The only thing slightly wrong with your analogy, LEM, is that KVA is the vector sum of KVAR and KW, not the algebraic sum.
Thank you, Alex, I suspected so, my explanation was purposely very simplistic.
The second part of your post is arabian to me
as I don't recall what "inductive or capacitive" means... but I won't dare asking you to explain, unless nature provided you with a lot of patience...