History Characters / MonsterVerseRussellFamily

* BecauseISaidSo: '''All over the place''' towards Madison in ''Godzila vs. Kong'', leading to her striking off on her own once she realizes he won't be of any use. In the film, he dismisses everything Madison has to say out of hand when he {{easily condemn|ed}}s Godzilla, insisting to her that there's no reason for Godzilla's recent actions [[YouRemindMeOfX based on flimsy excuses that he yanked out of the dredges of his own insecurities]], and he treats Madison like she's {{just a kid}} despite her having more than proved her mettle in [[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 the previous film]]. In the novelization, Mark plays this trope habitually in his and Madison's home life: he barely trusts her, seldom explains himself to her whilst expecting her to just obey whatever he tells her to do, and when Madison calls him out on his questionable parenting, Mark pulls rank on her as her father, guardian and a legal adult. Suffice to say, Madison would probably make fast friends with [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTophBeifong Toph Beifong]] after enduring Mark's smothering brand of parenting.

'''[[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseGodzilla Godzilla]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseKingGhidorah King Ghidorah]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseKingKong King Kong]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMechagodzilla Mechagodzilla]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMothra Mothra]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMUTO MUTO]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseRodan Rodan]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseShimo Shimo]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseSkullIslandKaijuAndOtherCreatures Skull Island Kaiju & Other Creatures]]-]]]'''

'''[[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseGodzilla Godzilla]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseKingGhidorah King Ghidorah]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseKingKong King Kong]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMechagodzilla Mechagodzilla]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMothra Mothra]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMUTO MUTO]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseRodan Rodan]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseSkullIslandKaijuAndOtherCreatures Skull Island Kaiju & Other Creatures]]-]]]'''

!!Andrew Russell

!!Dr. Mark Russell

!!Madison Russell

!!Russell Family

[[folder:Dr. Emma Russell]]
-->See [[Characters/MonsterVerseEcoTerrorists Eco Terrorists]]

!Dr. Mark Russell

!Madison Russell

'''[[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseGodzilla Godzilla]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseKingKong King Kong]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseKingGhidorah King Ghidorah]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMUTO MUTO]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMechagodzilla Mechagodzilla]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseRodan Rodan]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseSkullIslandKaijuAndOtherCreatures Skull Island Kaiju & Other Creatures]]-]]]'''

''' [[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseAlanJonah Alan Jonah]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseFamilies Families]] (Russell Family) | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMonarch Monarch]] ([[Characters/MonsterVerseIshiroSerizawa Dr. Ishirō Serizawa]]) | [[Characters/MonsterVerseSkullIslandExpedition Skull Island Expeditions]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseUSGovernmentAndMilitary U.S. Government & Military]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseApexCybernetics Apex Cybernetics]]-]]]'''

'''Warning: Unmarked Spoilers Ahead.'''

!!Dr. Emma Russell
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/emmarussell.jpg]]
%%[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/VeraFarmiga
!!!'''Appears In:''' ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' | ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]''
->''"Humans have been the dominant species for thousands of years and look what's happened. Overpopulation. Pollution. War. The mass extinction we feared has already begun. And we are the cause. We are the infection. But like all organisms, the Earth unleashed a fever to fight this infection. Its original and rightful rulers, the Titans. They are part of the Earth's natural defense system, a way to protect the planet, to maintain its balance. But if governments are allowed to contain them, destroy them, or use them for war, the human infection will only continue to spread, and within our lifetime, our planet will perish...and so will we. Unless we restore balance."''

Mark Russell's ex-wife and Andrew and Madison Russell's mother, Monarch's chief paleobiologist and director of Bioacoustic Studies, the discoverer of Mothra, and the co-inventor of the ORCA. Initially appearing to be kidnapped by ecoterrorist Alan Jonah, it is later revealed that she is collaborating with Jonah to forcibly awaken the surviving Titans of the world and re-establish them as the first gods of the planet.

* AbandonmentInducedAnimosity: It's pretty clear during the tail end of her video call to the ''Argo'' when she starts arguing with Mark, that she's really bitter that her ex-husband [[GriefInducedSplit abandoned her and Madison]] for the last five years, starting when they needed him more than ever while they were grieving Andrew's death to the Titan battle; and she calls him out. Emma also demonstrates that she's willing to (hesitantly) [[TilMurderDoUsPart leave Mark to die as a necessary collateral of her plan]], in contrast to how she [[VillainousParentalInstinct refuses to compromise on her daughter's life]] when the chips are down. A deleted scene that was shot for the movie, and the novelization's expansion, both take the "Animosity" a little further, confirming that Emma has projected by telling Madison that Mark was a useless drunk in an effort to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_alienation_syndrome alienate]] him from her.
* AbusiveMom: Downplayed, but the negative consequences of her parenting Madison are quite evident as she manipulated her daughter into going along with her insane plan while also turning the young girl against her father.
* AdaptationalMundanity: Her creation of the ORCA and her and Jonah using it to attempt controlling the Kaiju including but not limited to Ghidorah, seems to make the two of them a human adaptation of the {{Human Alien}}s such as the Xiliens in earlier Toho continuities, who likewise used technology to control the Kaiju, the core difference being that the ORCA isn't a surefire mind-control switch and Ghidorah is simply unable to be controlled.
* AdmiringTheAbomination: Not an uncommon attitude among Monarch, and considering how the Titans appear onscreen to a cinema audience it's more than understandable. But she mixes this with a dose of [[MaddenIntoMisanthropy misanthropy]] when she decides that [[HumansAreBastards the human race are acting like an "infection" destroying the planet]], whilst the Titans are rising to act like antibodies maintaining the Earth's natural balance, and so she decides the Titans must be freed to reclaim dominance of the planet and force humans to re-attempt co-existence with them.
* AggressiveCategorism: ''Establishing'' type. Ironically, just as her ex-husband assumes without much objective evidence that all the various Titan species are all-destroying monsters who should be wiped out, Emma herself applies the opposite attitude to all the Titans, with equal prejudice. She assumes based on little more than Godzilla and the [=MUTOs'=] FertileFeet that ''all'' of the Titans awakening will be good for the planet, and she also assumes that she can control every last creature with the ORCA after some hazardous trial and error involving Jinshin-Mushi and Mothra. Boy, she was in for a surprise when she realized one of the Titans she awakened was actually an ecosphere-destroying living extinction event not from our planet who doesn't respond to the ORCA with anything but murderous violence, to say nothing of how another Titan released as an indirect consequence of Emma's plan -- Camazotz -- caused the extinction of Skull Island.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: She believes that the reawakening of the Titans is something that would ultimately benefit the world's ecosystem. Thus, she views the deaths of the millions, if not billions, of humans and the decimation of population centers that would inevitably occur as the Titans awaken as a necessary sacrifice needed to save the world. And then ''her'' daughter is one of the people in danger of dying, and [[{{Hypocrite}} she changes her mind and tries to pull the plug.]]
* AndThenWhat: {{Defied}}. Dr. Stanton poses this question to her when she reveals her plan to release all the Titans so they can inflict GaiasVengeance. Emma replies without missing a beat that the Titans won't reduce the planet to a dead wasteland as Stanton believes, but will instead rejuvenate it.
* AntiVillain: The director calls her "a gray character rather than a mustache-twirling villain." She intends to make the world a better place for humans and Titans alike and prevent humanity from creating their own extinction event, and it's worth noting she does have a mix of HeelRealization and MyGodWhatHaveIDone in addition to genuinely loving her children. But her means of achieving her goal involve recklessly forcing all the Titans to awake before the government can attempt killing them off, and she assumes nothing will go wrong despite not fully understanding the Titans herself; to say nothing of how she knowingly risks sacrificing billions of human lives or is willing to leave many of her co-workers and her daughter's father to die if it means seeing her plan through.
* ArmorPiercingResponse: She and Mark exchange two with each other during Emma's MotiveRant: after Emma fires the first one, it renders Mark silent for a moment, and then he responds with the below quote, which renders Emma silent for even longer and [[HeelRealization visibly fazes]] a listening Madison.
-->"''This won't bring him [Andrew] back to us.''"
* {{Backstory}}: Before she met and married Mark, Emma was an environmental activist and sometimes got arrested for participating in protests. In 2009, five years before the events of [[Film/Godzilla2014 the original film]], Emma and her team followed a bioacoustic signature to the mountains in Yunnan, China, and found the hidden Temple of the Moth, with a cocooned Mothra inside.
* TheBadGuyWins: [[ZigZaggingTrope Ultimately zig-zagged]]. By the end of the film Emma's plan brings about the deaths of millions worldwide. But her plan works. The Titans at the end restore the environment. Even though she is ultimately crushed under debris, she dies knowing that she left the world a "better" place for her daughter. However, despite the massive death toll and destruction, human civilization remains largely intact and still capable of producing weapons like the Oxygen Destroyer, making Emma's dream of utopian coexistence between Titans and humans far from certain.
** Later [[AvertedTrope averted]] altogether in following films and novels. The tie-in comic ''Kingdom Kong'' reveals the existence of hostile Titans like Camazotz who ultimately destroys Skull Island; proving King Ghidorah's threat to both the ecosystem and humanity was not an exception merely for his alien status. Further by the time of ''Godzilla vs Kong'', many of the Titans have returned to hibernation upon Godzilla's command, with humanity returning to its exploitive ways, such as the addition of organizations like [[EvilInc Apex Cybernetics]] coming into power. Thus, despite an initial environmentally positive start, in the long run Emma's efforts really became AllForNothing.
* BaitTheDog: At first she seems to be an innocent scientist and mother caught up in Alan Jonah's crazy scheme. Except it's actually ''her'' crazy scheme, she joined forces with Jonah before the start of the movie and on top of that, she's the one who releases Ghidorah and awakens him with the ORCA.
* TheBeastmaster: She and Mark developed the ORCA, a device to communicate with and possibly control monsters through their bioacoustics on a sonar level.
* BeingEvilSucks: Madison catches her at one point crying alone in a cafeteria with regret over what she's done.
* BerserkButton: Bringing up one or both of her children's wellbeing and questioning her sanity in tandem tends to make her crack true to her NotSoStoic, in both ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' and ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''.
* BigBadDuumvirate: With Alan Jonah, though he's initially the one in charge. They both plan to awaken Ghidorah from his ice prison and use the ORCA to control him, however Ghidorah has his own plans.
* BigBadFriend: She's this to most if not all of the key Monarch operatives. She recruited most of them and is implied to have been good friends with them before her betrayal is revealed.
* BigBadWannabe: [[BigBadDuumvirate Alongside Alan Jonah]], she is the one responsible for unsealing King Ghidorah and kickstarting the plot of the film. However, once King Ghidorah is freed, [[EvilerThanThou he quickly overshadows Russell and Jonah as the primary threat]] and, rather than restore balance as she had intended, instead opts to terraform Earth to suit his liking. Even Jonah outclasses her in this regard, being perfectly content with Ghidorah wiping out humanity, and later deciding she's no longer needed.
* BreakTheHaughty: She suffers a lot of ContemptCrossfire and close-to-home backlash for her hubris over the course of the film. {{Downplayed}} in the {{novelization}}, where despite her HeelRealization she still believes that Madison will actually forgive her if she tries to make things right.
* BrokenAce: She's seen InUniverse as this by some of her colleagues, such as Dr. Brooks in ''Godzilla: Aftershock''. She's looked up to and considered one of the best in Monarch, despite the death of her son in 2014 which turned her into a {{Workaholic}} and clearly still haunts her at the start of ''King of the Monsters''. Then her FaceHeelTurn is revealed.
* BrokenPedestal: She was regarded as one of the best in Monarch, particularly by Sam Coleman, and suffice to say that all of the top brass are shocked and crushed when her FaceHeelTurn to Jonah's cause [[EvilAllAlong comes to light]]. The atrocities she commits over the film eventually alienate even Emma's WellDoneDaughterGirl.
* ContemptCrossfire: Gets it from both sides when she's still hesitating to activate the ORCA, Maddie trying to get her to not kill billions of humans and Alan ripping into her for letting Maddie think it would be a painless process resulting in human-Titan harmony. BothSidesHaveAPoint.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: In a sense, she's a contrasting counterpart to Bill Randa from ''Film/KongSkullIsland''. Both are elite Monarch operatives, and they're also both ruthless and duplicitous [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned extremists]]; who manipulate and endanger other people including their allies for their own perceptions of the greater good, play a major role in triggering the conflict of their debut movie, and are ultimately killed by the movie's antagonistic Titan after realizing they were wrong. However, Randa wanted humanity to launch an extermination campaign against the Titans for mankind's own survival, and he primarily endangered military men that he hired out from the U.S. Army -- Emma on the other hand wants the Titans to teach us bastard humans a lesson via decimating us and restoring the natural balance which mankind has decimated, in order to ensure the world's survival, and she instead endangers her own Monarch colleagues plus billions of unaffiliated civilians on a vaster scale than Randa ever did. Randa sought to bring proof of Titans' existence back to the U.S. government, and his death was quite ignominous -- Emma, who is also more hi-tech than Randa, operates against the law as an eco-terrorist, and she dies committing a HeroicSacrifice which yields effective results.
* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: To Mason Weaver from ''Film/KongSkullIsland''. Both are passionate, headstrong, cunning, determined, nature-loving and anti-authority women, whom are firmly opposed to some form of man-made conflict in the world and consider themselves duty-bound to undermine it; both women form a deep admiration for some of the Titans, and both women have deep-rooted emotional issues involving their families underneath the mask. However, Weaver is an anti-Vietnam War photographer and an all-round decent, heroic and philanthropic person who believes that harmony and peace can be achieved without violence, and she befriends most of the Sky Devils, Conrad and the Iwi -- Emma on the other hand is a high-profile Monarch scientist turned misanthrope, who resorts to betraying and endangering all her colleagues, her own ex-husband, and billions of people around the world [[MoralMyopia so long as they aren't her daughter]] via radical eco-terrorism, which alienates everyone from her; and she does this because she believes that the Titans need to be released to cull humanity and reverse the man-made damage to the environment before the government has the chance to try killing the Titans off. Weaver has unresolved daddy issues stemming from a controlling father, while one of Emma's true motivations for setting Titans loose to devastate the world is her unresolved grief and rage over her son's death. Mason's upbringing made her understand that humanity should try to coexist with nature instead of trying to dominate it -- Emma, in a darker twist, similarly believed that the preservation of nature was essential to mankind's survival, but she was happy for the Titans to devastate and dominate humanity to that end, and she failed to realize that she herself was no exception to the rule "mankind does not control the laws of nature" in her efforts to manipulate the Titans. Mason is StreetSmart, whereas Emma ends up dancing to the far more evil Alan Jonah's tune and is blindsided by King Ghidorah causing her plan to fall apart. Weaver is an ImpliedLoveInterest in her movie whereas Emma is a bitter divorcee in hers.
* DecoyProtagonist: She's introduced as a main protagonist being forced into villainy by Alan Jonah, but she turns out to have been willingly working with him from the beginning and spends the first half or so of the movie as part of a BigBadDuumvirate with him.
* DefectorFromDecadence: She deserts her alliance to the eco-terrorists in favor of siding with the heroes again for two specific reasons. (1) She's horrified that Jonah and his mooks are going to happily sit back while letting King Ghidorah exterminate humanity altogether and wreak even more destruction on the Earth's biosphere than we would've, seeing as she just wanted a massive population cull and an ecological utopia for the survivors. And (2) Jonah and his men won't lift a finger to help her once it's ''her'' child [[MoralMyopia instead of everybody else's children]] who's in mortal peril of being killed by a Titan.
* DetrimentalDetermination: She's willing to go to truly ''horrifying'' lengths bordering on sociopathy in pursuit of her plan's success. On top of intending to let the Titans kill millions to ''billions'' of people as collateral, Emma helps Jonah to massacre dozens of her colleagues and co-workers so they can free the contained Titans, she leaves her own daughter's father to die amidst Ghidorah's awakening ''while said daughter is helplessly watching'', and she (after some prodding from [[GoodAngelBadAngel Jonah]]) decides to turn down Madison's ''very''-impassioned pleas not to endanger hundreds of civilians when awakening Rodan. Once Emma's plan goes off the rails because of Ghidorah, all she has to show for her actions ([[TheExtremistWasRight until after hers and Ghidorah's deaths]]) is the annihilation of her relationships with ''every'' still-living person who once cared for her, leaving her completely alone. Speaking of Emma's plan going off the rails... the reason that happens is that Emma was set on releasing all the Titans indiscriminately, even the ones that Monarch knew little about and the ones that are powerful enough to challenge [[BigGood Godzilla]]'s dominance, in her efforts to restore balance to the world's ecosphere; which led to Emma unwittingly unleashing a Godzilla-level OmnicidalManiac who, instead of allowing the Titans to heal the planet, intends to create even more global destruction than humans ever could.
* DidntSeeThatComing: She had no clue about King Ghidorah's true nature. Her original plan called to wake the Titans up gradually, to give humanity time to prepare so that some people would survive while they bring balance to the planet. She's thus confused and horrified when King Ghidorah starts waking them all at once so that it's more likely humanity will be exterminated and begins terraforming the planet more to his alien sensibilities.
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** While [[TheExtremistWasRight she's proven right in the end]] that the Titans have FertileFeet and the potential to create many ecological solutions for humanity, she (A) is willing to set Titans loose with only limited data on most of them and without any consideration for unknown factors, (B) she doesn't factor in the possibility that some of the Titans really will do more harm than good for both humans and the world's ecosystems if they return to the world, and (C) she doesn't consider how critical the Alpha Titans' influence over the baseline Titans really is in determining how much harm or good they cause the world. One of the Alphas that she releases, Ghidorah, is ''all three'' of these potential hiccups rolled into one, being an extraterrestrial Alpha who actively seeks to usurp Godzilla's dominance so he can drive the baseline Titans to [[OmnicidalManiac globally rampage and wipe out all life as we know it]].
** Emma gave Madison an idealized and sugar-coated sales pitch when indoctrinating Madison into her plan, but beyond that, Emma (possibly due to her own SanitySlippage) evidently didn't do anything at all to actually desensitize her conscientious, 12-year-old daughter to acts of mass murder before the plan is underway, leading to Madison being thoroughly traumatized, deliberately making herself a liability to the eco-terrorists out of conscience, and eventually rebelling against Emma altogether.
** ''Godzilla vs Kong'' also revealed another major flaw in her plan. For all Emma's justification of trying to restore the natural balance of the ecosystem, she fails to realize all the Titans are in a naturally hibernating state, and thus forcibly awakening them is interfering with that. Thus by the time of the third film, most of the Titans have simply returned to hibernation after their brief awakening, and the state of the world remains as it was before.
* TheDogWasTheMastermind: She and her daughter are captured by Jonah so they can aid him and his mercenaries in raiding Monarch's outposts and releasing the captive Titans, but then it turns out that rather than being forcibly taken hostage, she's been TheMole in Monarch for some time, and it's actually ''her'' master-plan that she and Jonah are enacting (although it's clear that Jonah is the DragonInChief whenever Emma has second thoughts about going through with something evil).
* {{Doublethink}}: Apparent type. She doesn't see the ''ginormous'' contradiction of her professed desire to ensure that some good came of Andrew's demise and that she could find a solution to the phenomena which killed him (a Titan attack); contrasted against her plan to all but force-engineer dozens more instances of that phenomena around the world and create millions more casualties just like Andrew. It's also implied (all but confirmed in the novelization) that although Emma professes she genuinely doesn't want humanity to go completely extinct, she also deep down [[SecretlySelfish wants humanity to suffer the Titans' wrath at her hand]] because she knows it was humanity's abuse of the environment which instigated the [=MUTOs'=] awakening and led to Andrew's death.
* DrawAggro: At the movie's end, King Ghidorah is rushing towards Emma's, her family's and the other evacuating humans' position after the Russells have re-activated the ORCA to distract Ghidorah from finishing off Godzilla. Ghidorah's approach prompts Emma to take the ORCA and split away from the evacuating party, driving off with the ORCA in a jeep in an [[HeroicSacrifice act of self-sacrifice]]. Ghidorah changes direction to pursue Emma, and he fatally injures her when his Gravity Beams hit the jeep. The novelization explicitly says that if Emma hadn't sacrificed herself, then [[KillAllHumans Ghidorah]] would have almost-certainly spotted the evacuating humans' Osprey (which included [[VillainousParentalInstinct Madison]]) and shot them out of the sky faster than they could get away, and he likely would have then had enough time to spare to go back to Godzilla and finish [[VampiricDraining killing him]] before Godzilla had fully recovered.
* DumbBlonde: Type 2, and {{downplayed}}. She's the only blonde major character in ''King of the Monsters'', but rather than her "Dumb" consisting of subtracting intelligence for preference of being around people, Emma's dumbness is a paradoxical mix of being legitimately more intellectually concerned than the rest of the cast are about the bigger picture whilst valuing individual lives far less than the rest of the cast to a disgusting degree. Although she has [[VillainHasAPoint a couple legitimate points]] concerning the Titan-related problems that Monarch aren't doing anything about, she gets rightly called out by the movie's more moral, hesitant and practical-minded human heroes (many of whom including [[{{Foil}} Mark]] happen to be {{Brainy Brunette}}s) because of her hubris in believing she can control the Titans and believing her plan is infallible. Indeed, her actions ''do'' come around to bite her in the ass. And that's not even going into Emma's thoroughly messed-up feelings toward her respective children, which make the highly-dysfunctional Mark look ''healthy'' by comparison.
* EcoTerrorist: She turns out to be a [[WesternTerrorists Western Terrorist]] of the sort that believes that humanity in and of itself is a problem that needs fixing, with all the damage that they've inflicted on the planet with overpopulation, pollution, and war. To that end, she unleashes the Titans to forcibly "heal" the Earth no matter the scope of the destruction that this causes for innocent people.
* EliteSchoolMeansEliteBrain: She's the genius (and we mean that both literally and sarcastically) who rebuilt and worked on perfecting the ORCA, and she's considered one of the best of the best among Monarch. According to her Monarch Sciences bio, she attended the Ohio State University, which is ranked one of the best universities in the United States.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Truly cares for her daughter Madison, and is filled with grief over the loss of her son Andrew.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: She hesitates before releasing both Ghidorah and Rodan respectively when she knows her ex-husband or hundreds of islanders will be at the newly-freed Titans' feet. She ultimately has a HeelFaceTurn when she realizes Ghidorah is a threat to all life on Earth instead of healing the planet.
* EvilAllAlong: At the start of the film, she appears to be a well-meaning Monarch scientist who is forcibly kidnapped by Jonah and forced to serve his goals against her will. Then she picks up the detonator and frees Ghidorah from the ice herself, and from there it's revealed she's been TheMole inside Monarch serving the [[EcoTerrorist Eco-Terrorists]]' ends for some time after she made a FaceHeelTurn.
* EvilGenius: [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr. Russell]] at first seems like a ReluctantMadScientist, until it's revealed that she's actually copasetic with the eco-terrorists' plan, and she single-handedly rebuilt and perfected her and Mark's ORCA prototype with the intention of using it to set the dormant Titans loose on the world and try to control them. Unlike her conspirators, Emma has [[WellIntentionedExtremist a genuinely noble end-goal]] in mind, but she doesn't fully realize just how deep she's gotten herself in by striking up a BigBadDuumvirate with [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist a man like Jonah]] until the film's third act.
* EvilReactionary: PlayedWith. She wants to release all the dormant Titans and allow them to ravage civilization because her years of study have indicated that ancient humans were able to co-exist with the Titans peacefully whilst the Titans maintained natural balance, and she believes that she can use the ORCA on the Titans to force them and humanity to return to this forgotten order after the destruction.
* ExcessiveMourning: ZigZagged and ultimately DoubleSubverted. She became a {{Workaholic}} in the aftermath of Andrew's death, as shown in ''Godzilla: Aftershock''. By the time of ''King of the Monsters'' she seems to have gotten her act together even if she still cries in the morning when remembering Andrew's death. But it turns out the latter is all just a MaskOfSanity to hide the fact that she's suffered SanitySlippage and made a FaceHeelTurn due to Andrew's death, deciding to unleash all the Titans on the world indiscriminately to prevent humanity from engineering their own manmade extinction event and to punish the human race for causing the [=MUTOs'=] awakening which led to Andrew's death in the first place.
* TheExtremistWasRight: In the end, she's proven correct that the Titans awakening and retaking their places in the world would heal the planet's biome rather than harm it and that the Titans' reemergence would ''not'' lead to the end of humanity. The immediate problem with her plan is she released Ghidorah when so little information on it was known to Monarch, and thus didn't account for it being a [[AliensAreBastards hostile extraterrestrial]] who actively does the opposite of safeguarding the planet's natural order. [[AMillionIsAStatistic Numbers wise]], her plan was a success.
** [[AvertedTrope Completely averted]] after the film, as while despite some Titans being both environmentally beneficial and benign to humanity, other malevolent Titans other than King Ghidorah are revealed to also exist, and thus their awakening causes even more destruction on both the planet and humanity. Finally, by the time of ''Godzilla vs Kong'' many of the Titans have returned to hibernation, only briefly solving environmental problems, before humanity carries on as usual. So ultimately despite all the death and destruction she caused, [[AllForNothing her plan was doomed from the start]].
* FaceHeelTurn: She made one at some point between ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' (set in 2014, which saw her not yet in alliance with Alan Jonah and actively working to stop the MUTO Prime) and the start of ''King of the Monsters''; becoming a WellIntentionedExtremist EcoTerrorist after her research and SanitySlippage brought her to the conclusion that the Titans had to be allowed to reclaim the Earth for themselves, and becoming TheMole in Monarch.
* FacingTheBulletsOneLiner: After King Ghidorah has fatally injured her and is looming towards her, she [[FaceDeathWithDignity defiantly says]], "[[IronicEcho Long live the King!]]"
* FallenHeroine: She was regarded as one of the best of the best in Monarch, but amid the trauma of [[OutlivingOnesOffspring losing her son]] during Godzilla and the [=MUTOs'=] battle, Emma was dismayed to discover than humanity's ecologically-destructive ways were responsible for triggering the Titans' emergences in the first place. At some point before the main time frame of ''King of the Monsters'', Emma convinced herself that the only way to ensure nothing like Andrew's death ever happened because of mankind's mistakes again was to [[EvilGenius use her invention]] to deliberately set the Titans on the world, so that their FertileFeet could [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans rejuvenate the ecosphere]] whilst [[{{Doublethink}} punishing most of the human race for their hubris]]. To that end, Emma willingly works with Alan Jonah and his paramilitary to kill or endanger her colleagues, her own ex-husband and billions of other people.
* FatalFlaw: {{Pride}}. Once she's thought up a solution that she perceives will rectify whatever problem her mind is set on, she'll plunge head-first into enacting her solution without fully thinking through the ways it could go wrong, and she can be incredibly stubborn and unmoving about following what she perceives as the right way to end a problem no matter how much others around her try to dissuade her. In ''Godzilla: Aftershock'', this gets several people killed when she tests sonic pulses against the MUTO Prime. In ''King of the Monsters'', by which time she's made a FaceHeelTurn, this enables Jonah to manipulate her into helping him mess with the Titans and it leads to her unwittingly unleashing an even worse threat to life on Earth than the one she was trying to neutralize.
* FearlessFool: ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' shows that she doesn't have a good sense of self-preservation when it comes to field work with the MUTO Prime, being more focused on getting to the root of what she wants and ignoring signs of danger indicating she'll die along the way if she doesn't find a way around.

