esque powers, like the ability to teleport. This, of course, is an exciting prospect. To finally have a level of freedom she couldn’t have while paralyzed and superpowers on top of it. It’s clear from what she does after obtaining her new lease on life that Ava never wants to let it go.

Ava ends up running across a group of house squatters led by J.C., a young man who she develops a rather superficial crush on. She decides she wants to join his group, spending her days living on the lam and doing whatever it takes to get by. This especially comes in the form of stealing from ArqTech, a high-profile technology company experimenting with quantum mechanics and dimensional travel. Said dimensional travel is being perpetuated using divinium, which begins to react to the Halo in Ava’s back when she gets near it. However, the use of her Halo powers in ArqTech also attracts something else: The tarask. A creature that hunts for the Warrior Nun and is attracted to the Halo’s power, tarasks are demonic-looking entities that can practically teleport to the Halo’s location when its powers are used. Which is exactly what one does when Ava’s uses her Halo powers in ArqTech.

Luckily, Ava is saved by nuns of the OCS, who end up taking her back to their Church, the Cat’s Cradle, to learn more about how she ended up with the Halo. While it’s unclear what Ava’s fate will be at first, the leader of the OCS chapter that takes Ava in, Father Vincent, vouches for her. He says that, because the Halo chose Ava, she should be allowed to train as their Warrior Nun. However, over the course of her time at the Cat’s Cradle, it’s clear Ava has no interest in using her newfound abilities to protect the world. She’s constantly cracking one-liners to alleviate the stress of the situation, all while remaining unsure if she wants to continue training with the OCS. After all, Ava just got her freedom back. A freedom she’s never been able to experience before. Why would she want to throw all of that away for responsibilities she never asked for?

Which is why she reacts the way she does when things get tough. During a training session with Lilith, Ava ends up seeing a Wraith Demon attack Lilith. Instead of fighting back, though, Ava phases through a wall into Mother Superion’s office, getting her foot stuck in the process. As it turns out, the Wraith Demon was a projection. A test to see what Ava would do in a situation where one of the nuns from the OCS, such as Lilith, was in danger. Instead of trying to fight back to save Lilith, Ava ran, a decision she’s chastised for. While Mother Superion recognizes the newness of Ava’s situation, it’s clear she also doesn’t want any of her convent getting hurt. Which is why she’s so hard on Ava from the start. However, Superion’s treatment of Ava during her early days with the OCS is also part of why Ava is able to self-justify running away from her responsibilities.

However, she does end up meeting a friend at the OCS: Beatrice, a girl who, much like Ava, feels a bit like an outcast within the group. While her backstory seems simple at first—daughter of political figures sent to study abroad—her and Ava form an immediate bond because of Beatrice’s recognition that Ava feels like an outsider. It seems as if Beatrice wants to take Ava under her wing as she begins training to become a full-fledged OCS member. However, Ava doesn’t reciprocate these attempts, choosing to go off on her own. Ava has decided that, because she has no personal stake in the responsibilities of the OCS, there’s no reason for her to stay and feel trapped there. So, leaving a note for Father Vincent, she decides to sneak away from the Cat’s Cradle to find her own path. This ends with her getting back with J.C. and his group, who are planning to leave Spain and go to a new location.

By deciding not to stay at the Cat’s Cradle, Ava fully informs viewers where her mindset is at the start of Warrior Nun. While she clearly understands the history of the OCS and their importance in the world, Ava's newfound freedom has resulted in her having a selfishness about her. She doesn’t want to have the responsibilities that come with the power she’s been bestowed. Instead, she wants to find a purpose to her second chance at life. However, by becoming healed, having the Halo in her back, and knowing she has a home in the OCS where she can fight the evil of the world, Ava already has a purpose. The arc of her character in Season 1 is her realizing that she has something worth fighting for already if she’s willing to embrace it.

