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Eternals: Ikaris' Character Alignment Explained (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2022-01-13 00:01:01 +0000 UTCI wanna talk about Eternals.
/Eternals is a 2021 superhero film from Marvel Studios. Inspired by the comic book series “The Eternals” by Jack Kirby, it tells the story of a race of immortal beings called Eternals, who were tasked to rid the earth of a species of apex predators called Deviants by the Celestial Arishem. Also ordered not to interfere with humanity’s development if Deviants weren’t involved by the same entity, the return of the Deviants some time after the events of Avengers: Endgame have also made them aware of their true purpose for being on the planet; to make sure the Deviants didn’t interfere with the upcoming death of the planet with the birth of a new Celestial named Tiamut, in an event delayed by The Blip called the Emergence. And with the Eternal Sersi newly made the leader of the Eternals, its up to them to either delay the Emergence long enough to relocate humanity, or make sure Tiamut is never born./
While I have every right to say it in order to be a contrarian, I absolutely mean this when I say that Eternals has to be my favorite Phase 4 film in the MCU to date.
Yes, I know Spider-Man: No Way Home is out. Yes, I’ve SEEN Spider-Man: No Way Home. Yes, I said what I fucking said.
While I enjoyed what No Way Home utilized aspects of the Multiverse Saga started by the Loki series in order to make a better One More Day story than J Michael Strazynski, Shang-Chi’s exploration of complicated family dynamics, and Yelena winning the 2021 Best Girl of the Year Award in Black Widow, Eternals was different in every sense of the word.
/When compared to the Marvel Studios films that came before it, Eternals felt like it abandoned its traditional tried and true formula to tell a story that’s commonplace for it, but in a way that highlights the characters and their dynamics first and foremost./
To me, Eternals felt like a more mature version of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films. And while I’m sure that’s because all of the main characters are thousands of years old and have lived multiple lifetimes in order to gain and display said maturity, aspects of decision-making and emotional complexity that I’ve always wanted to see in an ensemble superhero film was granted to me in Eternals.
/And one of the best examples of said complexity is the reveal of Richard Madden’s Ikaris being the film’s primary antagonist and the reasons behind his betrayal./
The overall plot of the film -- from the Emergence to the Celestial Arishem’s plan to keep the universe in perpetual existence with planting celestial seeds in multiple planets while intelligent life lives on its proverbial eggshell until its ready to hatch, the Eternals finding out their true purpose and learning that they get a hard factory reset after every planet they prepare before moving on to the next thanks to the transition of power from Ajak to Sersi...
Gives the protagonists a lot of agency in how they see themselves, how they see each other, and how they see their connection to the planet that they’ve called home for thousands of years.
/Especially when Ikaris is revealed to be the only one after all this time still honorbound by and dedicated to the will of Arishem, and seeking to make sure the Emergence of Earth’s Celestial Tiamut happens by any means necessary./
Now operating from a traditional moviegoers point-of-view -- because I personally know nothing about the Eternals regarding how they were in either Jack Kirby, Neil Gaiman or Kieron Gillen’s run...
The actions of Ikaris over the course of Eternals, especially in the third act, can be seen as treacherous, and they are.
But treacherous does not necessarily equal villainous, and one thing Ikaris is not within the narrative of Eternals is a villain.
An antagonist? Yes. An antagonist in its actual sense is basically an adversary; someone who opposes someone -- or a group of someone in this case -- from achieving or completing a goal.
To be a villain is to imply that part of Ikaris’ dedication to Arishem’s will is out of maliciousness or that the will in question adds an evil agency to the plot.
/However, because of the “Needs of the many” aspect that the cycle of Celestial birth adds to the complexity of what it takes for the MCU to be sustained, the agency is more neutral with no prejudice toward human life -- or life on Earth overall -- than it is evil./
So in this case, when a casual moviegoer-slash-watcher sees this movie, witnesses Ikaris’ actions upon the reveal of his treachery during the third act and witnesses his final decision near the end of the film, one may be curious as to understand the machinations behind his decisions and how they make sense in the overall state of things that are presented.
All that to say, they may find themselves asking this question:
/“Well if he IS an antagonist but ISN’T a villain, then why is Ikaris like this?”/
Now there IS an answer to that question; one that I’m MORE than happy to explain in full detail over the course of this video if one cares to truly understand the machinations he goes through in Eternals.