** To Dr. Serizawa. They're both high-profile Monarch scientists who believe in the fundamental goodness and ecological importance of the Titans, and they consider them the true rulers of the Earth whilst human civilization just lives in a self-made bubble in the Titans' long absence. However, whereas Serizawa still cares about human life (in his own words, he admires all forms of life) and calls out Emma for risking billions of lives, Emma has grown misanthropic and is fine with sacrificing millions to allow the Titans to retake the world. Serizawa advocates humans standing by and allowing Godzilla to restore balance when hostile Titans disrupt it, and believes things will work out in the end according to this philosophy; whereas Emma actively fears humanity euthanizing the sleeping Titans and screwing their planet's chance at regaining harmony, and she responds to this by seeking to actively wake all the Titans up and she assumes nothing will go off-script -- Emma and Serizawa actually both call each-other out on their respective reasonings when Emma is explaining her motives. Interestingly, they were also both present at the destruction of a city (Hiroshima for Serizawa, San Francisco for Emma) which showed the full destructive capability of humans and Titans respectively, and which led to their family's estrangement, and it's fair to say that both of them don't hold it against the force which caused the destruction.
** To Mark Russell, her own ex-husband. They both had a lifelong environmental interest (ecology for Emma, wildlife for Mark), and they even take the same path of working on the ORCA in the hopes humans and Titans can coexist, but they went on polarized routes after their son's deaths. They both at points in the film display an appreciation for the Titans' beauty, but Mark became a TragicBigot with a hatred for all Titans because of Andrew's death, while Emma became simultaneously pro-Titan and misanthropic -- interestingly, in relation to this, Mark outright hates Godzilla most of all, while Emma doesn't hate him but actively releases Godzilla's ArchEnemy, Ghidorah. Mark initially responded to Andrew's death with alcoholism, while Emma entered workaholism. They also both don't want to lose Madison the same way they lost their other child, and they respectively drop concern for everything else when she's in mortal danger -- but Mark left Madison and Emma, yet regrets not being there for them when the film's main plot kicks off, whereas Emma retains custody of Madison but manipulates her.
** And to Alan Jonah. Aside from their shared goals and misanthropy, both their respective [[StartOfDarkness Starts Of Darkness]] were triggered by losing a child, and both have a cold exterior. However, Emma doesn't want Ghidorah to destroy the world, and makes a HeelFaceTurn when she realizes she really screwed up by releasing him, whereas Jonah proves he's fine with letting Ghidorah destroy everything if it'll eradicate humanity. The novelization indicates Asher was Jonah's redeeming quality analogous to how Madison proves to be Emma's, and also indicates Jonah became BeyondRedemption after Asher's death, in contrast to how Emma successfully saves her daughter after making a HeelFaceTurn.
* FormerTeenRebel: Whilst she's a top Monarch operative who is regarded by her peers as a paragon, her Monarch Sciences profile notes that she used to be a maverick who was occasionally arrested for environment protest participation in her college days. [[SubvertedTrope And it turns out she hasn't really left those days in her past after all]] – if anything, she's gotten even more extreme.
* ForYourOwnGood: {{Exaggerated}} on a global scale. Unlike [[MisanthropeSupreme Jonah]], Emma genuinely doesn't want ''all'' of humanity to go extinct. She rationalizes her plan to let the Titans devastate civilization as a necessary evil to prevent mankind from causing our own extinction via {{global warming}}, as she's overly confident that {{the government}} (whom [[VillainHasAPoint she points out Monarch can't stop this late into the game, a pointer for which no-one has a real retort]]) will succeed in exterminating the Titans if they try. Mark directly calls Emma out for thinking that she alone has the right to dictate the fate of the entire human race all on her own.
* FreudianExcuse: The loss of her son Andrew turned her into workaholism, which gradually led to her SanitySlippage and her horrible actions in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''.
* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Mark directly calls her out that she thinks she can dictate the fate of the world by releasing the Titans, telling her that it won't bring back Andrew, whose death still motivates her. Madison also asks her whether Andrew would want his mother doing this.
* GaiasVengeance: She and Alan Jonah intend to awaken every Titan on Earth so that they can remedy the global ecological damages that humans have inflicted on the planet. However, that plan starts to go off the rails since the first Titan they unleash is in fact a three-headed alien dragon that wants to exterminate humanity and a challenger to Godzilla's alpha status.
* GriefInducedSplit: [[OutlivingOnesOffspring Andrew's death]] ultimately led to her and Mark's marriage falling apart. Emma blames Mark for the split, and it probably further contributed to Emma's [[FallenHero descent into darkness]]. It's implied (particularly in the novelization) that Emma has in turn been [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_alienation_syndrome trying to alienate Madison from Mark]] in revenge.
* HairContrastDuo:
** {{Subverted}} between her and Mark. At first, it looks like the two of them will be a straight case with Emma as the light-haired one being the "good": she's a lot more optimistic about the Titans and has a much more positive view of them than [[TragicBigot Mark]] does, and she's working with Monarch through her grief in contrast to how Mark just wallows at a mountain cabin. Then we find out that Emma is much, ''much'' more amoral and unstable than Mark.
** Ultimately {{inverted}} between her and Madison. She has fair hair in contrast to her brunette daughter, and Emma is firmly the [[LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine Dark Feminine]] and the bad one: she has a history as a pro-environmentalist maverick, and at first she seems merely aloof and slightly cold, but then it's revealed that she's using [[OutlivingOnesOffspring the death of Madison's older brother]] to justify a plan to cause millions of collateral deaths on a global scale. Unlike her daughter, Emma exhibits very little compassion for the people whom she puts in danger or gets outright killed, which combined with a couple other factors eventually drives Madison away from her.
* HeelFaceTurn: Has a HeelRealization after receiving two [[ArmorPiercingResponse Armor-Piercing Responses]] in direct succession from Madison that really hit home and upon realizing that Ghidorah is doing the opposite of what she expected when he overthrew Godzilla. She subsequently intends to fix her mistake with Ghidorah, but Madison enacts it before she can do it herself, and Emma spends most of the rest of the film looking to get Madison back before enacting a HeroicSacrifice that aids Godzilla.
* HeelRealization: She hits it when Ghidorah usurps Godzilla as the reigning alpha and, instead of merely culling humanity whilst restoring the natural balance, leads the Titans towards actively exterminating man and nature alike. It helps that Emma received a mouthful from all the Monarch brass plus her ex-husband and eventually even her own daughter for messing with forces she didn't truly understand and letting her grief over Andrew's death drive her to commit such despicable acts in his name, and that it becomes clear once she tries to reason with the DragonInChief Alan Jonah that Jonah is a NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist and the one who really holds command over their group.
* HeldGaze:
** She holds Mark's gaze in Antarctica when she moves to free Ghidorah herself, and in doing so reveals that she's copasetic to the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]]' plans: her eyes are regretful, but resolved, unlike Mark's gaze, reflecting how she's apologetic but dead-set on sacrificing anyone [[VillainousParentalInstinct who isn't Madison]], including Mark himself, in the name of her plan.
** Later, when she threatens Jonah's life to be allowed to leave with his Humvee, Emma and Jonah lock gazes before Jonah backs down: whereas Jonah looks unthreatened, Emma's gaze is nakedly afraid for her daughter's life. Jonah backs down to her.
* HeroicSacrifice: Ends up pulling one off to save Madison, Mark and Monarch by luring Ghidorah away in a truck with the ORCA. She gets killed but helps revive Godzilla.
* HerOwnWorstEnemy: She's very arrogant, refuses to acknowledge that she might not be clear-headed due to her grief, and these things ultimately shoot her in the foot. She aims to stop humanity from causing the next mass extinction including our own destruction, she aims to create [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans a better world]] for her remaining child, and she aims to ensure that some good can come out of Andrew's demise. But by trying to indiscriminately awaken all the Titans, including Godzilla's three-headed rival, Emma ironically puts the world in danger of an even more rapid global apocalypse that will surely wipe out the entire human race; and because she didn't bother to properly indoctrinate Madison into her radicalism (and because Emma seems too lost in her madness to even ''notice'' straight away how horrified Madison is), Emma ends up completely alienating her remaining child, who calls out her blatant InsaneTrollLogic of believing that Andrew would ever consider a million repeats of the tragedy that killed him being enacted by his own mother to be a ''good'' thing.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: PlayedWith. By releasing Ghidorah, unaware it's a malevolent extraterrestrial lifeform with its own agenda, she ends up unleashing an ApocalypseHow far worse than anything the human race have done so far. She ends up giving her life to put a permanent stop to him.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter:
** She believes that all Titans are ultimately beneficial forces of balance when it comes to the Earth's ecosphere, and merely ambivalent at worst when it comes to humanity. Ghidorah's active malevolence and the apocalyptic global carnage which the lesser Titans commit under his control both prove Emma wrong.
** She also mistakenly believes that her and Jonah's goals align in that they both truly want to avert the world's destruction, but Jonah reveals that he's actually fine with the possibility of King Ghidorah destroying the world's biosphere so long as the Titans exterminate humanity -- this is downplayed in the novelization, where Emma is quite aware that her and Jonah don't really have the same end-goals, and it's more her self-assurance than her misjudging him that leads to their BigBadDuumvirate falling apart.
* HowIsThatEvenPossible: She quotes the StockPhrase almost ''ad verbatim'' when Mancini informs her the Yunnan outpost's containment systems are failing and their perimeter alarms are going haywire. {{Subverted}}, as she actually ''knows'' Jonah and his posse are coming, [[EvilAllAlong and she's just asking before they launch their physical attack for show]].