A little trickle of who Ava truly is in times of turmoil appears in Season 1, Episode 4. While she’s preparing to live a life on the run with J.C., Ava uncovers the horrible truth behind her death at the orphanage. In reality, Ava didn’t succumb to her paralysis or any sort of illness being paralyzed had brought upon her. The truth was that Sister Frances, the curmudgeon of a nun who had been taking care of Ava throughout her childhood, had secretly poisoned her. For Frances, this was her idea of mercy, killing Ava and young patients like her so they wouldn’t have to live with their illnesses into adulthood. On a more calculatingly vile note, it also allowed for more room to be freed up at the orphanage, especially if Frances deemed certain kids’ illnesses too much for them to bear anymore.

Ava realizes that she has to stop Frances from killing anyone else, including her old roommate Diego, who Ava knows will likely be next. She ends up arriving at the orphanage just in time to stop Frances from hurting Diego. This results in a struggle wherein Ava accidentally kills Frances. While Ava is understandably freaked out by her own actions, this serves to reveal just how far Ava is willing to go on a subconscious level to protect the people she cares about. However, it’s understandable why she would feel horrible about killing someone, even if they were about to end the lives of someone she cared for. Ava’s never taken a life before, and to kill someone, no matter who it is, doesn’t sit right with her. However, it still reveals the ability to do so rests inside her, showing just how many boundaries she’s willing to push for the sake of the people she cares for.

But being protective of others to the point of extreme measures is not just a trait she has. It’s also one that’s instilled in all nuns of the OCS, though extending from protecting the people they care about to protecting humanity in general. It’s why, as Ava tries to run away from Mary and Lilith—who both want her to return to the OCS for their own purposes—Lilith jumps in front of a tarask about to kill Ava. Lilith protects both Ava and the Halo, seemingly sacrificing her life in the process. But, just like when she killed to protect Diego, Ava is unable to properly process Lilith dying to save her. So, she does what she’s always been good at up until now: Runs. Ava flees the scene, where a tarask has dragged a seemingly deceased Lilith into a portal to another world as a flabbergasted J.C. and horrified Mary watched on, helpless to stop it. As for Ava, Lilith’s supposed death makes the responsibilities she’s running from at the OCS all too real. Which is why she continues to run, unable to process the horrifying encounter that just transpired.

It’s here Ava ends up in a small town with Mary, where Mary decides to teach Ava more about what it means to be the Warrior Nun. Still processing Lilith’s sacrifice, Ava is open to learning more, especially once she realizes Mary is a pseudo-celebrity in the town for saving it from Wraith Demons some time ago. Season 1, Episode 6 focuses entirely on Ava and Mary’s time in the town, both processing Lilith’s sacrifice and giving Ava a deeper understanding of her role as the Warrior Nun. The protective side of herself that came out when she saved Diego from Frances slowly begins to take over as she grows connected to the town. This connection drives Ava to help the town when she realizes one of its residents is being targeted by a Wraith Demon. One creative action sequence later, and Ava has killed her first demon. While she’s still not keen on joining the OCS, the makings of a hero are now in her bones.

But Ava isn’t satisfied with understanding her powers just from a religious perspective. She decides that, because the Halo reacted to divinium artifacts in ArqTech’s possession, she should go there to get a more grounded explanation about her newfound abilities. However, Dr. Jillian Salvius has plans of her own, and tries to use the Halo’s energy to open her dimensional portal, the Ark. Salvius is blinded by her attempt to open the Ark to save her son Michael’s life, leading to distrust between Ava and ArqTech. However, Ava is given the chance to leave, which she accepts because she doesn’t want to be taken advantage of. Something Salvius understands, even if it puts a dent in her personal goals. It’s here that Ava returns to the Cat’s Cradle, where she ends up helping Mary discover the book in a hidden room behind one of the walls in Sister Shannon’s room. Once again, Ava is slowly starting to display heroism by helping Mary, who had become her friend. So much so that, as her and other members of the OCS escape, she declares herself the Warrior Nun.

