Olivia Park is one of the major supporting characters in Netflix’s animated series, Mech Cadets.
Olivia Park is a trainee at the Arizona Sky Corps Academy and is regarded to be the best of the best, with her piloting skills being unrivaled.
She’s also the daughter of General Park and amidst pressure and expectations regarding the legacy she has to uphold, Olivia has one too many hurdles and struggles along the way.
Not a team player
The beginning of Mech Cadets paints Olivia to be really antagonistic. Her actions do seem befitting of a bully-type villain rather than a hero, something akin to a Robo pilot.
Olivia also demonstrates some elitism while berating Yu and referring to him as a “mop boy” repeatedly. It’s later that she stops calling him that and warms up to him.
She’s also the one who spots him at the ceremony before the Robo bonding, and pins him to the ground, drawing attention to him before he’s confronted by Sergeant Stanchie and promptly fired from the academy.
Contentious daughter
Much of Olivia’s behavior and personality are explained by the strenuous relationship she shares with her father. All her actions are informed by her drive to prove herself to her father.
Being the daughter of General Park already comes with considerable baggage, expectations, and a lot of eyes on her. Add to that their dysfunctional relationship and her cold and arrogant personality make sense.
She has been trying to become a pilot but no Robos have bonded with her, and as she approaches the maximum age within which she can bond with a Robo, as well as the less frequent arrivals of the space mechs of late, Olivia becomes more and more irate and desperate.
This causes more friction between her and Stanford Yu, as well as her and Park, who later tells her that he didn’t want her to be a pilot, something she’s always believed. He tells her that it’s always been her who wanted to be a pilot, he simply wanted her to be the best.
Later, Park gets her a man-made Mech, unveiling his controversial program called Hero Force. He wants her to be safe which is why he keeps trying to make sure she doesn’t overextend herself. However, her desire to prove herself never quite attenuates.
Character development
The ending of Mech Cadets sees Olivia actually move beyond the desire to prove herself. She not only becomes a team player and assimilates well with the rest of her team, but also cares about the lives of others more than her own.
During the last battle with Queen Sharg, she saves her uncle, Captain Tanaka, from getting sucked into the black hole with the Sharg behemoth, and instead sacrifices herself to accomplish the mission.
She gets sucked into the back hole and makes sure that the alien monster goes along with her. The ending of the show reveals that she’s still alive and has been transported into some inexplicable realm beyond the black hole.
Meanwhile, her father, her uncle, and her crew mates head off to save her.
Also Read: Mech Cadets summary and ending explained