** She states that one of her motivations is having her son's death matter. She then callously wakes Rodan before people can evacuate in complete disregard for their lives, to say nothing of how her plan fundamentally calls to create billions of deaths and personal losses like her son's.
** At one point, she demands Jonah leave Madison "out of this", but he's quick to retort that ''Emma'' brought Madison into their terrorist plot, filled her head with nothing but pro-Titan thoughts, and kept her in the dark about the brutality their plot would involve and the possibility it could go wrong in the first place.
** She's willing to put billions of lives at risk for the alleged "greater good" if it'll see her plans through, but when it's ''her'' last remaining child instead of someone else's child that's in mortal danger, she throws away pretense of serving a good that's bigger than individual human lives in favor of saving her daughter.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: She betrayed Monarch to a group of ecoterrorists to awaken all the dormant Titans and put billions of human lives at risk in the process, justifying herself in that, if she didn't, the government would eventually kill the Titans and doom the world to human-caused mass extinction and ecological destruction. Of course, [[TheExtremistWasRight she turns out to be right]], but still.
* IdiotBall: Requesting help from the dangerous Alan Jonah and his gang of Eco-Terrorists was one thing but unleashing a titan apocalypse just to avenge her son is without a doubt, her dumbest plan ever.
* IgnoredExpert: She becomes a villainous one to her captor (actually her partner-in-crime) Alan Jonah when she realizes and warns him that King Ghidorah is forcing the other Titans to ravage their own planet instead of restoring it, only for Jonah to brush it off with InsaneTrollLogic.
* InsaneTrollLogic: She says her UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans plan is motivated by ensuring Andrew's death wasn't for nothing. And she utterly fails to see anything staggeringly hypocritical in how she finds a "solution" to Andrew's death by engineering over a dozen repeats of the incident that killed him which will cause millions of families to go through the same loss she went through, because in her mind, repeating her son's death a million-fold on everyone else in the present is okay so long as in the future it stops future generations from losing all of their children to a manmade extinction event. It's heavily implied her sanity took a major hit from her son's death, so she's not exactly thinking rationally.
* InsideJob: It's heavily implied she enabled Alan Jonah to gain access to Mothra's temple for the staged kidnapping.
* TheInsomniac: Downplayed. The novelization mentions that she rarely gets a full night's sleep due to her mind being restless.
* InsufferableGenius: She's presented as one in ''Godzilla: Aftershock'', which takes place before her complete FaceHeelTurn, when she's still reeling from Andrew's death. Emma is one of Monarch's top minds, working out Jinshin-Mushi's true nature and intervening with the ORCA to stop the creature's strategy from killing Godzilla[[note]]albeit after she performed a catastrophic failed experiment where got several people killed[[/note]]. But Emma is also an overly-driven, irritable, snarky and confrontational woman who can be very difficult to work with; badmouthing Atherton, and lashing out at Tarkan for interfering when he saved her from getting herself killed.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She was this before her FaceHeelTurn. In ''Godzilla: Aftershock'', Atherton describes her as "singularly arrogant, condescending, and confrontational" but she's extremely committed to preventing the MUTO Prime from killing Godzilla and creating a MUTO-caused extinction event.
* KickTheMoralityPet: She was already [[AbusiveMom emotionally manipulative to Madison]] before the movie's start, but...
** The big kicker is during Ghidorah's awakening in Antarctica. ''How else'' can you describe a mother sentencing her beloved child's father to death ''while said child is right next to her and is helplessly pleading for her father's life''? For bonus points, when Madison uses the ORCA to distract Ghidorah from approaching Mark and the Monarch top brass, it isn't when Ghidorah is turning his attention on the Osprey carrying Emma, Madison and the eco-terrorists that Emma intervenes: rather, she intervenes at the very ''second'' Madison grabs the ORCA out of her hands and takes things out of Emma's perceived control.
** Later, Madison begs her mother with tears in her eyes not to sacrifice hundreds of islanders, and Emma rejects her plea, although this time Emma at least has enough of a ghost of decency to apologize to Madison while doing so. This is the final straw for Madison, [[CallingTheOldWomanOut and the latter makes Emma aware of how utterly revolted she is by her actions]], which in turn eventually [[HeelRealization forces Emma to realize how far she's fallen]].
* KidnappedScientist: Emma, along with Madison, is kidnapped by Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorist organization who want to use the ORCA to control the Titans. Except it turns out that she arranged the whole thing with Jonah, convinced Madison to go along with the plan, and faked their kidnapping.
* KnightTemplar:
** She firmly believes that she is working for a noble cause and doing what is necessary for the preservation of life on Earth, that she is fighting the dangerous plague that she perceives the existence of human civilization to be, and that the billions of people her actions would condemn to death is a necessary sacrifice to be made for the greater good.
** Later [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]; once her daughter escapes the bunker to expose herself to the Kaiju she helped set loose on the world, Emma immediately has a breakdown and demands Jonah help her rescue her daughter from the situation she herself created, prioritizing her own daughter's life against the [[TheNeedsOfTheMany greater good]] she's already killed countless people for. [[KnightTemplar Jonah]] calls her out on it ''very'' quickly and mocks her for her hypocrisy.
* LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine: Downplayed. She's usually seen in casual clothes throughout the movie, but she dons a greyish-white uniform coat like the rest of the Outpost 61 scientists when she arrives to witness Mothra's awakening.
* LethallyStupid: {{Exaggerated}}. She only intended to get a handful of humanity killed as a consequence of her plan to ultimately renew the world's ecosphere, but by releasing Ghidorah without any consideration for his (or the other Titans') possible hostility and the other unknown factors surrounding them, she's unwittingly unleashed a rival Alpha Titan who will exterminate humanity completely and will cause even more harm to Earth's biosphere than us if Godzilla can't stop him. The graphic novel ''Kingdom Kong'' reveals that Emma's miscalculation also led to the hostile Titan Camazotz being awakened by Ghidorah in turn, making Emma indirectly responsible for the extinction of all life on Skull Island except for Kong.
* LiesToChildren: If she was truly thinking rationally, Emma must've known all along that releasing the Titans would result in large casualties. Instead of giving Madison the truth, Emma gave her daughter a sugarcoated version that would convince Madison to go along with the plan without question. She also lied to Madison about why Mark left them, claiming that he gave up on them and didn't want to be with them anymore, implying that Emma took her bottled-up issues with Mark and used them to try and turn Madison against her father.
* LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine: She's the Dark Feminine to her daughter's Light Feminine, which is ironic considering [[HairContrastDuo Emma's light blonde hair comparative to Madison's dark brown hair]]. Emma has a more aloof and brooding demeanor than her empathic and sensible daughter, and more than that, she places ''far'' less value on people's lives than her daughter does. Although Emma clearly considers herself more mature and wise than Madison, the nature of her SanitySlippage into her FallenHero status in contrast to the well-balanced Madison's HeelRealization shows this is yet another area in which Emma overestimated herself.
* MaddenIntoMisanthropy: When she discovered after Andrew's death that human activity had influenced the Titans' awakening, she decided humanity was an "infection" to the Earth with their war, overpopulation and pollution, and set about releasing the Titans so they could put humanity back in its place and restore natural order. She still draws the line when she realizes that Ghidorah intends to bring extinction instead of natural order.
* MamaBear: Emma points a gun at an unfazed Alan Jonah when he refuses to let her desert him to save a runaway Madison. In the novelization, after Madison tells Jonah off for talking down to her, Jonah threatens her, for which Emma warns him to think twice about threatening her daughter.
* ManipulativeBitch: She's an [[AbusiveMom emotionally-manipulative parent]], having needlessly convinced her preteen daughter to go along with her [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorist]] plot to get millions of people around the world killed. {{Subverted}}, because Emma is ''terrible'' at being a Manipulative Bitch in the final lap: she only let Madison in on the most positive and sugar-coated details of her plan, and she didn't bother to properly indoctrinate Madison into her radicalism before she and Jonah's group start causing bodies to drop – the result is Madison being rightly horrified beyond compale, and Emma genuinely has no idea what to do when her daughter is turning on her.
* MaskOfSanity: Though some including Mark were concerned about her initial {{Workaholic}} response to Andrew's death, during the film she successfully masks her SanitySlippage from all her Monarch colleagues. Even Madison was unaware before the film's events just how messed up her mother really is despite remaining in her mother's custody and being recruited into Emma's EcoTerrorist agenda.
* MisanthropeSupreme: Actually {{downplayed}} in her case. She scorns humanity and deems modern civilization a disease upon the Earth for its many environmental shortcomings (because deep down, she blames mankind for instigating the events which led to [[OutlivingOnesOffspring Andrew's death]]); to the point where she's willing to awaken the Titans in an effort to have them "save" the Earth. However, Emma explicitly says she doesn't want ''all'' of humanity to perish: one of the justifications she's enacting her plan on is the belief that the overall human species will stop over-exploiting the planet's resources and will [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans ultimately flourish in symbiosis with the Titans]] after the dust has settled, and one of the reasons why Emma says she draws the line at letting King Ghidorah reign is because that will likely spell the ''complete'' extinction of humanity.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: She has a doctorate, and although she at first appears to be a ReluctantMadScientist, she's actually an EvilGenius who is ''willingly'' taking part in a plot to set numerous {{Kaiju}} loose around the world and cause potentially billions of collateral deaths, in order to ensure that the onslaught's survivors will actually ''have'' a plentiful world to live in.
* MotiveRant: After the heroes realize she is willingly working with Jonah, she contacts them and explains her motives.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: When King Ghidorah seems set on forcibly terraforming Earth to his alien liking and completely exterminating humanity, she's horrified. Deconstructed when Alan Jonah mocks her, pointing out that she was committing genocide and that her apocalyptic "salvation" was never going to be clean and pretty.
* NatureLover: She used to be an environmental activist after all. Turns out to also be her major motivation for turning to evil.
* NeverMyFault: At first, Emma refuses to admit she's done anything wrong when King Ghidorah causes her plan to spiral out of her control. It takes her daughter and partner-in-crime to make her even think that the slaughtering of millions if not the very possible ''extinction'' of the human race, might be due to her recent actions.
* NiceMeanAndInbetween: Her somewhat cold exterior around the well-adjusted Madison coupled with Mark's {{jerkass}} behavior makes it seem like she's the Inbetween among the three living Russells, but she's actually firmly the Mean: willing to cause millions of innocent people's deaths, ostensibly in pursuit of the greater good, out of rage and grief over her son's death. Needless to say, both Mark and Madison are revolted once they fully comprehend the scope of her crimes.
* NotSoStoic: She clearly tries to be TheUnfettered, but the facade cracks when Mark or Madison angrily call her out on responding to Andrew's death by doing what she's done.
%%* ObviousVillainSecretVillain

** Mark is, at best, wary and leery of all Titans, including the BigGood, because of their destructive capacities, and he thinks the world is better off without them in it. Whereas Emma believes that [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans are ultimately more of a threat to the world than the Titans are]], and that restoring balance to the world and ensuring mankind's long-term survival is worth actively setting loose as many Titans as possible to let them reclaim the Earth and cause collateral mass devastation, and she underestimates the possibility that some of the Titans she targets are just as dangerous for the world's balance as the [[PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs MUTOs]] and [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity Skullcrawlers]] were if not more.

** Mark is HotBlooded, impulsive, [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]], and prone to throwing pity parties, but he wears his spite, rage and grief over Andrew's death on his sleeve for everyone around him to see. Whereas Emma is a ruthless, cold-blooded schemer who fancies herself a master manipulator; she's been lying to everyone including herself about the true extent of her unresolved grief, to the point where she all but went mad and she's the only one who can't ''recognize'' her own instability, and she feels she's working towards the greater good despite her motivations being {{secretly selfish}}.
** Mark is disgusted at the mere thought of people being collateral damage of a Titan's presence. Emma has no such reservations when she forcibly accelerates the Titans' awakenings, knowing full well that hundreds to billions of people will be in the firing line.