Surprisingly, the team ends up at ArqTech to regroup. It’s here that, after becoming wary allies with Salvius, the OCS nuns decide to train Ava so she can phase through Adriel’s tomb beneath the Vatican. Believing Cardinal Duretti has his own villainous plans for the Church, the OCS decides they need to take whatever resides in Adriel’s tomb—his bones and any relics—from underneath the Vatican so Duretti can’t use their power. To do this, though, Ava needs to learn how to phase through a wall that’s 20 feet thick. Finally embracing the part of herself that wants to help others, Ava makes an attempt to phase through the wall. However, her frustrations start to grow as she realizes she’s unable to do it. Despite Beatrice’s coaching, Ava feels like giving up. This appears to be the less responsible part of herself reaching for a lifeline. An inkling of doubt that she is able contribute to the world as the Warrior Nun.

Ava and Beatrice eventually take a break, reading a passage from the book they found behind Shannon’s wall. In it is the story of Sister Melanie, a Warrior Nun who was persecuted by Nazis for being gay. The story makes Beatrice highly emotional, highlighting her own sexuality. However, it also makes Ava realize that her struggle with her own yearning for freedom is not unique. Beatrice’s pain here acts to flip a switch in Ava, making her understand that she is not the only person in the world. That others are dealing with their own issues, too. Some of which, like Beatrice’s, don’t have an easy answer—and aren’t problems you can run away from. This marks a turning point in Ava’s character, as she realizes that she truly needs to take up her responsibilities instead of running away from them. If not for the sake of learning how to be responsible and not run away from her problems, then for the sake of her friends. For the sake of people like Beatrice who don’t get the luxury of escape.

In the end, Ava is able to phase through the 20-foot practice wall at ArqTech. Her determination to truly embrace her role as the Warrior Nun gives her the strength to push her powers to their limits. But that’s not the only thing she manages to do. At the end of Season 1, Episode 8, Ava decides to test if using the Halo on divinium will destroy it. Sure enough, it works, melting the divinium in her hand. The OCS decides to modify their plan. They will break into the Vatican, heading to the basement to get to Adriel’s tomb as they originally wanted to. But, instead of phasing through the tomb and taking what’s inside, Ava will destroy whatever she finds. This way, Duretti won’t be able to use it for whatever nefarious purposes the OCS thinks he wants them for, and Ava will be able to prevent any sort of demonic catastrophe that would make the OCS’ fight for humanity any harder.

However, what the team doesn’t realize is that Duretti has no idea about Adriel’s tomb being under the Vatican. When he catches wind that Ava and other OCS members are sneaking around the Vatican, he sends his Reject Nuns—led by Sister Crimson—to defend him. This is because Duretti is under the impression they are betraying the OCS, undermining his status as Pope for nefarious reasons he isn’t fully aware of. This conflict results in Ava being protected by her new friends in the OCS, all of them fighting off the Reject Nuns to ensure her and Beatrice can make it under the Vatican. Their decision to fight on Ava’s behalf helps Ava further recognize the importance of her mission, and what it means to finally have friends that truly care for her. Eventually, her and Beatrice make it to the underground part of the Vatican, where Ava phases through the wall into Adriel’s tomb.

This is where her determination ends up hitting its lowest point. Because, as it turns out, Adriel’s bones and ancient artifacts are nowhere to be found in his tomb. In reality, Adriel is still alive, having been imprisoned underneath the Vatican a thousand years ago. He tries to get Ava to give him her Halo, but Ava’s self-preservation kicks in. She starts to suspect that Adriel isn’t being fully honest with her about his intentions, underscoring the idea that something is amiss. This goes into full swing when Adriel reveals his true intentions: To return to Earth as a false messiah, amassing followers that—as later shown in Season 2—will be willingly possessed by Wraith Demons from his own dimension. And Ava and the OCS, getting tricked by Father Vincent, have aided in his escape.