However, I’m going to have to explain a few things before I break down Ikaris’s development in order to better bring things into context. Things like tropes, other characters in Eternals, one outside of the superhero genre completely, and -- first and foremost -- a concept created by a tabletop roleplaying game that has since been utilized in how we all digest personality analysis in fictional characters.
And that concept is called Character Alignment.
Alignment Explained
As you know, character alignment as we know it originated from the table-top rpg Dungeons and Dragons. Co-created by Gary Gygax, the dude who said that “gaming in general is a male thing,” the bulk of how alignment works was inspired by “Three Hearts and Three Lions,” a 1961 novel by Poul Anderson that was expanded from a novella he wrote 8 years prior.
The book was basically John Carter of Mars. But instead of a Civil War Confederate soldier being isekai’d off to a different planet, it was a Danish engineer who joined the allied forces during World War II and is isekai’d to a world where France’s Carolingian Cycle of legends revolving around Charlemagne -- the King of Franks -- was real.
In this world, there’s a pretty obvious divide in the land regarding the Middle World ruled by the forces of Chaos, and the human world by the forces of Law, which in itself was divided between Holy Roman Empirical and Muslim rule.
And while other works of fiction provided inspiration for the alignment system such as works by Michael Moorcock -- not MORE, MOOR; like (gestures to skin tone and make jackoff motions)...
Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions is the more prominent piece of inspiration that would grow into the alignment chart we have today.
I say that because when it was introduced into D&D with its first iteration in 1974, the alignment axis was extremely limited in where it could rotate. And that’s because it ONLY consisted of Law and Chaos, much like the lands in the book that inspired it. The secondary axis of Good and Evil wasn’t added to the alignment chart until three years later.
Since then, with Wizards of the Coast’s purchase of the game from Gygax and co and later editions of the game, the official alignments constantly changed from second edition onward.
And considering how aspects of the game’s early days used the alignment system to justify things like racial prejudice and generalization -- ie stereotyping classes based on a general one-layered understanding of the axis, penalizing players for both staying in and role-playing out of their chosen spectrum, and certain races, playable and non-playable alike, being inherently evil -- lots of modern-day players argue if alignment is even necessary in the game, limit its necessity to character and story development in their home games, or just remove it entirely.
On the other hand, like Gygax’s creation has evolved in a way that has easily surpassed his alleged misogyny and prejudice -- not to mention his life -- so has the concept of character alignment.
While its necessity in Dungeons and Dragons has been the talk of the town for years, the ethical and moral axis it has come to represent has been applied to multiple aspects of fiction and media; specifically how we analyze individual characters in order to understand their core values and beliefs.
So much so, that the very concept of character alignment is so well known across fiction and pop culture that there’s even a TV Tropes page dedicated to it, which is how you know it’s become such a staple.
And while the evolution of fiction is constantly challenging this, the easiest paradigms we have in regards to how to accurately analyze characters according to the axis of character alignment are superheroes and supervillains. So in the case of the version of Ikaris we received in the MCU, we have to ask ourselves one question:
What Alignment is Ikaris?
In order to understand which spectrum of the character alignment axis Ikaris falls under, we have to look at the nine possibilities within it and compare them to the behavior Ikaris displayed in Eternals. And we know there’s nine possibilities, because each of the axes presented in the alignment spectrum holds 3 possibilities that are easily interchangeable.
The first axis is the ethical axis; the one that Dungeons & Dragons only had access to before Wizards bought the game. This axis consists of Law and Chaos.
The second axis is the moral axis; the one that was added to the variant table from 2nd Edition and beyond. As you can imagine, this axis consists of Good and Evil.
Now with these extremes, it only adds 4 options to the alignment chart; lawful good, lawful evil, chaotic good and chaotic evil. But where the other 2 come from are in neutrality.
There are simply some characters -- and as a result, people -- who don’t fit either end of the axis, fully or completely. And because that applies to both the extremes of Law and Chaos and Good and Evil, Neutral was added to both in order to produce 9 possibilities instead of 4.
Those 9 are as follows: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil
Now if I were to explain how each of these 9 alignments work according to how they’ve been properly represented in today’s media and pop culture figures, this video would take forever. If you DO want me to talk about these alignments and their pop culture reps separately, just let me know in the comment section and I’ll...consider it.
But in the case of MCU’s Ikaris, we have to do a bit of process of elimination right quick in order to come up with the most accurate outcome
So are Ikaris’s actions on the ethical axis more Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral?
Well when it comes to the ethical axis, chaotic characters lean more toward personal freedom than abiding by rules and regulations.