** Even Emma and Mark's parenting styles after Emma's death are polar opposites, yet both are dysfunctional for their remaining child; who both parents act restrictive, controlling and patronizing towards. Emma is fine with giving Madison a homeschooling and LimitedSocialCircle within Monarch, and with exposing her to at least one of the Titans she studies. Whereas Mark in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization wants Madison to have as normal a teenhood as possible whether Madison herself wants that or not, so he enrols her in a public school, ignores any criticism that she's not making friends and is instead a bullied pariah, and he wants to restrict Madison as much as possible from having anything more to do with Monarch or Titans again.%%
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Her elder child Andrew was a casualty of [[Film/Godzilla2014 Godzilla and the MUTOs' San Francisco battle]], leading to her and Mark's GriefInducedSplit, and the movie's opening shows that she's still depressed five years after the tragedy. Although Emma apparently doesn't hate Godzilla or the Titans generally like Mark does, it's clear once her FaceHeelTurn is revealed that the trauma of losing Andrew has caused her some SanitySlippage and is the main reason why she's a FallenHeroine. The novelization hints that where Mark blamed Godzilla for their son's death, Emma blames humanity at large because it was mankind's abuse of the environment that began the Titans' reawakening in the first place, and deep down she wants the Titans to punish the world for her.
* TheParagonAlwaysRebels: Highly {{downplayed}} in the novelization. She was regarded as one of Monarch's very best, with Sam Coleman describing her as a "rock star", before she reveals her FaceHeelTurn. During the Titans' awakening, Emma's broadcasted MotiveRant inspires a minor Monarch operative named Mariko to independently follow Emma's example, sabotaging the kill switch in Outpost 58 to ensure that Monarch can't try to stop Behemoth's emergence.
* ParentalBetrayal: She's initially shown to be an innocent kidnap victim alongside Madison, trying to keep them both alive, but's later revealed to not be the case as she orchestrated the whole thing and dragged her daughter into her scheme by feeding her lies.
* {{Pride}}: Despite her reverence for the Titans, she's very much guilty of "[[Film/Godzilla2014 the arrogance of man]]" that Serizawa described, for meddling with borderline-Eldritch forces of nature that were simply beyond her ability to control, and expecting them to do what she wanted them to. She's also debatably a bit too certain that the military and government, if they did take over Monarch as she feared, could actually succeed in killing the Titans if they tried, considering how the male [=MUTO=] completely shrugged off an attempt by Monarch to kill it.
* ProperlyParanoid: Whilst her certainty that the government and military would succeed in killing the dormant Titans if they tried seems like sheer arrogance in light of Monarch's dramatic failure to kill the male [=MUTO=], considering how the military were actually developing the Oxygen Destroyer and the ''prototype'' succeeded in bringing ''Godzilla of all Titans'' to the brink of death, she might've been more right than one realizes there.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Emma gives out a few but takes a ''lot'' more throughout the film:
** Alan Jonah calls her out for believing that waking up ''giant monsters'' was ever going to be the clean and easy job she thought it was going to be, and for being a bad parent by bringing her daughter into a terrorist organization and terrorist plot in the first place.
** Serizawa and Monarch berate her stupidity in forcibly releasing the Titans without verifying their temperament or letting them awaken on their own. As even somewhat benevolent Titans (Godzilla and Kong) can cause a great deal of unintended death and destruction in their wake.
** Barnes states that if he had parents like Emma and Mark, he'd run away like Madison.
** Madison delivers this bombshell: calling her mother out for thinking Andrew would have ever wanted her misguided actions.
*** It's longer and more epic in the novelization:
--->'''Madison''': There's always a choice! You know who taught me that? Dad. You said he left us, that he was a drunk who didn't care about us.\\
'''Emma''': Because he did leave us. Somebody had to be strong for you, and it sure as hell wasn't him. He gave up on me, gave up on you.\\
'''Madison''': No. You're the one who gave up! You gave up on everything. You gave up on humanity. And if Dad's such an asshole, then why'd he come back? Why is he trying to help people while [[ItMakesSenseInContext we're trying to kill them]]?\\
'''Emma''': We ''are'' helping people, baby--\\
'''Madison:''' Bullshit! You said you were doing this for Andrew. But do you really think he would've wanted this?\\
'''Emma''': I... I don't know\\
'''Madison''': Exactly. I'm starting to think you ''don't'' know more than you ''do''.
** Mark berates Emma for recklessly endangering their daughter and throwing in her lot with Jonah, believing she knows what's best for everyone and now has the right to decide the fate of the world. Emma then calls out Mark for running out on her and Madison after Andrew's death instead of staying and being strong for their daughter's sake.
* RebelliousSpirit: Her official profile says that she had a reputation as an academically-talented maverick from an early age, and her participation in environmental protests was enough to get her arrested a few times. In the present, she's suffered SanitySlippage due to her son's death, going so far as to turn traitor to Monarch and become a FallenHeroine in the name of pursuing what she considers the path to the greater good.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: To try and redeem herself, [[HeroicSacrifice she makes a suicidal effort]] to lure Ghidorah away from both Godzilla and her ex-husband and daughter with the ORCA. This gives the humans a chance to escape and Godzilla a chance to power up and kill Ghidorah, but she is killed in the process.
* RegretfulTraitor: {{Downplayed}}. She's apologetic towards Mark and Monarch once she reveals her treachery to them, and she makes it clear she doesn't derive any pleasure from throwing them on the bonfire in the name of the greater good. ''But'' the endangerment and deaths of her colleagues and even her daughter's father by her actions isn't nearly enough to make Emma reconsider what she's doing, and she never stops to mourn the people she's gotten killed which include her close family friend Dr. Graham. Even Emma's HeelRealization is based more in [[DefectorFromDecadence realizing that she's alienated her daughter and that she gravely underestimated the threat posed by King Ghidorah]] than in any real sorrow over betraying and murdering her peers.
* ReluctantMadScientist: She becomes more and more reluctant as the film goes on.
* SanitySlippage: Let's face it. It takes a ''special'' kind of madness to lose one's son in the carnage unleashed by battling giant monsters and then decide "The world will be saved if I unleash '''all''' the giant monsters to ravage the world as they see fit!". So saying that her sanity has slipped would be an {{understatement}}.
* SayMyName: When searching for Madison in the apocalyptic ruins of Boston, she ''screams'' her daughter's shortened pet-name in the hopes that she'll answer.
* SecretlySelfish: Whilst she presents herself as a WellIntentionedExtremist, and she has enough legitimate points and [[EvenEvilHasStandards standards]] to avoid slipping into NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist territory, it's implied (particularly in the novelization) that Emma is really lashing out at humanity in a case of MisplacedRetribution not so different from Mark's, even if she's the only one who doesn't realize it. Whereas Mark blames Godzilla for Andrew's death, Emma instead blames modern human civilization for causing the [=MUTOs=] and Godzilla to rise in the first place with their negative over-exploitation of the environment. When Madison becomes disillusioned with Emma and endangers herself trying to fix Emma's mistakes, Emma doesn't hesitate to drop everything in an attempt to save her daughter, further implying that even ''she'' didn't truly believe in her plan to save the world to begin with.
* ShutUpHannibal: She receives a lot of this verbally from her Monarch colleagues and her ex-husband during the MotiveRant, as all of them appalled and outraged at her actions. Just look at her ReasonYouSuckSpeech entries!
* ShutUpKirk: When Serizawa calls her out for meddling with forces beyond her understanding and gambling with billions of lives, she retorts by calling him out on the fact billions of lives are on the line regardless of which path Monarch takes, and by bringing up the threat of the government trying to off all the Titans.
* SoProudOfYou: PlayedWith in the novelization: although Emma doesn't get to say it to Madison's face, she feels immensely proud despite her fear for her daughter's life when she realizes what Madison has done (stealing the ORCA, escaping into Boston, and broadcasting its signal around the world to halt the Titan attacks and draw King Ghidorah to an evacuated city, all single-handedly).
* StartXToStopX: She says she's decided to release all the Titans indiscriminately and allow them to decimate humanity in GaiasVengeance whilst regenerating the planet's ecosphere with their biological byproducts, because she wants to ensure Andrew's death was not "in vain", yet she's incredibly oblivious to how hypocritical it is that she's "honoring" Andrew's memory and supposedly preventing the incident from ever happening again by repeating the very same tragedy a hundred-fold upon ''millions'' of other families with children. Madison herself eventually calls Emma out on this.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: She technically looks like her daughter, Madison Russell. Due to their similar hair shapes. The only difference being that Emma's hair is blonde.
* SunkCostFallacy: {{Averted}}. She at first ignores Monarch's and her own family's warnings that what she's doing will go horribly wrong, but after King Ghidorah takes over, she makes a HeelFaceTurn once she realizes Ghidorah is outright destroying the planet instead of healing its ecology.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork:
** The ''King of the Monsters'' novelization explicitly shows she feels this way about being forced to work with Jonah (actually she approached him following her FaceHeelTurn) and that the longer she's been working with him, the less she's been able to stand him. She's disgusted by his LackOfEmpathy and how for him no means is too low to achieve his goals.
** In the ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' graphic novel, both of the people she's working with on defeating the MUTO Prime -- a bodyguard and a ReasonableAuthorityFigure United Nations representative -- have their difficulties when working with her due to her stubbornness, tendency to get ahead of herself, and being confrontational.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Possibly. First she is thrown from her jeep by a bolt of Ghidorah's lightning, and is left at ground zero before Burning Godzilla shows up. Debunked in the {{novelization}}, which reveals she died of her wounds just before Burning Godzilla released his thermonuclear pulses.
* TilMurderDoUsPart: Although it was more incidental than intentional, and downplayed in that she merely left Mark for dead rather than try to kill him outright; Emma doesn't hesitate to awaken a 521-foot Alpha Titan of her own volition, while knowing ''full well'' that her own ex-husband, who's also the father of her daughter and late son, will be at ground zero. Worse yet, not only does Emma already know damn well from first-hand experience how destructive the Titans' mere movements can be; but Emma tries to stop Madison the very '''second''' Madison tries to save her father and the other human heroes, coming just '''after''' Emma and Madison witnessed the newly-awakened Ghidorah [[AxCrazy intentionally exterminating half of the G-Team]].
* TooDumbToLive: In ''Godzilla: Aftershock'', she at one point refuses to evacuate herself from Jinshin-Mushi's subterranean chamber even when the Titan down there becomes active, forcing Tarkan to ''drag'' her out before she can get herself crushed. [[UngratefulBitch And she doesn't exactly acknowledge Tarkan did the right thing even after the fact]].
* ToughLove: Emma tells Mark that she's 'trained' Madison to survive and in a deleted scene, it's revealed that Madison's "training" includes a series of sparring sessions as Jonah and his men stand around in a ring and watch her.
* TwoFirstNames: "Russell" is more commonly used as a given name than a last name.
* TheUnfettered: She views herself this way throughout her actions and decisions, but being chewed out by her ex-husband or her daughter reveals she's NotSoStoic.
* UngratefulBitch: In ''Godzilla: Aftershock'', she isn't the least bit grateful after Tarkan save her from almost-certain death in a collapsing tunnel with an active Jinshin-Mushi – as soon as they're in the clear, the first thing she does is rant and yell at Tarkan for "interfering with her work" rather than admit he did anything right.
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: She believes that if all the Titans are active, the humans who don't die in the collateral of their awakening will be able to coexist with the Titans in natural harmony as AdvancedAncientHumans did, with her using the ORCA to mould and enforce that coexistence. And she's willing to sacrifice millions or even ''billions'' of lives including her ex-husband's and her colleagues' in order to reach that goal, convincing herself it's for the greater good; to the disgust of Monarch and her own daughter.
* VilerNewVillain: To Bill Randa from ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' to a degree. They're both ruthless and deceitful [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned extremists]] who ultimately see the error of their initial ways, but whereas Randa only ever endangered several dozen unwitting people in the name of his cause, Emma was willing to endanger ''billions of civilians'' on a global scale, plus she also duped and betrayed her own colleagues in Monarch to certain death. Emma is also more heavily implied to be {{secretly selfish}} in her "well intentions" at the end of the day than Randa was.
* VillainBall: Her indoctrination of Madison was half-assed, as is her continuing to drag Madison around with the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]] despite the girl's presence increasingly proving to be a liability. Emma sold her daughter a sugar-coated version of her plan which completely left out all the nastier bits that they'll both be complicit in, resulting in a traumatized Madison's conscience eventually overruling all loyalty she had to her mother. It isn't until Emma starts to realize that ''[[MyGodWhatHaveIDone she]]'' fucked up by awakening Monster Zero that she seems to seriously understand just how much she's alienated her daughter. {{Justified}}, as [[SanitySlippage Emma's mental stability is questionable at best]].
* VillainHasAPoint: While her plan was amoral and very much flawed, she was entirely accurate about several things; something Serizawa and even Mark acknowledge in the novelization. {{Lampshaded}} by a newspaper headline in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong''.
** Although Emma seems to overestimate humanity's capability and underestimate the Titans' NighInvulnerability, the fact TheExtremistWasRight shows she was at least right that the world would be a much better place if the Titans were awake and maintaining its balance. Furthermore, the ability of the military's prototype Oxygen Destroyer to severely harm Godzilla indicates she might've been ProperlyParanoid about the military's ability to kill the Titans if they tried.
** She isn't wrong that Monarch is losing the legal battle with the government to prevent the military attempting to kill the Titans before she initiates her plot, with public opinion massively favoring the government's plan.
* VillainousParentalInstinct: Despite Emma's [[AbusiveMom emotionally-manipulative parenting]], her surviving child Madison is the only person she truly gives any shits about while pursuing her plan – anyone else, including her own friends and even her child's father, can quickly be left for dead as necessary collateral. When Emma finds out that it's ''her'' child and not just the children of every other mother in the world who's in mortal danger of being killed by a Titan, she quickly abandons her (admittedly gone horribly awry) plan entirely so that she can save her kid. At the movie's end, Emma [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices herself]] partly to buy the Osprey that's carrying Madison time to get to a safe distance, with the novelization explicitly noting that Emma calculated Ghidorah would have certainly killed Madison if Emma hadn't diverted his attention.
* VillainRespect: In the novelization, despite her deep resentment of Mark for his failures as a husband and a father after Andrew's death, she can't help being genuinely impressed that he brought himself to stick his neck out and put his life on the line trying to save her and Madison.
* VisionaryVillain: She believes the world is doomed to the [[ApocalypseHow greatest mass extinction in the planet's history]] if humans remain the sole dominant species, and fears that humanity will destroy the planet's only chance at recovery if the military succeed in exterminating all the Titans, driving her to [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well-Intentioned Extremism]] with the aim of forcibly awakening all the Titans and using the ORCA to engineer a human-Titan coexistence in the aftermath.
* WalkingSpoiler: Emma's role in the movie after about a quarter of the film is a huge spoiler.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: She believes humans and Titans can co-exist, and that their presence will heal the planet from everything that humanity has done to it. As such, she wants to awaken all of them, albeit gradually, to jump-start the process of their rebirth, feeling she has no choice but to do it by force as the government is preparing to kill them. To this end, she betrays Monarch and helps Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorists make strikes against Monarch facilities, murdering many of her co-workers, and is ultimately willing to risk causing billions of deaths by reviving all of the Titans, without having an adequate amount of information on each Titan's nature.
* WentCrazyWhenTheyLeft: Grief over her son's death gradually drove her to a {{sanity slippage}}, deciding that the best way to "honor" his memory is to [[WellIntentionedExtremist forcibly save the world]] whilst [[{{Doublethink}} creating a million repeats of the incident that killed him]]. It's also implied, particularly in a deleted scene and the novelization, that Mark's abandonment of Emma and Madison amid their {{grief induced split}} was a contributing factor in Emma's fall from grace, because he proved in Emma's eyes that he couldn't be relied on when Emma and Madison needed him most of all.
* WhatIsGoingOn:
** At the start of the scene in Mothra's temple, she asks Dr. Mancini, "What the hell happened?" Prompting a quick exposition from Mancini which informs the audience that they've been monitoring something in the temple which is supposed to be slumbering but has abruptly started waking up.
** A couple minutes later, Emma once again asks Mancini this question when the ContainmentField around Mothra fails, at which point Mancini notes that the outpost's security systems are failing as if by sabotage. This time, it's implied that Emma knew ''precisely'' what was happening, she just asked to conceal her true colors.
** When alarms in her and Jonah's makeshift base begin blaring, she enters the control room and asks Jonah what's going on, leading to this reply:
--->'''Jonah:''' The ORCA. ''[gestures at the vacant spot where the ORCA was last seen]''\\
'''Emma:''' What?\\
'''Jonah:''' ''[pointedly]'' [[SarcasmMode I wonder who could have done this]].
* WhatTheHellHero: She calls Serizawa a hypocrite for daring to lecture her on how much is at stake when his way of running Monarch for the last five years ([[HeadInTheSandManagement doing nothing to circumvent the government's plan except to give lectures to senators whom are clearly deaf to everything they don't want to hear, and otherwise all but acting as if the problem isn't as bad as he should know it is]]) has allowed the government problem to worsen and reach a tipping point.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: It's implied that she's actually this. Though she uses UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans to justify her actions, she's actually undergone some SanitySlippage and it's implied she's actually (whether she knows it or not) lashing out against humanity over her son's death with her plan to release all the Titans..
* {{Workaholic}}: After Andrew's death, she plunged herself into researching why the Titans were awakening and finding a solution, unintentionally becoming somewhat distant from Madison in the intervening years before the film's main time frame and becoming divorced from Mark.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: On both ends of the scale here.
** Emma believes Monarch and humanity have outlived their usefulness so she openly betrays them and, while she never kills someone personally, her actions have caused the deaths of ''millions''.
** On the receiving end with Jonah. Emma tries to keep her authority, but given that Ghidorah had effectively made her role in the organization moot, Jonah quickly reminds her he doesn't need her anymore so he will not tolerate her attempts at undermining his authority. In a variation, however, once she makes it clear she just wants to save her daughter, [[PetTheDog Jonah allows her to leave with a jeep instead of killing her]].

[[folder:Dr. Mark Russell]]
!Dr. Mark Russell
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/markrussell.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"You are out of your goddamn mind!"'']]
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/KyleChandler

->''"No, this time we join the fight."''