The consequences from this are disastrous. Father Vincent is revealed to be the true traitor in the OCS. Adriel escapes, set to wreck havoc across the world. And Mary is killed in the first fight against him, dying to protect the rest of the OCS. In trying to save the world, Ava has unwittingly helped bring about its end at the hands of Adriel. While the purpose of Adriel’s reveal as a villain shows how not even the OCS knows the true history of their organization, it also highlights how Ava’s responsibilities aren’t written in stone. Ava has to take on unfathomable dangers like Adriel, ones that she can’t prepare for ahead of time. Because of this, she needs to grow stronger with her powers. She may have started to adopt the mentality of a hero by phasing into Adriel’s tomb. But now, she has to fully embrace her heroism if Adriel is to be stopped.

This is the path Warrior Nun Season 2 puts Ava on. Two months after the end of Season 1, Ava and Beatrice are in hiding, working at a bar as Ava trains to fully harness her Halo powers. While she’s gained some new abilities like running on water, she’s not able to fully control everything the Halo now allows her to do. She’s also growing impatient, a mix of the heroism instilled in her by the OCS and possible guilt for Adriel’s escape making her want to contribute to the fight against the false messiah, even while in hiding. This is why when the mysterious Miguel—later revealed to be Michael Salvius—asks her to join a rebellion group against Adriel’s Firstborn Children, Ava gladly accepts. While Beatrice is wary of Michael’s true intentions, Ava is blinded by her need to help. A clear character shift has happened for her here, and it’s something she wants to embrace so she can better the world.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for things to go wrong. While meeting up with Michael and his group, Ava and Beatrice watch as they try to interrogate a member of the Firstborn Children. It’s soon revealed this Firstborn is possessed by a Wraith Demon, which exits its hosts’ body to try and latch onto Beatrice. Emotion ramps up Ava’s power and she screams, the Halo glowing from her back as she saves Beatrice from possession. But, despite protecting Beatrice, Ava’s powers have been revealed. At this point in the story, Ava wants to be a hero. She wants to save the people she loves, like Beatrice. But she hasn’t yet harnessed how she can save others without putting the OCS in jeopardy. Controlling her powers are, sadly, the only way she can fully become a hero that can combat Adriel head-on.

And it seems Ava knows this. Season 2, Episode 2 ends with one of the most memorable scenes in the entire show, where Ava and Beatrice break down their emotional walls as they try to escape now that their cover has been blown. The line that’s always stuck with me from their argument and subsequent make-up is when Ava shouts that she’s doing the best she can. She never asked for a life surrounded by demons, assassin nuns, and entities that wish harm upon the world. Ava was thrust into this life without knowing what it entailed, given a second chance with a massive responsibility attached. All she can do is protect the people she truly cares about, like Beatrice, even if it means unintended consequences. Ava’s heroism is in-the-moment, less thinking about the long-term impact of her actions for the most amount of people, but instead thinking of the short-term consequences for the people she loves the most.

Which is by no means a bad thing. I'd argue that, despite only caring about her friends and not the wider world, Ava is a hero by the start of Season 2. However, her heroism is cultivated by her personal view of what a hero is, not just by the idea of being heroic overall, as is expected of the Warrior Nun. While the Warrior Nun is supposed to be protective of everyone without playing favorites—and while maintaining the secret of her powers and the OCS at large—Ava was willing to put everything at risk to save Beatrice. This underscores her development as a hero, but also shows she’s unwilling to take risks for the greater good because of her attachments to others. It’s fickle, because her relationship with Beatrice is what helped her embrace her role as Warrior Nun in the first place. So why shouldn’t she try to help her friends over the greater good, even at the risk of her secret?

Ava’s mindset as a hero that puts her friends first is further accentuated as the series progresses. Meeting Camila and Mother Superion in Madrid, Ava is introduced to Yasmine, who reveals information about an ancient device called the Crown of Thorns. The Crown is a magical artifact that, when placed atop Adriel’s head, can dampen his powers. The team decides to make a plan to find the Crown, breaking into a museum where it’s most likely located. However, their plan goes awry when it’s revealed Father Vincent and Adriel have followed them to Madrid. Despite Ava’s attempt to grab the Crown so the OCS can stop Adriel, Vincent ambushes her. He places the Crown atop her head, disabling her Halo powers, allowing him to capture her.