Where they scale in how chaotic they are in comparison to where they land morally however, depends on the inner workings of their personality and their development over the course of the story.
/In the case of Eternals, every member with the exception of Sprite aligns more along the lawful side of the axis rather than chaos./
/Yes, even Druig in the beginning of the movie./
Apparently, for the same reasons I’m going to explain regarding his actions in the movie, Marvel Comics uses his powers and his philosophy as a reason to make him a villain.
Don’t quote me on that, though. I’ve never read an Eternals comic in my life, and Jim Starling has made it so that any attempt I made to read the cosmic side of Marvel literally gives me a migraine.
However, not only do I think how Druig was handled in Eternals is a great example of how a character can be fluid with character alignment and still end up revolving around a specific spectrum of the double axis of ethics and morals...
/But his handling just so happens to help us pinpoint not only Ikraris’s alignment, but also understand his dedication to one specific aspect of it: The “Equality Under Law'' subtrope of Lawful Neutral./
Why Lawful Neutral?
As I stated before, every Eternal featured in the Marvel Studios film falls under the lawful side of the ethical axis with the exception of Sprite.
/Sprite, just like TinkerBell as Kingo compared her to, is Chaotic Neutral. Or, at least grows more chaotic neutral over the course of their time on Earth./
Her inability to grow to maturity and live a full life with the love of others like her fellow Eternals due to her being forever young by design -- ESPECIALLY Sersi considering that she wants to know what it's like to be loved by Ikaris -- growing envious of humans because they have that capability, and her overall way of processing feelings and emotions reflecting that of a stereotypical teenager despite being on earth for millennia, allows her the capability to think and act more selfishly than the other Eternals. Because of this, she never really considers context regarding the decisions she makes, and instead acts on them because of her own feelings.
/The reason why she joined Ikaris in making sure the Emergence happened wasn’t because she wanted to follow Arishem’s laws regarding how the universe worked. It was because she was in love with Ikaris and wanted to be free of the envy she had of humans that was only there because of what she coveted from them./
And over the course of the movie, we see Sprite’s actions reflect that selfishness and want of freedom cause her ethical dial to turn from its Neutral setting -- because let’s just be honest, Sprite is a trickster entity through and through; she would NEVER start off anywhere NEAR Lawful -- to the Chaotic one that feels more in tune with her overall development and philosophy.
In the case of Druig, his ethical alignment in the beginning of the movie IS Lawful, but his moral choices had him constantly in a game of tug-of-war between moral neutrality and evil.
/What made his choices Lawful as opposed to Neutral or Chaotic however, was his decision to stop upholding the code of conduct bestowed upon him by Arishem and instead uphold his own./
The thing about characters that fall within the lawful side of the ethical axis -- good or otherwise -- is that there isn’t just one way to be lawful. A character’s own code of ethics they developed over time is just as important as that of the laws of society; possibly even more, according to some.
This is why despite Superman being a posterboy for Lawful Good because of his post Crisis “Boy Scout” depiction following a mix of societies regulations and own moral code of ethics, Batman can be considered Lawful Good as well depending on how he’s written.
/Because despite being a vigilante that operates outside of Gotham’s own laws, rules and regulations, he himself has a strict code that he enforces on both himself and other members of the Bat-family/ (no guns no killing).
/And he’s so strict on enforcing those laws -- both on others who work with him and himself -- that even if it said code has to be broken out of necessity or survival, then he’s failed in his directive and is no longer capable of pursuing the cause/ (batman beyond: never again).
Druig’s case is that of being indoctrinated by the laws of Arishem upon arriving on Earth to eliminate the Deviants, only having the word of Ajak as the Celestial’s prophet.
As they continued to stay on Earth and witness the evolution of humanity, the combination of Druig’s appreciation for it and how he learned his abilities can keep them safe -- albeit through means that would rid them of their free will -- cause him to develop an ideology and moral code of his own. Especially after being told time and time again through said prophet of Arishem that such a massive interference in humanity’s development isn’t allowed.
/And upon reaching his limit by the time the Spanish conquer the Aztecs, he makes the initial decision to renounce Arishem’s law, fully follow his OWN code instead, and dips his toes in the evil side of morality like that of his comic counterpart by completely mind-controlling both Spanish and Aztecian alike./
However, unlike his comic book counterpart, not only does he not STAY evil, but he doesn’t even stay LAWFUL, either.
By the time the gang seek his help to stop the Emergence, aspects about his original goals and personal code have disappeared.