Emma's ex-husband, Andrew and Madison's father, Monarch's former senior anthrozoologist, and co-inventor of the ORCA device.

* AdaptationalDumbass: The ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' novelization gives him several explicit instances of idiocy that are only implied or absent altogether from the film version.
** The novel outright confirms several aspects of Mark's parenting style since gaining custody of Madison which are somewhat lacking, all of which were only implied in the finished film. His treatment of Madison like she's {{just a kid}} and like she's [[UnderestimatingBadassery far stupider and more helpless than she is]] is ''not'' something that solely started with Godzilla's attack causing Mark to doubt the latter; it's a result of Mark [[SelfServingMemory wilfully forgetting]] that Madison performed some of the gutsiest acts of heroism in the previous movie, in favor of lying to himself that she's a fragile, naïve and obedient offspring despite the evidence to the contrary. The novel shows that Mark wants to mend his relationship with Madison after being absent for years, yet he's oblivious to the fact that [[MyBelovedSmother treating a teenager like Madison in such a way as this]] is completely counter-productive to those aims and is likely to drive her away. It's furthermore confirmed that Mark enrolling Madison in a public school without thinking this course through has made Madison a social pariah in her new educational setting (which one of the most challenging social settings that a kid will ever face in their upbringing no less), yet Mark obstinately refuses to listen to Madison's complaints that defy his own wishes.
** ZigZagged with his attitude to Godzilla's attack. Despite Mark's initial [[EasilyCondemned condemnation of Godzilla]] and insistence that he's just gone bad for no reason because he's the same as [[FallenHeroine Emma]] was in both versions of the story; the novel shows Mark and Director Guillerman conducting their own investigation into working out why Godzilla is behaving this way, and they catch onto Apex being the culprits even if they're still too slow [[spoiler:to see Mechagodzilla coming]]. On the other hand, Mark and Guillerman in the novel also have a moment of what can only be described as profound incompetence and idiocy which isn't present in the finished film: after [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla]] emerges, Guillerman asks whether they should be rooting for the [[spoiler:Mecha]] or Godzilla, and Mark replies that he doesn't know. Although Mark clearly realizes in his thoughts later on that he's been unconsciously rooting for Godzilla from the battle's start; considering [[AdaptationalHeroism what the MonsterVerse incarnation of Godzilla is normally like]], his crucial role in defending the world, and all else that Mark should know at this point[[note]][[spoiler:Mechagodzilla]]'s emergence has confirmed his earlier suspicions that [[spoiler:Apex are responsible for provoking Godzilla's rampage in its entirety]], and ''Mark just watched the Mecha [[spoiler:deliberately raze half of Hong Kong for no reason beyond Ghidorah-like [[{{Sadist}} sadism]]'' (in contrast to how Godzilla never attacks without provocation)]][[/note]]; it's quite jarring to think that ''anyone'' in Mark's position would need to take even a ''fraction'' of the time he did to realize the blatantly obvious answer to Guillerman's contextually-ridiculous question.
* AdaptationalJerkass: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization hits him with a dose. It becomes clear during a passage from Mark's POV that he's known all along that Madison is stronger and more mature than [[MyBelovedSmother he's been giving her credit for]], and he's been pretending otherwise so he can hide in his SecretlySelfish fantasy of [[ObsessivelyNormal having a normal daughter]]. This means that he ''knew'' he was prioritizing his own selfish wants over his daughter's well-being, and he chose to do it anyway instead of caring about all the strain and unhappiness it's been causing Madison.
* AddledAddict: It's implied that a big part of why his and Emma's marriage [[GriefInducedSplit fell apart after Andrew's death]] is that he [[DrowningMySorrows turned to drinking]] [[TheAlcoholic to cope]], and apparently the state this drove him into wasn't exactly something for him to look back on proudly.
* AdmiringTheAbomination: During the early part of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', for all his ranting and raving against the Titans, he seemingly can't help being entranced when he sees Godzilla up close during the Castle Bravo stand-off, long before he finds it in himself to let go of his grudge against the Titan. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, Mark can't help being immediately fascinated despite his horror when he first witnesses Mechagodzilla's emergence.
* AdvertisedExtra: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' trailers placed a lot of emphasis on his first scene, but in the film proper that's one of the only scenes featuring him as he's DemotedToExtra.
* AesopAmnesia: His character development between ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' and ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' seems to have reversed, as after Godzilla attacks Pensacola, he refuses to investigate any possible reasons and immediately assumes without evidence that Godzilla has turned against humanity. At least in the movie -- the novelization has Monarch conducting an investigation of their own after all.
* AggressiveCategorism: The establishing type. Saying that ''all'' the Titans which consist of various super-species are nothing but malevolent monsters because one of them accidentally killed his son seems like a stretch, especially for an animal behavior expert.
* AlcoholicParent: In the aftermath of Andrew's death, he turned to drinking as a way of coping for a time, and he expresses profuse shame that Madison had to see him like that.
* AntiHeroSubstitute: He's [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute suspiciously similar]] to Joe Brody, the deceased DecoyProtagonist of ''Film/Godzilla2014'': both are angsty men whose lives fell apart amidst the emotional fallout of losing a loved one when a city was destroyed by Titans years before the movie's main time frame, both of them have taken on jobs considerably less glamorous than their previous ones at the movie's start, and both of them are experts on the Titans whom are ahead of the curve while Monarch are still scrambling in the dark, and this makes Monarch turn to Joe/Mark as invaluable assets. Both men also became estranged from the rest of their family including their kids due to focusing on their own grief after the loss. However, Mark is shown to be more of an asshole than Joe was: unlike Joe who merely wanted answers to why his wife died; Mark holds a psychologically-debilitating, one-sided AnimalNemesis grudge against Godzilla for being involved in Andrew's death and for not being ''dead'' like the [=MUTOs=]. Mark is a lot more prone to {{misdirected outburst}}s and at first Mark treats his old colleagues like crap [[UngratefulBastard even while they're trying to help him find his kidnapped family]]. Plus Mark can't even claim he did something productive with his grief during the years he was neglecting his family like Joe did.
* ArbitrarySkepticism: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization states he's still unconvinced that Ghidorah was really [[spoiler:an alien]] as the legends Dr. Chen pieced together indicated, despite DNA analysis lending further evidence to back this up. Whilst it's true that it was never explicitly confirmed Ghidorah is [[spoiler:an alien]]... This guy apparently finds the concept of an [[spoiler:extraterrestrial Titan]] to be somehow even less believable than the fact he lives in a world where giant prehistoric monsters exist, including ''a giant bird who literally has magma for blood and sleeps comfortably inside active volcanoes''.
* ArmorPiercingResponse: When he rightfully gives Emma a dressing-down for [[spoiler:[[SanitySlippage going mad]] over their son's death]] and refusing to admit there are things she can't control [[spoiler:even if she has to create a global cataclysm to prove it]], Emma fires back by calling Mark out on running away from his problems since Andrew died. This renders Mark silent for a moment, since he knows that him refusing to face up to their son's death in a healthy manner is what broke the remaining Russells apart and left Mark living alone in a cabin with the wolves. Then Mark fires back an APR of his own at Emma.
* TheAtoner: He realizes how misguided his hatred of Godzilla was after [[spoiler:the Oxygen Destroyer almost kills Godzilla and the far worse Ghidorah starts controlling the Titans to annihilate the Earth with a rapid mass extinction]]. From that point on it's he who comes up with the plan to revitalize Godzilla with nukes, and who later insists the humans join the King in the battle against Ghidorah.
* BadassBookworm: However lacking [[{{Jerkass}} his personality]] is, he's a zoologist and Titan expert who can handle himself quite well in the field. He does a lot of field work in the former profession, including handling wolves in the wild – the novelization even features a scene where he stares off against a wild wolf that gets too close to him as he prepares to defend himself. When Mark [[LeeroyJenkins intervenes in the firefight between the G-Team and the eco-terrorists]], he runs in alone, grabs a handgun off a dead body, avoids sharing the fate of many gunned-down soldiers; and he manages to get in front of the escaping eco-terrorists and hold them at gunpoint, demanding his ex-wife and daughter's immediate safe return.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Mark spends most of the early part of ''King of the Monsters'' repeatedly advocating that Godzilla be killed due to his continuing rage over his son's death. Thanks to [[spoiler:the military and the Oxygen Destroyer]], he seemingly gets his wish -- and soon discovers that life without Godzilla, with Ghidorah taking his place as the Titans' Alpha and directing them to ''actively'' attack humanity and destroy the world's ecosphere, is a far, far worse alternative.
* BecauseISaidSo: '''All over the place''' towards Madison in ''Godzila vs. Kong'', leading to her striking off on her own once she realizes he won't be of any use. In the film, he dismisses everything Madison has to say out of hand when he {{easily condemn|ed}}s Godzilla, insisting to her that there's no reason for Godzilla's recent actions [[YouRemindMeOfX based on flimsy excuses that he yanked out of the dredges of his own insecurities]], and he treats Madison like she's {{just a kid}} despite her having more than proved her mettle in [[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 the previous film]]. In the novelization, Mark plays this trope habitually in his and Madison's home life: he barely trusts her, seldom explains himself to her whilst expecting her to just obey whatever he tells her to do, and when Madison calls him out on his questionable parenting, Mark pulls rank on her as her father, guardian and a legal adult. Suffice to say, Madison would probably make fast friends with [[Characters/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTophBeifong Toph Beifong]] after enduring Mark's smothering brand of parenting.
* BerserkButton: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', people talking about the Titans is pretty much this for him (encountering them in person, not so much) – he's usually quite rational in that movie when reflecting on some of his own mistakes with his family, when analyzing the Titans' behavior patterns, or when he's in the midst of battling Titans and any ill-advised movement is a matter of life and death for anyone in the line of fire; but when Mark hears Monarch or Emma talking about the Titans too much for his liking or when Serizawa entertains the notion that the Titans ''aren't'' AlwaysChaoticEvil, [[HotBlooded reason goes right out the window]] and he goes full blowhard mode.
* BlankStare: PlayedForLaughs in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, when Mark responds this way to one reporter asking him if Godzilla's attacking because he hates artificial beaches.
* BrainyBrunette: {{Downplayed}} in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' – he's genuinely good at predicting the Titans' behavior to the point and is often further ahead of the curve than Monarch are on this front. He's also smart enough to understand the risks behind Monarch recreating the ORCA for use on Titans, [[spoiler:and moreso to understand that Emma is playing with fire on a global scale with her plan to use the ORCA to awaken all the Titans]]. However, unlike most of the other geniuses brunette or otherwise in the movie, Mark's forward-thinking and his opinion on the Titans are limited by his anger over his son's death and his blowhard personality.
* CallingTheOldManOut: Madison doesn't hesitate to give him a WhatTheHellHero in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' for just jumping to a conclusion that Godzilla's made a FaceHeelTurn before he's even found any evidence. In the novelization, this isn't the only time Madison calls Mark out, as it's confirmed in the novel that Mark's [[MyBelovedSmother inept]] [[ObsessivelyNormal parenting style]] laden with PsychologicalProjection is making half of Madison's life miserable.
* TheCameo: He has a one-scene appearance in the ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' prequel graphic novel, expressing concerns to Atherton about Emma's wellbeing.
* CatharticExhalation: A scene in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization portrays Mark breathing deeply after a close call with a wild wolf narrowly ends without incident.
* CharacterDevelopment: He starts the movie as a [[GottaKillEmAll Titan-hater]] to, by the end, understanding that many of the Titans can be reasoned with in some way and starts letting go of his hatred.
* CommanderContrarian:
** Downplayed and sometimes {{inverted}} in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''. Mark vehemently disagrees with Monarch's approach to handling the Titans (specifically the "not killing them all ASAP" part) due to his [[TragicBigot personal grudge]] and [[TheCynic cynicism]], in contrast to Monarch's sound minds and [[TheXenophile xenophilia]], and Mark takes more than one opportunity to make his opinion clear to the Monarch top brass's faces. But when he's thinking somewhat more clearly, it's ''Mark'' who often takes the lead in working out why the Titans are behaving the ways they are and what the most productive course of action would be.
** PlayedStraight in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', [[TookALevelInDumbass however]]. One of Mark's select scenes in the finished movie consists of him irrationally dismissing [[OnlySaneWoman Madison]]'s logical advice about the reasons for Godzilla's rampage ''completely'' out of hand and [[EasilyCondemned Easily Condemning]] Godzilla, based on no higher cognitive function than his [[HotBlooded unprofessionally-rampant emotions]]. The movie's novelization furthermore reveals that Mark [[ArbitrarySkepticism is skeptical about King Ghidorah being an alien]] despite DNA analysis lending it even further credibility, and Mark also pre-judges the Hollow Earth expedition to be nothing but a useless boondoggle off the bat.
* TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong: His argument that [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot rebuilding the ORCA]] could end up doing the exact opposite of preventing another Titan attack on a city proves very, ''very'' true in the film, but he's initially brushed off by the Monarch brass, partly because it's clear to all that his judgment on the Titans is highly colored by his personal bias concerning his son's death.
* CondescendingCompassion: Father or not; Mark gives the teenager who single-handedly [[DamselOutOfDistress escaped eco-terrorists]], drew King Ghidorah to Boston, [[spoiler:and had the balls to scream in all three of Ghidorah's faces when about to die]] a good deal of this trope in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', especially in the novelization – in fact, Mark's entire parenting style in the book can be summed up as this trope. Mark expresses pity to Madison's face that she went through the traumatic experiences she did during the previous movie's events, and he insists that him enrolling her in a public school is her getting an opportunity to rest now that the war against Ghidorah is behind them; yet he doesn't make any real effort to communicate with Madison as an equal or to understand her own wants or her problems (most of which ''he'' is the cause of). When Madison tries to make him aware how anxious and miserable she is at the school he threw her into after she'd spent her preceding education being homeschooled, Mark just pulls rank on Madison and says the decision is his instead of hers. This attitude is ironically doing more harm than good to Mark's efforts to reconnect with Madison, as Madison can see the way he's treating her for what it is: he's [[SelfServingMemory wilfully forgotten]] that Madison proved her mettle in no uncertain terms, so that he can pretend she's the [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter naïve, ordinary, obedient girl]] [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent whom Mark would much rather have]] over the genuine article, and he would rather let her stagnate cowering at home to fuel his selfish fantasy rather than face his fears of losing her.
* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: To James Conrad from ''Film/KongSkullIsland''. Both men had a CynicismCatalyst before their respective debut movies' starts, both spend their personal character arcs in their debuts gradually overcoming this past and finding an appreciation for the world again via the benevolent Titans, and both men recognize the beauty in dangerous things in nature like Skull Island and Titans; although Conrad admits the latter upfront, whereas Mark emotionally tries to deny it for much of his movie. Conrad's cynicism comes from losing an unrelated girl and half his team on a rescue mission to a sniper abroad, which caused him to lose faith in his government and country; whereas Mark's cynicism comes from losing his son and watching an entire city being devastated by a Titan incident, which caused Mark to become unconvinced that humans and Titans could cohabit the Earth and furthermore caused him to personally hate and blame Godzilla for his son's death. Conrad is an ex-military man gone freelance, and he has no familiarity with Monarch or the monsters in the world until during the movie's events, whereas Mark is an ex-Monarch zoologist and scientist. Conrad, though snarky and cynical at times, was almost unfailingly soft-spoken and clearly lived by the belief that cool heads should prevail; Mark on the other hand is much ruder, louder and more sardonic, and oftentimes he's HotBlooded and acts impulsively. Conrad is implied to be a love interest to Weaver as they get to know each-other over the course of ''Kong: Skull Island'', whereas Mark is a divorcee from his ex-wife Emma since before the start of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''.
* CurseCutShort / LastSecondWordSwap:
-->"''It's reacting to Big Bird's cries. That means he's coming for a food or a fight or a f-''" [glances at Ilene Chen standing in direct earshot] "''...something more intimate.''"
* CuttingTheKnot: How Mark deals with a stuck cargo door on the ''Argo''.
* TheCynic: In ''King of the Monsters'', he's very jaded and bitter after his son's death, insisting that the Titans are nothing but a danger to all mankind so long as they're alive. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', even after Mark has gotten over his grudge against Godzilla, he's ''ridiculously'' quick to jump to the conclusion that Godzilla has made a FaceHeelTurn after his first attack, without any evidence – the novelization also shows that Mark still believed after the events of ''King of the Monsters'' that Titans showing activity could only ever be an omen for bad news.
* CynicIdealistDuo: PlayedWith. The far more friendly and pro-Titan Coleman wants to form one with Mark from the moment they meet, although Mark is less than enthusiastic. Mark gets a little more friendly with Coleman only ''after'' he eats his HumblePie and after he starts coming around to the idea humanity has no choice but to ally with Godzilla and Mothra for common survival; and even then, Mark and Coleman are only seldom in the same room.
* CynicismCatalyst: He turned into TheCynic after Andrew's death at the destruction of San Francisco; hating all Titans for his son's death, quitting Monarch due to their [[TheXenophile reverence of the Titans and refusal to try straight-up killing them]], and divorcing Emma and retreating to the mountains in Colorado. He [[TookALevelInKindness takes something of a level in kindness]] over the course of the film.
* DeadpanSnarker: Mark has several moments, like when Dr. Chen claims that Emma wouldn't want the Titans destroyed even to save her own life, and Mark (hypocritically) snarks that it wouldn't be the first time Emma prioritized something ahead of her own well-being or her family. Later, when Stanton queries what he's asking to see Godzilla's normal movement patterns for, Mark snarks without missing a beat that it's because he wants to open a boat tour.
* DemotedToExtra: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', he's one of the primary human characters. In the final cut of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', he makes only sporadic appearances throughout with no real contribution to the plot, while Madison takes up more of the protagonist role in his place.
* {{Determinator}}: ZigZagged. He initially all but turned his back on Madison and ran away to the mountains for five years after Andrew's death. But once he learns Madison and Emma have been kidnapped by Jonah, Mark joins Monarch in their rescue mission solely so he can get Madison and Emma back safe. After Emma [[spoiler:is revealed to be EvilAllAlong (causing Mark to subtly stop thinking about getting ''her'' back)]], and even when it looks like King Ghidorah's world-ending victory is secured, Mark never stops trying to get back to his daughter. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Mark, who has since become a [[MyBelovedSmother helicoptering and patronizing parent]] to his [[WiseBeyondHerYears child-veteran]] daughter, goes out of his way to cut Madison out of the investigation into Godzilla's attacks, trying to keep her at home and away from Titan business so he won't have to fret for her safety. In the aftermath of [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla's death]], it's clear in Mark's final scene that finding Madison safe and sound after he's discovered she got herself involved in the Titan crisis ''because'' of his attitude is the first thing on Mark's mind.
* DetrimentalDetermination: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, Mark is extremely pig-headed in his assertions that Madison [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter is somehow just a normal, ineffectual little girl who can't be trusted to know her own thoughts and feelings or to provide any valuable insights]]. He's shown to repeatedly hand-wave Madison's complaints about her being miserable in the public school he's forced her to attend and it's implied that this has been going on between them for some time. Mark not only ignores everything Madison thinks about Godzilla's Pensacola attack out of hand (even when she's making ''far'' more sense compared to Mark's ridiculous and emotional assumptions), Mark also resorts to helicoptering methods to try and keep Madison away from the investigation into Godzilla's attacks. What really makes this determination detrimental is that Mark makes it clear in the novel that he's acting this way partly because he doesn't want to lose Madison the way he's already lost the rest of their immediate family one-by-one, and implicitly also partly as a way of compensating for the years he was absent from Madison's life (swinging from [[ParentalNeglect one parental extreme]] to [[MyBelovedSmother the other]]). Unfortunately, he's too bullheaded and too [[SecretlySelfish self-focused on his own feelings while ignoring everyone else's]] to realize that ''this'' kind of parenting, directed at a blatant {{rebellious spirit}} like his daughter, will surely push Madison to do the opposite of what he wants and could potentially even emotionally push her away from him all over again instead of mending the rift between them. It takes the realization that his last refusal to listen to Madison in the wake of Godzilla's attack has led to Madison sneaking out and heading into the very danger that Mark tried to shield her from for Mark to even ''take a single clue'' and admit to himself that he was wrong to treat her so patronizingly.
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: It's shown in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' that despite everything that happened in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', his HumblePie didn't last and he hasn't matured as a person at all. He's blown his regrets about [[ParentalNeglect not being there for five years of Madison's life]] way out of proportion: [[MyBelovedSmother overcompensating in the other direction]] by treating Madison like a much younger and more naïve kid than she really is who needs an authoritative hand. No matter how many times Madison argues with him, Mark can't get it through his thick skull that he's sabotaging his own efforts to reconnect with Madison and is likely going to drive her away from him all over again if he keeps it up. It's only once he learns Madison ran off behind his back that Mark even ''begins'' to admit fault, and even then it's unknown if he'll actually internalize his lesson this time considering how little he grew after the last time.
* DrowningMySorrows: How he initially coped with his son's death offscreen, much to his shame.
* DumbassHasAPoint: He has a couple in the novelization of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'':
** He's mostly just being obscenely awful at his job when he dismisses Madison's rational pointers about Godzilla's Pensacola attack, but he's not entirely wrong about Mad Truth being full of garbage, even if he's blunt and condescending to Madison when he tells her as much. The podcast's host ''is'' a blatant hardcore {{conspiracy theorist}} who promotes that kind of mindset to the podcast's listeners (hell, the novelization reveals that Bernie suspects the government are covering up the existence of Santa's elves); even if Mark isn't so much as trying to understand that Madison already knows most of Mad Truth is bogus, and he treats Madison like she's way dumber than she is, and he doesn't himself have any better ideas for working out why Godzilla is acting so aggressive.
** Despite his CondescendingCompassion in regards to throwing Madison in high school after she's been homeschooled for most of her life, Madison's own surprise at [[SociallyAwkwardHero how unprepared she was for high school and how hard it is to make any non-adult friends]] proves Mark's point that her social skills are underdeveloped and rusty; even if Mark's solution to the problem is causing Madison to suffer for the problem more than it fixes it. [[spoiler:Furthermore, Madison making [[OnlyFriend one high school friend]] in Josh was ultimately indispensable to preventing Mechagodzilla from winning the FinalBattle, as if Josh wasn't at Apex's HQ with Madison to short out the computer, then Mechagodzilla would have most likely killed Kong, then Godzilla, and then it would have been unstoppable.]]
* EliteSchoolMeansEliteBrain: Mark is an expert zoologist with a keen intuition when it comes to understanding the Titans, plus his Monarch Sciences bio says that he went to the University of California, which is widely ranked as one of the best universities in the world.
* EtTuBrute: He's willing to kill without hesitation when he sees his ex-wife and daughter in mortal danger, but when one of his own loved ones commits a betrayal that he doesn't see coming [[spoiler:(namely, Emma revealing that [[EvilAllAlong she was willingly going along with the eco-terrorists' plot all along]] and her gaslighting Madison into staying by the terrorists' side]]), the look on Mark's face is one of complete confusion and heartbreak. Afterwards, for a moment, Mark can barely speak when confirming what happened to the Monarch top brass. ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' furthermore makes it clear that Mark is still haunted by this betrayal with his irrational [[EasilyCondemned easy condemnation]] of Godzilla and his lack of trust or faith in Madison.
* ExcessiveMourning: '''Slightly''' {{downplayed}}. He's had half a decade to finish mourning and pull himself back together since Andrew died, but he acts as if it's barely been half a month since the loss. Continuing to wallow in self-pity and old grief, Mark has become estranged from his daughter and his (now ex-)wife, he's nursing a nasty hatred of the Titans (Godzilla in particular) because he blames them for his son being a collateral of Godzilla's fight to stop the [=MUTOs=], and he's remained at the Colorado mountains as his way of running and hiding from anything that reminds him of Andrew's death. He also frequently uses his grief and anger as a HotBlooded excuse to obnoxiously lash out at his former Monarch colleagues because they won't kill the Titans [[ItsAllAboutMe just to satiate Mark's anger against the creatures]]; [[UngratefulBastard even when said ex-colleagues are presently doing nothing else but try to help Mark's sorry ass with locating his missing family]]. Over the course of the movie, with some help from Serizawa and by finding that VengeanceFeelsEmpty, Mark learns to let go of his grudge against Godzilla.
* FantasticRacism: Not unlike much of humanity at the start of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''; Mark has been nursing a raging bias against all the Titans following the 2014 rampage, because his son was a casualty of the San Francisco battle. He can't get through the briefing on Alan Jonah and his family's kidnapping without losing his temper and flat-out ranting at Monarch that they should kill all the Titans ([[ItsAllAboutMe especially Godzilla]]) as a way to neutralize the threat the ORCA can pose in the wrong hands. When Mark ''does'' pull his head out of his ass however (such as when he's seeing Titans in person), he shows that despite his bias he's well-aware of [[PunyEarthlings the power discrepancy between man and Titan]], becoming the voice of reason during Monarch's standoff with Godzilla. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, though Mark no longer hates the Titans, he still thinks them being awake spells nothing but bad news for the world and that it's better if they stay asleep.
-->''"Look, I want him dead more than anyone, but unless this is a fight that you KNOW that you can win, for God's sake stand down!"''
* FantasyForbiddingFather: It's hinted in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' that he's become one to Madison since Emma's death left him with custody of her; chiding her for trying to contribute to the investigation into Godzilla's attack instead of being in school (note that Madison was originally [[HomeschooledKids homeschooled in Monarch]] but is now attending a public school), openly disapproving of her listening to Mad Truth as he (somewhat understandably mind you) thinks it's nothing but garbage, and going out of his way to dismiss everything she has to say and cut her out of the investigation no matter how insightful she is. The novelization outright confirms Mark is this trope – he all but says to Madison that he wishes she'd never grown into a WiseBeyondHerYears young woman, instead of being proud of her, and he's going above and beyond to try and make her live as normal a life as possible while urging her to stop taking an interest in Titans and Monarch business; partly because he's scared of losing her to a Titan the same way he's already lost Andrew and Emma one-by-one, and implicitly because he's also [[PsychologicalProjection projecting]] his own [[IJustWantToBeNormal desire for a normal life]] onto his daughter while [[ItsAllAboutMe ignoring the notion that her own opinions and feelings might run counter to his own]].
* FatalFlaw:
** He tends to run away from his problems to a point which overrides all concern for both his and his loved ones' wellbeing. He turned into a drunk wreck in the aftermath of Andrew's death, then estranged himself from his surviving family while running away to the mountains, all in an effort to escape anything that reminded him of his son's death or the Titans. Emma calls him out on this with an ArmorPiercingResponse.
** [[HotBlooded Hot-Bloodedness]] has been firmly established as this as of ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. Mark's temper and emotions chronically cloud his judgment, unpleasantly color his behavior towards others, and make him jump to conclusions in both movies. Even after letting go of his grudge against Godzilla in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', he still hasn't learned his lesson about this Flaw come the next movie.
** Another major flaw of his which persists across both his appearances (if the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization's portrayal of him is canon) is that he often gets his head stuck in the past to the point that focusing on the present or future becomes virtually secondary. Before the start of ''King of the Monsters'', he's spent half a decade letting his otherwise-legitimate grief fester into something ugly and destroy his marriage; and when he learns Emma recreated the ORCA, he at first wastes time bemoaning the fact it never should've been recreated instead of doing something to amend the situation in the present. It's hinted in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' and more explicitly shown in the novelization that Mark has a strained relationship with Madison after re-entering her life; not because of his long absence before ''King of the Monsters'', but because he's trying to make up for the years he was absent by fallaciously swinging from one [[ParentalNeglect parental extreme]] to [[MyBelovedSmother the other]].