Ava is quickly saved in Season 2, Episode 4 by Michael, who takes the Crown off her head, granting her the powers of the Warrior Nun once more. After a reunion with Beatrice and a massive fight scene with the Firstborn Children, Ava and Beatrice accompany Michael to ArqTech. Following the revelation that Michael’s “Miguel” name is an alias, the characters start to catch up with one another. Ava’s care for everyone is evident here, especially when the team goes on a mission to rescue Duretti, Mother Superion, and Yasmine. While Superion and Yasmine are saved, Duretti remains captured. However, Ava still manages to help save Superion and Yasmine, cementing her as someone who will always do heroic acts to save the people she cares about.

One of those people is Michael. While Beatrice has Ava’s heart—even if she doesn’t know it yet—Michael and Ava share a bond akin to siblings. Because of how easily they’re able to connect to one another, their friendship becomes strong rather quickly. Which is why Ava is shocked when Michael informs her of how he wound up back on Earth after going through the Ark as a boy two months ago. Michael reveals that a mysterious figure named Reya exists on the other side of the portal. Reya is seemingly all-knowing, the stand-in for God within the Warrior Nun universe. Reya also told Michael that the only way to defeat Adriel is with a bomb. A bomb that is made of the divinium coursing through Michael’s veins. Michael reveals to Ava what Reya told him: The only way to defeat Adriel is if Michael explodes near him. The explosion can only be triggered by Ava, and will kill them both.

Ava is aghast at the plan. Her thoughts appear to be twofold, though none of them are of the self-preservation kind. Firstly, is what’s spoken aloud. Ava doesn’t want Michael to die. She’s already established herself as the kind of hero that puts her friends first, which is why she is unable to accept Reya’s plan. If there’s a plan that involves one of her friends’ lives ending Ava refuses to participate. Even if she’d told that plan is the only guarantee to save the world, Ava would rather risk the plan failing than to have the people she cares about get killed. Secondly, is what’s inferred based on Ava’s romantic storyline with Beatrice in Warrior Nun Season 2. While it’s been subtly hinted that Ava and Beatrice have feelings for one another at this point in the show, neither have explicitly revealed their love for one another either. However, as the audience, we know Ava is in love with Beatrice. Which is why it’s safe to interpret Ava’s refusal to go along with Michael and Reya’s plan as not wanting Beatrice to be alone. Of not wanting her to lose the person she’s closest to.

The apex of Ava putting her friends first above all else comes in Season 2, Episode 6. The OCS, along with Michael and Dr. Salvius, form a plan to expose Adriel as a fraud during one of his large sermons, put the Crown of Thorns atop Adriel’s head afterwards, and send him through the Ark for Reya to deal with. Ava thinks of everything, giving everyone else jobs on the ground while she flies up to the roof of Adriel’s cathedral to disrupt the ArqTech signal he’s been using to fake miracles. Her mission is simple: Save the world without risking the lives or the emotional states of the people she cares about. At first it seems like the plan will work. Everyone is in position and everything seems to be going smoothly.

But then, Lilith attacks.

While not explicitly a bad person, Lilith has always been a contrast to Ava. After sacrificing herself to save Ava, Lilith ended up with otherworldly powers beyond her understanding. Powers that no one wanted to help her understand, or explicitly wanted to take advantage of. The only person who seemed willing to take her under his wing was Adriel. Which is why she teams up with him, deciding to attack Ava despite the pair having been on good terms the last time they saw one another. Lilith was a calculation Ava couldn’t make, and an adversary she was woefully unprepared for. Not only does Lilith’s attack act as the first domino that results in Duretti’s death, Superion’s temporary demise, a conflicted Vincent stealing the Crown of Thorns, and Adriel coming into possession of the Ark. She also acts as a symbol of what Ava can’t do no matter how hard she tries.