/Learning that utilizing his powers in order to protect humanity would only rob them of it in the end, he has abandoned not just the doctrine of Arishem, but his own original personal code he left the Eternals with as well, choosing to live in isolation in a small village he protects he protects in the Amazon. It isn’t until he learns their true purpose for being on Earth that his appreciation of humanity and his want to protect them gets him to help his fellow Eternals put Tiamut to sleep, placing him along the line of a Neutral Good alignment -- passively good, more specifically -- thanks to his moral appreciation of humanity and wanting to keep them safe overtaking any ethical code that may be lingering within him after his overall ordeal./
However, regardless of what Druig’s stages of alignment are over the course of the movie, one thing is constant in regards to his dynamic with Ikaris; they’re always at odds with each other.
Whenever Druig challenges Arishem’s law via Ajak regarding using their abilities to interfere with humanity’s progression, Ikaris is there to challenge him.
/Even when they find Druig in the Amazon when he sacrificed his lawful place in the ethic axis for that of a neutral one -- especially after finding out that they’re androids who get reset every time they get ready to head off to another world to prepare for the birth of a Celestial -- the two’s animosity toward each other regarding their opinions about Arishem constantly keep them at odds./
That’s because characters that believe in Equality Under the Law -- the type of Lawful Neutral character Ikaris shows himself to be in Eternals -- is one that holds not his own personal code, but the law of a certain society in very high regard.
In this case, society represents the word of Arishem and his perpetual plan to keep the universe thriving with the constant death of planets with intelligent life, constantly allowing the birth of Celestials.
/To Ikaris, Arishem’s word is law, and any attempt from others to change or amend it is unacceptable./
Even when Ajak told him the ultimate goal of their presence on Earth a week before the Emergence, the law applies to EVERYONE to someone who believes in Equality Under the Law; humanity is just the result of Arishem’s design in motion.
/And every time Druig challenged said law, every time Druig attempted to place his own will above that of their creator and the voice of their creator, Ikaris retaliated, either verbally or physically./
Because of their constant conflict regarding ones steadfastness to societal values and the other's development and implementation of personal values, the very animosity between Ikaris and Druig respectively over the course of the film was, in itself, a red flag to show us Ikaris’ need of placing the societal law of Arishem over everything else.
And not only over humanity, mind you, but also over both his superiors who he felt either had or no longer had any regard for Arishem’s intended purpose for them;
/One who wanted to stop the Emergence, and the other who wanted to delay it so that both humanity and Tiamut can coexist./
So when it was revealed that Ikaris upholds the law of Arishem so high to the point where he’s willing to betray the other Eternals in order to keep it in place, that fact didn’t surprise Druig one bit.
/Hell, he was even able to correctly call that Ikaris eliminated Ajak because of experiencing the predictability of his doctrine all these years./
The funny thing is that those of us who were used to seeing this aspect of a Lawful Neutral character in an antagonistic role, also experienced the predictability of the Equality Under the Law trope before.
So much so, that -- also like Druig with the aforementioned example -- a lot of us were successfully able to call Ikaris’ decision to end his life by the time they were able to abort Tiamut, due to the enhancement of Sersi’s transmutation powers during the Emergence causing him to contribute to the Uni-Mind without his consent.
/And it's all thanks to another character a good amount of us have been exposed to, just like Ikaris, named Inspector Javert./
Nipping It In The Bud
I apologize in advance to all my musical theater Readers watching this before I continue on with this segment, but the 2012 version was how I was initially introduced to the musical and I have literally never seen a single other version of it.
So. With that being said, Inspector Javert is a character from the critically acclaimed musical Les Miserables, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo.
/And thanks to his perception of the law, unquestioning allegiance to those in power, his depiction of society and his sense of justice, Javert has become the posterboy of the Equality Under the Law aspect of the alignment of Lawful Neutral./
Despite Javert being the antagonist of Les Mis thanks to his obsessively endless pursuit of Jean Valjean, he is not morally evil. He does not seek him out just to hurt, oppress or kill him for the sake of it, or because he gets pleasure out of it.
According to his philosophy, the law of the land does not make exceptions; everyone is under the same level of accountability, punishment and retribution according to its doctrine, and Jean Valjean is a rejector of such doctrine and must be properly punished.
/Even if the law that the individual in question is persecuted for is unjust -- ie stealing a loaf of bread to feed their sister’s starving child -- to people like Javert, the circumstances behind the theft don’t matter; the law is the law and the perpetrator must suffer the consequences of their actions according to the law./
This is what happens when the Lawful side of the ethics axis is cranked up higher than the Neutral side of the moral axis.
