The Real Reason Kwon Was Killed in Cobra Kai—& What It Means for the Show’s Endgame
Cobra Kai never dies, but the members of Cobra Kai apparently do. That’s a lesson fans learned during Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 2. The show, a spinoff of The Karate Kid franchise focusing not just on Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawerence (William Zabka), but on their families and new students is set to conclude with Season 3. Netflix has split the season in three parts, with the final five episodes set to premiere in 2025.
The sixth season of Cobra Kai has seen a lot more death than the show—and the movies before—have ever shown. One of those deaths is that of Kwon, the top student of master Kim Da-Eun in South Kora, and part of the newly revived Cobra Kai Dojo. Kwon, established as one of the big antagonists in Season 6, ends up being killed at the end of Part 2, with his death the big setup for what’s coming in the last stretch of the season.
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Kwon’s death comes after a confusing series of events that starts with a title match between Miyagi-Do’s Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) and the Iron Dragons Dojo’s Axel Kovacevic (Patrick Luwis). At one point Axel, who seems to be beating Robby, throws him out of the mat and into Kwon’s (Brandon H. Lee) path—who strikes Robby. That makes Miguel (Xolo Maridue?a) mad. A brawl breaks up, which pits Kwon against Axel. As Kwon attempts to use a knife to defend himself, Axel fights him off and Kwon falls on the knife and impales himself.
But why did Kwon die in Cobra Kai? What’s the reason he was killed off? And how does his death tie into the show’s ending?
Why did Kwon die in Cobra Kai?
According to series co-creator, Kwon’s death was always in the plans, and essential to the story the season was telling. “We set Kwon up to be the new big, bad antagonist going into this second block,” series co-creator Hayden Schlossberg told Variety. “For him to get killed by another opponent is a surprise we were looking forward to.” So basically, Kwon died for plot reasons.
The storyline ties to the revelation that Mr. Miyagi killed his opponent at the Sekai Taikai decades earlier. “Kwon became this powder keg of a character that really got us excited in the writers’ room,” co-creator Josh Heald added. The show’s other co-creator Jon Hurwitz also described Kwon as a broken person who desperately wants to prove himself and gets the worst advice from his sensei: show no mercy.
Josh Heald also told TVLine that Kwon’s death is supposed to be shocking, and it’s also important to the show’s endgame. “His death is a big moment and it should reverberate across the karate community. This was a televised event that went out across the world. The Sekai Taikai has finally come out of the shadows and is being broadcast as a major sporting event and this happens. It’s terrible and there’s a lot of people who are going to very likely place blame on themselves,” he shared. “It throws the whole idea of competitive karate and the safety of that into question, and whether or not anyone’s intentions, good, bad or otherwise, are to blame for what’s happened. It will have as much impact as any possible cliffhanger ever has on this show and it will deeply inform the endgame of the series.”
Could Kwon’s death be a wake-up call for Kreese, who brought the knife into the arena in the first place? Schlossberg also told Variety that the fight “created an opportunity for us to have Kreese see the results of some of his actions. … Watching one of his students get killed with the knife he brought there.”
Whether that changes anything for Kreese or for the rest of the characters going into the last five episodes, we shall see when the Netflix show returns.
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