Lilith’s alliance with Adriel blindsided Ava, as it was a betrayal she couldn’t predict. But it was also one she couldn’t stop from happening. Lilith was trying to find someone who could help her understand her newfound powers and how to process what they meant for her future. While Ava didn’t have all the answers, their powers still came from the same dimension. This means that, if Ava were around, she would have been able to help Lilith understand her powers, possibly keeping her from turning on the remaining OCS members. Instead, Ava and Beatrice had to go into hiding for the greater good of the world. If Ava had come out of hiding to teach Lilith how to understand her powers, Adriel may have found Ava much faster than he did, possibly when she was inexperienced enough to be dealt with easily. This would have been especially dangerous if Lilith’s powers really were corrupting her mind, making it more susceptible to Adriel’s influence. The unfortunate reality is one that never gets directly addressed, but undeniably plays into Ava’s decisions in the final two episodes of Season 2:

Ava could not save Lilith.

However, Ava is able to save others. In Season 2, Episode 7, while mourning over the body of Superion, the Halo glows, bringing Superion back to life. Thanks to Superion’s previous connection with the Halo, Ava was able to subconsciously heal her. Despite knowing, now, that she can’t save everyone, there is still a glimmer of hope that Ava’s heroic mindset has some level of justification behind it. Ava may not have been able to save Lilith or Duretti, but she was able to save Superion. While it’s unfortunate, the hard lesson Ava learns this episode is that she can’t save everyone. But that doesn’t mean she should stop trying her best to save the people she loves. Only that she has to think of them as part of the wider world, too, and do what’s best for the world while still saving the people she can.

Similarly is her conversation with Father Vincent. Going in search of him and the Crown, Ava finds him under a bridge, contemplating his loyalty to Adriel. Vincent ends up giving up the Crown, telling Ava that it was wrong of him to join Adriel. Knowing Vincent’s faith was taken advantage of, Ava forgives him. She also trusts him to put the Crown on her head, giving her a glimpse into Reya’s plans for how to combat Adriel. Ava’s willingness to forgive and trust Vincent shows just how much her compassion has evolved over the course of the series. Who had once been a girl that would run away from her problems and shirk her newfound responsibilities was now a woman willing to forgive the people she cares about, even if they were responsible for terrible things. It’s why she trusts Vincent when he uses his divinium tattoos to communicate with Adriel and puts the Crown of Thorns on her head. Ava gave Vincent the lifeline he needed by forgiving him, reflecting just how mature she’s become since her first foray into the OCS.

Then, in the Season 2 finale, Ava has her final heroic realization. Following her encounter with Reya while wearing the Crown of Thorns, Ava begins to behave differently. Distant. As if a realization she doesn’t want to accept has dawned upon her. This is because, whatever Reya showed her, it indicated the only conceivable way of defeating Adriel is for Michael and Ava to die. Ava has to sacrifice herself for the greater good. But she also needs to make that sacrifice in a way that will hurt her friends. In the end, she decides she has to. But it isn’t just to save the world, which she now knows has to be factored into the equation. She also does it because, despite Michael’s death and Beatrice’s heartbreak, Ava knows it will bring about a peaceful future for everyone else she cares for. She still doesn’t want to kill Michael and leave Beatrice behind. But she realizes there is no other option. For the rest of her friends and for the sake of the world, she cannot save everyone.

Which is why the scene where Ava leaves Beatrice behind is one of the most emotional in the series. As Ava, Beatrice, and Yasmine enter the room Ava said Adriel’s power-inhibiting cross would be, it’s revealed nothing important lies there. Except under them, where Ava plans to phase through the floor and meet Michael so they can sacrifice their lives for everyone else’s sake. It doesn’t take long for Beatrice to realize this. She begins to tear up, begging Ava not to die for their mission, even going so far as to attack her. But Ava blocks her attack, surprising her with a passionate kiss. Not only does this confirm for Beatrice that Ava loves her, but it acts as reenforcement for Ava that she’s doing the right thing. That it’s okay to sacrifice herself for the woman she loves, and that doing so will bring about a better world for everyone. But, of course, she also needs Beatrice to know that no matter what comes, she will always love her.