There is no prejudice regarding why he is doing what he’s doing, no ulterior motives or innate pleasure gained from pursuing Jean Valjean over the 17 years Les Mis encompasses that would make Javert justifiably evil as a result.
/While he may have his own opinions about individuals who break the law or live outside of it, he does what he does because he is dedicated to upholding the law in every shape and fashion, and holds it at such a high regard that morally good-aligned traits such as mercy, forgiveness, understanding and compassion don’t even resonate within his thought-process when going about distributing it. So much so, that even when he errs in the eyes of the law, he’s absolutely confused and bewildered when HE’S shown compassion and the like, instead of receiving the consequences of his actions as expected./
Is it possible for characters like this to develop in a way where the dedication to law is turned down the more they’re exposed to humanity and how society pits them against each other? Absolutely.
However, Javert -- and as a result MCU’s Ikaris -- are such extreme representations of this aspect of Lawful Neutral that if anything happens that makes them even THINK about swaying away from their romantic dedication to law -- whether they’re societal laws or a personal code -- it would break their entire worldview as a result.
/Javert felt this in the aftermath of the revolution at the end of Les Mis, thanks to the 3-punch combo of Jean releasing him from the rebellion's imprisonment, seeing the bloody aftermath of their failed coup, and letting Jean Valjean escape with Marius./
Him not following through with his duty to uphold the law by arresting Valjean right there on the spot, or making due on his promise to open fire if he took another step further -- despite Marius being seriously wounded -- along with witnessing the age of the rebels that were gunned down, started to sway him.
/And despite seeing the result of France’s flawed societal law and now knowing that it’s not as sacred as he believed them to be, Javert can’t bring himself to compromise his own principles that used said allegiance and unwavering dedication as its foundation. Being so torn between his inability to do so, that he commits suicide./
And as I explained earlier, Ikaris in Eternals is the same way.
He fits the bill of how this aspect of Lawful Neutral operates and carries out to a T, especially how one under the influence of this aspect of the alignment reacts when they’re morally and ethically backed into a corner and aren’t willing to make compromises with themselves.
/The only difference between how Javert failed to come to a compromise versus how Ikaris failed to come to one, is that there were enough good-aligned aspects of Ikaris’ neutrality within him that were aimed at Sersi because of his feelings for her, that was enough to jumpstart the doubt. And thanks to Ikaris’ hesitation, it gave Sersi ample enough time to add himself and Sprite into the Uni-Mind in order to nonconsensually give her the power necessary to transmute Tiamut into marble, forcing Ikaris to participate in breaking the law of Arishem as a result./
So now Ikaris has multiple conflicts going on within him; failing to uphold the law that is Arishem’s will, being forced to participate in its defiance, and his overall feelings for Sersi getting in the way of him doing what’s necessary to make sure Arishem’s will for the planet was done.
And, just like Javert, this inner struggle dealing with what he was willing to do, what he was FORCED to do, and why he couldn’t bring himself to do it -- all in the name of the law...
Leaves him in such a state of conflict that he either refuses to compromise in order to carry on living with the rest of the Eternals, or thinks that because of allowing outside forces to compromise his devotion to Arishem’s word, that he’s unworthy of it altogether.
/Then, with the actions that followed, MCU’s Ikaris -- like Javert in musical media -- became the pinnacle example in superhero media of the Equality Under the Law aspect of the Lawful Neutral alignment./
Conclusion
It’s like I said before, Readers. Just because a character is an antagonist doesn’t mean they’re a villain. And just because they oppose the heroes of the story, doesn’t mean that the overall agency they represent or wish to carry out is intentionally evil.
With the constant progression of storytelling blurring the line between what it means to be good and evil in favor of exploring aspects of right and wrong...
The evolution of character alignment into what we currently know it to be is very important in regards to showing audiences that the dogmatic views that are engraved within us regarding what makes a hero or a villain are, and in some cases should be, more complicated.
Just because a character is lawful doesn’t mean they HAVE to be a hero. Just because a character is morally neutral doesn’t mean they are intentionally malicious or cruel.
Sometimes they realize through their chaotic nature that they just want to experience things the way others do. Sometimes they learn that their own personal lawful code is flawed and give up on it for the sake of finding themselves.
/And sometimes, they experience such a sensation outside of their current understanding of ethics and morals, that they just can’t cope. And, as a result, they end up flying a bit too close to the sun./