After kissing her goodbye, Ava phases through the floor and meets Michael underneath Adriel’s cathedral. The pair begin their journey to a massive, wide room where Adriel is housing the Ark. Once there, there are greeted by Adriel. But it doesn’t take long for everything to fall apart. Once again, Lilith becomes an unforeseen circumstance. She teleports behind Michael and tears his heart out, killing him, making it effectively impossible for Ava to blow him up within Adriel’s vicinity. The cross also starts to inhibit Ava’s Halo powers, making it nigh impossible for her to fight back. Adriel gloats, and Ava’s strength is dwindling. She feels like she has failed, as Adriel now has the upper hand. Not only that, but she now feels like Michael’s sacrifice was for nothing. Someone she was close to died, and there was nothing she could do about it. Even going down there, knowing her and Michael would die, Ava’s heart wasn’t prepared to watch it happen. It shows just how much compassion she now has compared to the start of the show, but also highlights the terror of Adriel coming so close to winning.

That is, until Reya appears in the Ark portal.

As Ava learned in her dream while wearing the Crown of Thorns, Reya has control of the tarasks that are attracted to the Halo’s power. Where she goes, tarasks will follow. Which is why she realizes Michael’s sacrifice can still mean something. Ava gets this idea just as Beatrice rounds the corner, having fought her way to the basement of the cathedral to stop Ava from sacrificing herself to save the world. But Beatrice is too late. Ava blows Michael up, causing a divinium blast that sends shards of shrapnel through her body, reflective of the shrapnel that killed Shannon during the very first episode. However, it also destroys the giant cross that was inhibiting her powers. At first, Adriel believes Ava’s attempt at killing him was in vain. He gloats even more as he heals, believing he’s won. That is, until Ava finally uses her powers uninhibited. Doing so summons an army of Reya’s tarasks, who rip Adriel apart. It’s over. Adriel is dead, and while Michael was a casualty in the fight, Ava has managed to save her friends. Including Beatrice, who she finally got the chance to confess her feelings for.

But Ava is in no condition to walk away from this fight and live. It quickly becomes evident that the only way for Ava to survive is if she goes through the Ark, getting treatment from Reya on the other side. However, because time moves faster in Reya’s dimension, it’s unclear if Ava would even be able to return after healing. Beatrice doesn’t want Ava to go, but Ava tells her it’s okay. As she sits at the edge of the Ark, Ava tells Beatrice that she loves her before leaning back and getting sucked into Reya’s world. Then, the Ark shuts down, ending Ava’s story for Warrior Nun Season 2 by completing the cycle of her character.

When Ava first received her Halo powers, she was understandably selfish about the life she wanted to live. She didn’t want to be beholden to the responsibilities of the OCS, instead willing to put the entire world in jeopardy for the sake of freedom. However, it soon became clear that, just like her relationship with J.C., the freedom Ava was yearning for was superficial. It didn’t give her life a meaning other than running from place to place without progressing in something. But, after Mary shows Ava the town of people she once helped save from Wraith Demons, Ava began to understand why the Warrior Nun is necessary in the world. And so, using her friends in the OCS like Beatrice and Mary to motivate herself, Ava becomes a hero. Someone who would do anything for the OCS, especially her friends in the organization.

However, Ava needed time to learn about how her powers can benefit everyone in the world, not just the people she’s closest to. While Ava doesn’t want people she cares about, like Michael and Beatrice, to be hurt, Season 2 helps her understand just how important it is to be a hero to everyone. That picking and choosing who to save never works, because you can’t always save everyone. It’s a harsh reality, but Ava chooses to look at it through a lens of hope. She may not be able to save Michael, and she may not be able to save Beatrice’s heart. Her sacrifice will cause great pain to the people she cares about, yes. But she also knows they would never even be alive to feel that pain if she didn’t give up her life. Ava’s nobility in sacrificing herself brings her character full circle. She now has an understanding of what it means to be a hero. And she also believes that saving the world is akin to saving those she loves.

If the glowing divinium sword at the end of Season 2 is any indication, Ava will no doubt carry the lessons she’s learned in her heart as she keeps being Warrior Nun’s bravest hero. In a journey that will continue in this life.

***

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