** To Emma Russell, his own ex-wife. They both had a lifelong environmental interest (ecology for Emma, wildlife for Mark), and they even take the same path of working on the ORCA in the hopes humans and Titans can coexist, but they went on polarized routes after their son's deaths. They both at points in the film display an appreciation for the Titans' beauty, but Mark became a TragicBigot with a hatred for all Titans because of Andrew's death, while Emma became simultaneously pro-Titan and misanthropic -- interestingly, in relation to this, Mark outright hates Godzilla most of all, while Emma doesn't hate him but actively releases Godzilla's ArchEnemy, Ghidorah. Mark initially responded to Andrew's death with alcoholism, while Emma entered workaholism. They also both don't want to lose Madison the same way they lost their other child, and they respectively drop concern for everything else when she's in mortal danger -- Mark left Madison and Emma, yet regrets not being there for them when the film's main plot kicks off, whereas Emma retains custody of Madison but manipulates her.
** Also to Dr. Serizawa, and this gets {{lampshaded}} in the novelization. Both of them are Monarch or ex-Monarch scientists with a keen fascination and empathy for the Titans, and both of them firmly recognize that humans shouldn't try to subjugate nature because they're most likely to get anything but the desired result (and both of them learned this due to some kind of tragedy -- for Serizawa it was his father's experience in the Hiroshima bombing and/or the Janjira containment breach, for Mark it was a tragic incident where the prototype ORCA caused whales to beach themselves to death). The difference between them is that Mark let himself become consumed by his own grief and allowed it to fester after Andrew's death, whereas Serizawa deliberately avoids falling into the same trap as Mark when he's grief-stricken by the death of [[spoiler:Vivienne Graham]]. Adding {{irony}} to the contrast is that Godzilla killing Andrew was completely unintentional, whereas Ghidorah deliberately murdered [[spoiler:Dr. Graham]] in an act of malice.
** And to Alan Jonah, although their only interactions are very brief. They both tragically lost a child, and it ultimately led to them irrationally hating the group/species responsible to the point of wishing said group were all wiped out (Titans for Mark, humanity for Jonah). It also led to them quitting their respective professions in the initial aftermath (Monarch for Mark, the British Army and [=MI6=] for Jonah). They're both sensible enough despite their grievances as to interact non-violently with the group they hate when it's advisable. Mark only becomes part of Monarch again because he's recruited, whereas Jonah took the initiative himself. However, Mark throws his rash hatred out in the open for everyone to see, whereas Jonah thinly masks his true colors as a NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist. At the start of the film, Mark's heart is doused in fire while Jonah's is encased in ice.
* GoodIsNotNice: In ''King of the Monsters'', he's a real asshole towards his ex-colleagues [[UngratefulBastard even while they're only trying to help him saving his family]], because of his biases about the Titans. And even after he lets go of his grudge against Godzilla, he's still as impulsive, condescending (towards [[JustAKid Madison]]) and rash as he's ever been, in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. But he genuinely loves his family, and he twice notably goes out of his way to help people in dire need in ''King of the Monsters'' – in the first instance reluctantly sacrificing a slim chance of getting Emma and Madison back of his own accord to do so – and he's rejoined [[BenevolentConspiracy Monarch]] in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''.
* GriefInducedSplit: After Andrew's death, him and Emma coped in separate ways, and soon after Mark left both Emma and Madison behind altogether. Emma deeply resents Mark for this, and it's implied during ''King of the Monsters'' that Mark comes to regret it.
* HairContrastDuo: {{Subverted}} between him and Emma. At first, it looks like the two of them will be a [[PlayedStraight straight]] case with Mark as the dark-haired one being the "bad": he's a lot more cynical, testy, solitary and moody than Emma is but also a lot more pessimistically cautious (especially when it comes to the Titans), and he transparently wallows in his unprocessed grief over Andrew's death whilst criticizing Emma and Monarch's recreation with the ORCA and management of the Titans. [[spoiler:However, then we find out that Emma is much, ''much'' more amoral and unstable than Mark is]].
* HandshakeRefusal: Towards Coleman when he first meets the stuttery guy.
* HeadDesk: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, he knocks his head thrice against the kitchen table after he spectacularly fails to sit through a breakfast with Madison without an argument starting between them.
* HeldGaze: He has a few in ''King of the Monsters'':
** Mark twice gazes unblinkingly in a trance-like state when he's close enough to Godzilla to see the proverbial whites of his eyes, to which Godzilla responds by calming down. The second time Mark sees Godzilla's gaze, he has an epiphany about the secret recipe behind the [=ORCA's=] alpha bio-acoustics, and it's implicitly also in the same moment that Mark and Godzilla make their peace (the novelization outright confirms this is the moment that Mark fully changes his opinion on the Titan). Mark's Monarch Sciences bio and the novelization note that Mark tends to feel innately connected and synced to animals when he sees them up close, and the novel even shows him briefly staring off a wild wolf and then breaking eye contact to avoid seeming challenging; all of which push Mark's Held Gazes into the Supernatural type.
** During the Mexican standoff with Jonah, Mark and Emma are looking directly at each-other [[spoiler:when Emma is about to blow the ice encasing Ghidorah]]. Mark looks almost like a confused, wounded puppy in this moment, reflecting [[spoiler:not only his first reaction to Emma's betrayal but also]] how Mark has been feeling at his core ever since [[ExcessiveMourning Andrew died]].
* HisStoryRepeatsItself: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', most if not all of Mark's issues stem from his firsthand experience of the destruction of San Francisco including Andrew's death there, leading him to hate the Titans and to turn his back on his remaining family and Monarch in an effort to block out what happened. At the movie's end, after Mark has come to regret abandoning his family and has made peace with Godzilla, he faces the same kind of event ''again'' [[spoiler:when Boston is destroyed by Godzilla and King Ghidorah's FinalBattle around him as he searches for Madison before she can become another Andrew, and when Emma is killed amid the destruction]]. {{Subverted}} by ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', which implies that Mark has become [[CondescendingCompassion overprotective and patronizing]] towards Madison after this second incident and that he didn't really internalize as much as he could have, which the novelization outright confirms.
* HolierThanThou: The non-religious type – in the first half of ''King of the Monsters'', he can be easily described as the definition of sanctimonious, his demeanor whenever he chastises his Monarch ex-colleagues about how they're handling the Titans being definitively high-and-mighty. Notably, he has the gall to talk as if he has the moral high-ground over everyone he's talking to or about during ''two'' of his {{Hypocrite}} moments described below. Mark is also very condescending to [[UnderestimatingBadassery Madison]] when he brushes her off in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', and in the novelization, he has a habit of talking like he knows what's best for Madison better than she does when he's stifling her. All of that being said, he's not immune to recognizing he's wrong when he experiences the negative results of his folly.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: He indulges in this in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', even more so in its novelization due to [[TookALevelInDumbass taking a level in dumbass]]. He [[EasilyCondemned easily condemns]] Godzilla's rampage, even though he should know better than most that Godzilla only ever acts aggressive when something is provoking him, and he makes completely irrational and nonsensical excuses for his jump to this conclusion. It's also hinted in the movie version, and outright confirmed in the novelization, that Mark has [[SelfServingMemory convinced himself]] that the now 17-year-old Madison is [[JustAKid just a normal and defenceless kid]] who doesn't know what she's saying; and he's so pig-headed and obsessed with holding up this illusion, he ''actually'' thinks that him [[MyBelovedSmother helicoptering Madison]] and using authority as her father to browbeat her instead of providing a listening or understanding ear towards her will somehow get a headstrong teenager [[RebelliousSpirit with a serious rebellious streak]] like her to do what she's told instead of the complete opposite.
* HotBlooded: From his rash hatred of Godzilla and all Titans over the death of his son (which he's furthermore failed to let go of despite his implied efforts after five years of mourning and solitude), his TakeThisJobAndShoveIt in the initial aftermath of Andrew's death, and his tendency to pull a LeeroyJenkins, it's clear that he's no poster-boy for TheStoic or for impulse control. Despite getting over his grudge against Godzilla, this personality trait overall hasn't gone away at all by the time of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', marking it as a FatalFlaw.
* HumblePie:
** He starts off ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' being a rude [[{{Jerkass}} asshole]] towards his Monarch colleagues, erroneously acting [[HolierThanThou high and mighty]] about his highly-biased beliefs that all the Titans should be killed for his son's death and talking as if his bias makes him the OnlySaneMan among them. The crux of the breaking comes when Mark [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor seemingly gets his wish]] to [[spoiler:see Godzilla killed]], at which point [[WhatTheHellHero Serizawa calls Mark out on his bullshit in front of everyone]], whilst Ghidorah promptly shows the world just how bad things can get without Godzilla around to protect the natural balance. Notably, after this point, Mark dials back the attitude considerably for the rest of the movie.
** He gets a considerably milder case in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, when he realizes that his fallacious efforts to keep Madison out of danger (by being a FantasyForbiddingFather and dismissing everything she has to say while condescending her) have come to nought, and he mentally admits that him not putting more trust in her or giving her capabilities the credit she's due is what caused this. Even after he ''very begrudgingly'' admits in his thoughts that Madison can take care of herself, [[UnderestimatingBadassery Mark assumes there's no way Madison can pursue the investigation into Apex across the Pacific Ocean to Hong Kong – of course, he gets proven wrong yet again in that regard by the story's ending]].
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** On an Osprey with Graham, Coleman and Serizawa, he angrily responds to Serizawa's suggestion that some of the Titans are benevolent by firmly saying, "Don't kid yourself." Even though ''he'' is kidding himself with his pre-judgment of every last Titan species as nothing more than destructive monsters, which is based purely on his subjective personal grief at what two Titan species caused him to lose. Furthermore, Mark says this after studying wolves in the wild, who are frequently a misunderstood species in real life, and the fact he's a professional zoologist makes him holding such a passionate five-year grudge against a giant animal (something which people in his profession should know better than to do) all the more reprehensible.
** During a tirade, he straight-up scorns the fact Emma tends to put something (in her case the Monarch work she delved into after Andrew's death) before her own wellbeing and before her family. '''He's''' one to talk, having put [[DrowningMySorrows the bottom of a bottle]] before his own wellbeing (albeit after trying and failing to piece the family back together) followed by running away from his problems to let them fester; all at a time when his still-living family needed him to be strong more than ever before.
** In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', he asks (more like ''[[MyBelovedSmother commands]]'') that Madison blindly trust in him and put faith in him, without giving her either of those things in return. This is even more prominent in the novelization than it is in the movie's final cut.
* HypocriteHasAPoint: Whilst he has no moral highground on which to stand when he speaks critically of Emma not putting her family and her mental wellbeing first, he's proven absolutely right that Emma putting her [[{{Workaholic}} workaholism]] first is a bad idea for her, just not in the way that Mark assumed: [[spoiler:it turns out that rather than risking creating a global Titan catastrophe ''accidentally'', Emma as a direct result of delving into trying to understand the Titans and refusing to process her grief in a healthier way is engineering such a catastrophe ''deliberately'' – all in all, she is ''much'' more dangerous than Mark]].
* IgnoredExpert: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, he tries to get Monarch to start evacuating people before Godzilla's first attack when he realizes the Titan is likely going to make landfall at a population center, but his urgings are downplayed because of Godzilla's positive reputation at the time.
* IneffectualLoner: He's retreated to a mountain cabin to try and work through his grief in solitude, distancing himself from his daughter and ex-wife in the process. He's a competent expert zoologist, but he's not much of a team player when Monarch recruit him to look for the ORCA and his kidnapped family, and he's obnoxiously condescending towards his ex-colleagues due to his personal hatred for the Titans they revere, although he still garners sympathy for his loss from Drs. Graham and Serizawa.
* InsufferableGenius: He's an asshole who [[ItsAllAboutMe seems to think his own feelings are at the center of the universe]], and he goes off on a couple tirades at Monarch and uses them as a focus for his anger before he [[TookALevelInKindness gets better]]. But he's a competent animal behavior expert who proves to be invaluable during the events of ''King of the Monsters'', working out what's going on with the Titans and working out where the human antagonists are going to strike next, whilst the rest of Monarch are still a step or two behind him.
* ItsAllAboutMe:
** Throughout ''King of the Monsters'', he's more concerned about getting his ex-wife ([[spoiler:until the EvilAllAlong twist]]) and daughter back, while Monarch are more concerned about the global threat Ghidorah poses. Whilst Mark genuinely has suffered a horrible tragedy with his son's death before the start of ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'', he talks as if he's the only one in the world who lost someone, even though the news report in the opening makes it clear that he's one of ''thousands'' who went through the same loss and [[TragicBigot share his feelings on Titans]]. The notion that other people might be suffering just as much as Mark if not ''more'' doesn't seem to cross his mind.
** Mark hasn't grown past this at all in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong''. At least part of his reasoning for jumping to a conclusion that Godzilla has made a FaceHeelTurn is implied to basically be, "[[PsychologicalProjection Someone betrayed me in the past, and the fact I'm not over it is all the evidence I need to assume it's happening again here with an unrelated creature I know]]" and he doesn't hesitate to use the stress from dealing with the crisis to guilt-trip Madison into not burdening him with fear for her safety by getting involved. It's also implied in the movie and confirmed in the novelization that Mark has become an over-authoritative, {{obsessively normal}} [[MyBelovedSmother smothering]] father to Madison, partly because he's projecting his own longing for a normal life onto his daughter while hand-waving all her blatant indications that [[JumpedAtTheCall what she wants]] isn't what he wants. Mark's poor parenting is also partly a counter-productive attempt to keep Madison from going into danger, but even so, the means he's using to achieve the end, coupled with how he put running away from his problems ahead of being strong for Emma and Madison following Andrew's death; show that Mark mainly only considers how his family affect his ''own'' feelings of love, guilt or fear, whilst hand-waving or ignoring the impact that ''his'' behavior towards them is having on ''their'' feelings.
* IveNeverSeenAnythingLikeThisBefore: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, this is the experienced zoologist and Monarch operative's internal response to hearing [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla]]'s roar for the first time.
* IWillFindYou: Mark sets out to save his kidnapped ex-wife and daughter.
* {{Jerkass}}: He's very self-pitying and HolierThanThou when he's at anything less than his best or isn't reeling from recently being proven wrong and he's extremely rude, abrasive and prone to {{Misdirected Outburst}}s when he's feeling pissy. Whilst the loss of his son amidst Godzilla and the [=MUTOs'=] battle is indeed a horrible trauma, he's spent the following five years continuing to destructively wallow in his grief while practically using it as an excuse to treat all the people he still has like little more than shit: estranging himself from Emma and Madison when they needed him the most and being an asshole to his Monarch ex-colleagues (whilst said colleagues are ''[[UngratefulBastard actively attempting to rescue his wife and daughter]]'' no less). Even after Mark has made peace with Godzilla, ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' shows that he hasn't changed for the better by much; remaining as egocentric, high-and-mighty and HotBlooded as he was at the start of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''. Whilst Mark's fear of losing Madison to a Titan crisis is understandable (especially when considering he's already lost his other child and his ex-wife to the same kind of thing one-by-one), his resultant [[MyBelovedSmother domineering and overbearing]] parenting style is misguided at best, infuriating at worst; and his treatment of his seventeen-year-old daughter like she's JustAKid is highly condescending when considering Madison's impressive acts of heroism in ''King of the Monsters'' (it's even worse in the novelization, where Mark all but admits that he wants Madison to regress out of being WiseBeyondHerYears and turn back into an ordinary kid he can coddle and better control). Mark [[ItsAllAboutMe acts like the world revolves around his feelings specifically even though he's]] ''[[ItsAllAboutMe far from]]'' [[ItsAllAboutMe the only human in-universe who lost loved ones in 2014]] (as explicitly mentioned in the opening of ''King of the Monsters''); and the causes of his strained relationship with Madison in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' show that he tends to only factor in how his family affect ''his own'' feelings such as his guilt or fear, while disregarding or hand-waving the impact his present behavior is having on ''their'' feelings.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** While his attitude towards the Titans clashes with the film's message of cohabitation, he isn't wrong about the capacity for destruction which exists among even the benign Titans. And while he's not exactly pleased about it, the film's first scene shows he's entirely correct that if the ORCA doesn't already know which frequency to use on a specific Titan, then using the wrong frequency based on guesswork can do the exact opposite of pacify a gigantic, walking, breathing natural disaster.
** In the novelization, one of Mark's reasons for being pissy that Monarch are trying to keep the Titans alive in containment is because he believes Monarch's spectacular failure to prevent the male MUTO breaking free at Janjira is proof that Monarch's containment protocols won't do any good if any of the contained Titans awaken and decide they want to stretch their limbs. Once Ghidorah awakens all the contained Titans and commands them to attack, the ease and speed with which the creatures destroy the containment outposts around their resting sites proves Mark's point.
** When Mark sarcastically calls out Dr. Chen and the rest of Monarch for not being prepared for the Titans around the world awakening after Ghidorah's emergence; even if he's wrong to think that all the Titans should be killed, Mark is entirely right that the dormant Titans emerging was only a matter of "when" rather than "if" [[note]]The movie states that the Titans were already awakening more gradually due to human activity, and the eco-terrorists and King Ghidorah only accelerated the process.[[/note]], and Monarch haven't done anything adequate to prepare for that 'when' whilst maintaining a short-term and rapidly-failing status quo was on their table.
* JerkassRealization:
** It appears he has one about himself upon Godzilla's death and a seven-word ReasonYouSuckSpeech from Serizawa, as he notably [[TookALevelInKindness dials back the attitude]] for the remainder of the film. Allegedly, this would've originally been {{averted}} as Mark would've continued making snips against Godzilla in the Hollow Earth -- since Mark's attitude in the film already makes him highly punchable in the beginning, one can imagine why this was removed.
** Downplayed in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization. When he realizes that Madison has run off on her own to work out what's causing Godzilla's rampage, he admits to himself that him refusing to place any trust or faith in her at all despite knowing deep down that she can take care of herself is part of what drove Madison to this, and that he'll need to at least talk to her about it. Gee, Mark, [[SarcasmMode who could've predicted that ordering your blatantly strong-headed daughter around like a soldier and treating her like a shameful invalid at the same time was going to blow up in your face?]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Despite all his faults and jerkassery, he very much loves his family (particularly Madison), and he regrets not being there for Emma and Madison ([[HotBlooded to a]] [[MyBelovedSmother fault]] in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''). He [[LeeroyJenkins doesn't hesitate]] to attempt rescuing Emma and Madison from being held hostage during a gunfight, and his only concern [[spoiler:after Emma's [[EvilAllAlong true colors]] are revealed]] and whilst Ghidorah is wreaking the [[ApocalypseHow literal end of the world]] is getting his daughter back. Mark also, to his credit, goes back to save the G-Team from certain death in Antarctica, rather than seize a slim chance to catch up to a departing Emma, Madison and Jonah. Mark isn't afraid to admit he was wrong, as demonstrated when [[spoiler:he realizes that Godzilla is the last hope to save the planet from Ghidorah]], and he notably tones down his abrasiveness towards his Monarch ex-colleagues after he finds that [[spoiler:seemingly getting his wish to see Godzilla killed]] almost enabled King Ghidorah to destroy the entire world.
* KnightInSourArmor: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Mark is a bitter, [[ItsAllAboutMe egocentric]] [[TheCynic cynic]] whom is still profoundly troubled by [[OutlivingOnesOffspring his son's death]], but he's vehemently disgusted by the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]]' plan to put billions of people in mortal danger. Whilst Mark is mainly only on the heroes' side [[ItsAllAboutMe so he can rescue his family]] rather than out of any commitment to protecting the world at large, he ''does'' forego pursuing the eco-terrorists (whom have Emma and Madison) in favor of going back to save the G-Team from almost certain death, despite his great reluctance to let the eco-terrorists get away with his family. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, Mark just as cynical as ever before about nearly ''everything'', including the Titans, but he's also now rejoined [[BenevolentConspiracy Monarch]] to help them keep the peace between man and Titan overall (instead of continuing to wallow at his cabin), and it's implied that Mark has done so more because it's the right thing to do than because he has any desire to see a live Titan again.
* LeeroyJenkins: {{Downplayed}} in ''King of the Monsters''. One glimpse of Emma and Madison over a video feed at Outpost 32 makes him ''immediately'' depart from the Monarch top brass's safe distance location, grab a gun off a dead body, charge into the eco-terrorist-occupied outpost, and hold Jonah and his team at gunpoint. Downplayed in the sense that it's hinted Asher would have managed to shoot Mark dead as soon as the standoff started if Mark's distraction hadn't [[spoiler:given Foster an opening to shoot Ash first]], which in turn put Mark and Jonah on a more equal footing while Jonah's remaining gunmen in the background were occupied covering him and Emma from Ash's shooter.
* ALessonLearnedTooWell: In ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'', he realizes that he never should have abandoned his remaining family after the death of his first child to a past {{Kaiju}} battle caused a GriefInducedSplit and sent him into ExcessiveMourning, and he reunites with Madison when she almost dies in the havoc of the film's FinalBattle ''after'' she's been kidnapped by genocidal eco-terrorists. Five years on in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', Mark has re-entered Madison's life, but it's implied (outright confirmed in the novelization) that he's smothering and borderline-overprotective, and he absolutely ''refuses'' to accept that Madison isn't a baby anymore, no matter how much she proves her metal.
* TheLoad: {{Averted}} in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''. Mark at first spends his screentime from the moment Monarch approach him being insufferably rude and snarky, and what rational pointers he does make are initially brushed off by Monarch as the ravings of a bitter, grief-filled man who isn't thinking straight (and in Monarch's defence, Mark only made either of these pointers when in the midst of one of his tempers). In the novelization, Barnes is explicitly puzzled over why Mark has been brought onboard at all given his initial behavior. Not only is Mark proven right about Jonah's decoy, but he handles himself very well for a non-military during his LeeroyJenkins in Antarctica[[spoiler:; killing one of Jonah's men and saving Colonel Foster's life, plus his actions indirectly make the heroes aware of Emma's betrayal]]. And Mark only continues making himself useful to the team for the rest of the movie [[InsufferableGenius despite his initial attitude]]. Come ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', [[TookALevelInDumbass however]]...
* LonerTurnedFriend: Somewhat downplayed. At the start of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Mark has shut himself away from everyone and nearly everything after Andrew's death, only to get recruited by [[TheTeam Monarch's top brass]] including his former colleagues. At first, he's an obnoxious blowhard who makes his opinionated and biased view on Monarch's [[TheXenophile ways of managing the Titans]] clear (yet he ''somehow'' attracts Sam Coleman's desire for friendship), but he mellows and he seemingly gets off his high horse as the movie goes on. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', the Monarch executives Mark previously worked with are completely absent from both the film and novelized versions of the story as Mark investigates Godzilla's attacks with Guillerman, save for a mention in the novel that Mark wouldn't mind having their help.
* LongLastLook: The person variation. After he's said goodbye to [[spoiler:Serizawa]], him, Stanton and Chen continue solemnly watching [[spoiler:Serizawa]]'s sub as it sinks into the water.
* MisdirectedOutburst: In ''King of the Monsters'', his rage over his son's death is directed at the Titans (Godzilla in particular), but instead of lashing out at them, Mark lashes out at his Monarch ex-colleagues and friends when he sees them again. He's annoyed at them because they won't exterminate all of the Titans despite knowing how powerful they are, and [[UngratefulBastard it doesn't matter to Mark that they are being nothing but patient and thoughtful towards him]] ''[[UngratefulBastard nor]] '' [[UngratefulBastard that these are the people whom are currently working to find his kidnapped ex-wife and daughter]]; he makes a point of criticizing or snarking at them near-chronically, [[spoiler:until his discovery that {{vengeance feels empty}} gets him off his high horse for the rest of the movie]].
* MisplacedRetribution:
** Blames Godzilla for the death of his son Andrew in the incidents of ''Film/Godzilla2014'', even though the [=MUTO=]s were to blame for the destruction of San Francisco and Godzilla was actually the one who ''stopped'' them. It's implied that it was indeed Godzilla specifically rather than the [=MUTOs=] who actually caused Andrew's death in all the havoc, but it was nevertheless a genuinely non-malicious accident on Godzilla's part; a fact which becomes poetic once the genuinely-malicious Ghidorah, who ''deliberately'' kills people for fun, shows up. Notably, whilst Mark does admit as the movie goes on that he needs to let his grudge against Godzilla go for everybody's sake, he never actually admits that he was wrong to pin the blame for Andrew's death on [[HeroWithBadPublicity Godzilla]] to begin with.
** The ''King of the Monsters'' novelization also states that while Mark never said it, he blames Emma on some level for Andrew's death because she's the one who took the job that led to the family relocating to San Francisco.
* MissingStepsPlan: In the wake of King Ghidorah's global takeover of the other Titans, and Monarch establishing that nothing can stop him with Godzilla apparently gone, Mark intends to depart Monarch's company to look for Madison before the world ends. This in spite of how Madison and the eco-terrorists could be holed up literally ''anywhere in the entire world'' and Mark hasn't got the first idea where to start looking (as Sam Coleman points out), not to mention that Mark's efforts will likely be further hampered by the fact that ''the world is currently ending'', and nevermind the question of how he'll avoid getting shot by Jonah's goons if he '''does''' find them without Monarch's military aid. Fortunately, Mothra's timely arrival prevents Mark from going through with this.
* MountainMan: Downplayed. Mark has been living far away from civilization in the Colorado mountains, based in a solitary cabin since he left Emma and Madison, but he still dresses like a relatively normal man and he still does wildlife photography and research to eke out a modern living from funders.
* MovingBeyondBereavement: In the five years since San Francisco's destruction, he's been unable to let go of his grief over Andrew's death: he's divorced Emma, become estranged from Emma and Madison, run off to the Colorado mountains to avoid anything that reminds him of his problems[[note]]Confirmed by the novelization[[/note]], and he's nursing a biased grudge against Godzilla and the other Titans over his loss. He learns over the course of the movie to let go of his grief and spite, gradually accepting that Godzilla didn't deliberately kill Andrew and that he's humanity's best and only shot at survival.
* MurderIsTheBestSolution:
** He can't make it through the Monarch briefing on Alan Jonah without launching into a tirade, saying Monarch should just kill every last Titan to render the eco-terrorists' plans with the ORCA moot; to the visible exasperation of the Monarch brass, some of whom look like they've heard this from Mark before. Mark in the heat of his anger completely ignores the logistical problems of how Monarch would kill all the Titans – how difficult it is to kill the creatures with anything at humanity's disposal, the likelihood that attempts to kill them would only wake them up and aggravate them, the high probability that an extermination would miss a few unaccounted-for Titans, the also-high probability that disrupting the global ecosphere by eradicating the Titans would have devastating long-term detriments for humanity – and how logically and practically, such a plan if pulled off would overall most likely be more trouble than it's worth. The novelization explicitly lampshades this, with Mark later wondering if Monarch [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot could have prevented King Ghidorah's rise]] by killing him in his sleep while he was frozen, only to begrudgingly concede after considering the logistics that Ghidorah's awakening likely was inevitable and that the eco-terrorists only sped up his revival.
** Mark says that the military launching the Oxygen Destroyer at Godzilla and Ghidorah isn't a bad idea. He ends up eating those words when the weapon's usage causes absolutely ''everything'' to go FromBadToWorse on an apocalyptic scale.
* MyBelovedSmother: He's hinted to be a male example after Emma's death left him with custody of Madison and also left him scared of losing his last child. Throughout his argument with Madison, Mark treats her like she's stupid, naïve and incapable, despite the fact she committed acts of heroism that most adults wouldn't have the stomach for in the previous movie. He also cuts her out of the investigation into Godzilla's rampage because he doesn't want to be worrying about her safety. It's revealed in the novelization to be even worse than what the movie shows: ''before'' Godzilla has started attacking, the way Mark runs the household is him expecting Madison to follow his word as law without any fair argument; he refuses to internalize anything Madison has to say that he doesn't want to hear; doesn't give Madison any of the trust, faith or respect [[{{Hypocrite}} that he expects her to give him]], and barely even communicates clearly to her on Titan-related matters. Furthermore, Mark in the novel tries to have his sister shadow Madison at the house while he's away to make sure that she can't sneak out after he's barred her from Monarch's investigation. Mark all but admits to Madison that he wishes she would stop being WiseBeyondHerYears and regress back into being the helpless little girl he remembers her as from ten years ago, [[ItsAllAboutMe so that HE can assuage his own feelings of guilt about not being there for her]]; as if the five years of her maturing before the events of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' never happened. Worse yet, the novelization also shows toward the end that Mark ''does'' know deep down what Madison is capable of, but he wilfully ignores it for the sake of living in his self-centered delusions.
* MyGreatestFailure: For him it's not being there for Madison in the intervening years after Andrew's death, when she needed him most and he let her down. He expresses a lot of regret for this after she ends up in the eco-terrorists' hands in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', feeling it never would have happened somehow if he'd been there. Unfortunately, it's also what motivates Mark to be a [[MyBelovedSmother patronizing and helicoptering parent to Madison]] in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization.
* MyGreatestSecondChance: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', one of Mark's biggest regrets, if not his ''single'' biggest, is letting Madison down and not being there for her after he abandoned his family, and he expressly says he's determined to make sure that it doesn't happen again with his fixation on tracking her down over the rest of the movie. {{Deconstructed}} in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', which reveals that Mark has misinterpreted the aesop that was to be learned from this mistake after Emma's death left him with sole custody of Madison: his way of making up for being absent from Madison's life during the tail end of her childhood is by [[MyBelovedSmother helicoptering her]] and treating her like she's still the little girl he left behind, all whilst refusing to listen or communicate both ways with her when her wants and arguments [[SecretlySelfish conflict with]] [[ItsAllAboutMe his own]].
* NaiveNewcomer: He's ironically both this trope and the TeamPrimaDonna in ''King of the Monsters'': he's technically being brought ''back'' into Monarch, but he's been out of the loop long enough for this trope to be in effect. Mark shares in the audience's surprise at the many developments in Monarch that the [[TheTeam top brass]] introduce; such as Emma recreating the ORCA, there being dozens more living Titans besides Godzilla around the world at clandestine Monarch containment outposts, and Monarch having a fancy new base of operations in Bermuda.
* NatureLover: Since he was a child, Mark has had a strong love of nature. He also prefers fieldwork and being close to animals instead of being in an office. He ends up being a more cynical than idealist version of this trope, as he effectively isolates himself at a cabin in the woods and commits himself to wildlife photography before the film's events, specifically to escape his own problems.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', him and Monarch could've caught on to Apex's EvilPlan sooner, maybe even prevented them from seizing the HollowEarth energy source needed to empower [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla]], if Mark had actually given Madison some of the credit she was due and listened to her pointers (pointers which consisted of basic common sense that [[HumansAreMorons most of humanity was lacking throughout this movie]]). Because Mark underestimates Madison's intelligence and patronizingly dismisses her out of hand, Monarch end up being Apex's {{Unwitting Pawn}}s all the way through to [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla's empowerment]], and it isn't until [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla is completed and gets hijacked by Ghidorah's lingering consciousness]] (earlier in the novelization) that Monarch catch on to Apex's machinations, resulting in hundreds if not thousands of casualties and mass property damage in Hong Kong [[spoiler:before Mechagodzilla is put down]].
* NiceMeanAndInbetween: He's the Inbetween amongst the three Russells who survived the San Francisco battle. He's a lot more compassionate and moral than his ex-wife Emma, [[spoiler:and he's completely disgusted by her plan to cause millions of deaths]]; but he's a lot more [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]], spiteful, [[HolierThanThou sanctimonious]] and prone to {{misdirected outburst}}s than their daughter Madison is.
* NoManShouldHaveThisPower: Early on in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', he's outraged that Emma rebuilt the ORCA and tweaked it to communicate with Titans instead of whales, angrily insisting it's too dangerous due to the risk that using the wrong frequency could aggravate a Titan instead of pacifying them (not helped by how the original ORCA prototype itself had the opposite effect to what was intended with horrible end-results when it was field-tested, as detailed in the novelization). Despite this, Mark and his family end up using the ORCA more than once to prevent [[OmnicidalManiac King Ghidorah]]'s otherwise-certain victory and clean up the mess that the ORCA partly contributed to. Regardless of the latter, the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization states that when Mark rejoined Monarch following Ghidorah's defeat, he still insisted that the ORCA was too dangerous and had all work on the project shelved.
* NoSympathyForGrudgeholders: Downplayed in ''King of the Monsters''. Though Drs. Graham and Serizawa both seem to be sympathetic to Mark's grief-fueled anger, they both show that they have their limits. During Mark's tirade in the briefing room scene, Graham rolls her eyes in disgust. At the movie's midpoint, Serizawa doesn't hesitate to give Mark a gentle but scathing calling-out [[spoiler:when Godzilla is seemingly killed and the price is the far more malevolent Ghidorah getting to reign unopposed]].
* ObliviousToHisOwnDescription: In ''King of the Monsters'', he acts [[HolierThanThou high and mighty]] when he's criticizing Monarch for "kid[ding] themselves" and when indirectly criticizing Emma for not putting herself or her family first. Both these accusations are [[{{Hypocrite}} things which he in his own way has done and is STILL doing to himself]]: he's kidding himself with his biased judgment that all the Titans are purely destructive monsters and deserve to die because of his grief over son's death, and he put [[DrowningMySorrows alcoholism]] and running away from his problems before his own well-being and his family needing him to be strong more than ever before.
* ObsessivelyNormal: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, he's somewhat resentful about rejoining Monarch, because he felt morally obligated to do so when he would much rather have nothing to do with Titans ever again; which is implicitly partly why he projects [[IJustWantToBeNormal his desire for a completely normal life]] onto Madison. Mark has moved himself and Madison into an ordinary suburban house (in contrast to his mountain cabin and his family's Monarch outpost-based jungle apartment in the previous movie), and he's enrolled Madison in a local public school (where she ends up [[AllTheOtherReindeer ostracized, lonely, and feeling out of place]]) instead of continuing her homeschooling. Mark not only disapproves of Madison's inclination to continue being involved with Monarch and Titan matters in some capacity, he seems determined to pretend that said inclinations don't even ''exist'', going out of his way to obstruct Madison from returning to homeschooling or directly having anything to do with Monarch and Titan matters, and acting as if '''Madison''' will just bow to his wants. This attitude is hinted at in the movie; when Mark blows off everything Madison has to say about the Godzilla-related mystery out of hand, and he just chides her for skipping school, taking a {{conspiracy theorist}} podcast seriously, and trying to help her father with his ''ab''normal job.

** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', when [[spoiler:Emma picks up the detonator and]] the eco-terrorists are about to blow Ghidorah free of the glacier, Mark can only glance slowly towards the vast glacial wall that holds the three-headed monster in silent horror.
** In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', he has a very understandable one when [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla arrives in Hong Kong and begins leveling the city, confirming that Madison was right, and Godzilla ''was'' trying to stop another malevolent Titan.]]
--->"''What in God's name is that?''"
* OppositesAttract: {{Deconstructed}}. Mark and Emma had an unpleasant GriefInducedSplit after losing a child – which RealLife studies have found usually only occurs if the grieving couple's relationship already had further underlying problems beforehand[[note]]otherwise, it's more likely that the shared suffering will actually ''strengthen'' the couple's bonds[[/note]] – and we see a lot of personality contrasts between them in the present.
** Mark is a brunette with a square-shaped facial structure, whereas Emma is a blonde with a heart-shaped face.
** Mark thinks that humans should leave nature alone, and that mankind shouldn't be tampering with things they don't understand. Whereas Emma believes that attempting to long-term save the world at large is worth ruthlessly tampering with nature on a massive scale in a hamstrung manner.
** Mark is, at best, wary and leery of all Titans, including the BigGood, because of their destructive capacities, and he thinks the world is better off without them in it. Whereas Emma believes that [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans are ultimately more of a threat to the world than the Titans are]], [[spoiler:and that restoring balance to the world and ensuring mankind's long-term survival is worth actively setting loose as many Titans as possible to let them reclaim the Earth and cause collateral mass devastation, and she underestimates the possibility that some of the Titans she targets are just as dangerous for the world's balance as the [[PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs MUTOs]] and [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity Skullcrawlers]] were if not more]].
** After Andrew's death, Mark chose to run away from his duties as a Monarch operative and everything that reminded him of the Titan attack. Emma instead felt obligated to stay on and commit herself to finding a long-term "solution" to the disaster and its looming future repeats.
** Mark is HotBlooded, impulsive, [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]], and prone to throwing pity parties, but he wears his spite, rage and grief over Andrew's death on his sleeve for everyone around him to see. Whereas Emma is a [[spoiler:ruthless,]] cold-blooded schemer [[spoiler:who fancies herself a master manipulator]]; she's been lying to everyone including herself about the true extent of her unresolved grief, [[spoiler:to the point where she all but went mad and she's the only one who can't ''recognize'' her own instability,]] and she feels she's working towards the greater good [[spoiler:despite her motivations being {{secretly selfish}}]].
** Mark is disgusted at the mere thought of people being collateral damage of a Titan's presence, whereas Emma has no such reservations [[spoiler:when she forcibly accelerates the Titans' awakenings, knowing full well that hundreds to billions of people will be in the firing line]].
** Mark initially blames all the Titans, especially Godzilla, for Andrew's death in Godzilla and the [=MUTOs'=] 2014 conflict. Emma instead blames humanity for causing and continuing to cause the Titans' re-emergences in the first place via our ecologically-unsustainable practices, and our refusal to do anything to address them.
** Even Emma and Mark's parenting styles [[spoiler:after Emma's death]] are polar opposites, yet both are dysfunctional for their remaining child; who both parents act restrictive, controlling and patronizing towards. Emma is fine with giving Madison a homeschooling and LimitedSocialCircle within Monarch, and with exposing her to at least one of the Titans she studies. Whereas Mark in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization wants Madison to have as normal a teenhood as possible whether Madison herself wants that or not, so he enrols her in a public school, ignores any criticism that she's not making friends and is instead a bullied pariah, and he wants to restrict Madison as much as possible from having anything more to do with Monarch or Titans again.%%
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: His elder child Andrew was a casualty of Godzilla and the [=MUTOs'=] battle in 2014. In ''King of the Monsters'', this was ultimately what [[GriefInducedSplit caused Mark and Emma to divorce]] and caused Mark to all but turn his back on his remaining family, and it's also the source of Mark's hatred for Godzilla and his wish for all the Titans to be killed off in that movie.
* PapaWolf: The moment he sees his ex-wife and daughter being held hostage during a gun battle, he leaves the other scientists behind, grabs a pistol, and attempts to rescue them himself. Throughout ''King of the Monsters'', after [[spoiler:Emma's betrayal is revealed]], finding Madison and getting her back is ultimately what Mark is first and foremost concerned about. Somewhat {{deconstructed}} in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, where his parenting style since coming back into Madison's life consists of trying to brow-beat and shelter the most brass-balled teenager in the [=MonsterVerse=] into cowering at home from the monsters for the rest of her life, something which Madison briefly calls him out on.
* ParentsAsPeople: He's arguably become this after re-entering Madison's life and after [[TookALevelInKindness lightening up]] over the course of ''King of the Monsters''. Whilst Mark does love Madison, he's evidently overbearing and very condescending towards her in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''; treating her like she's JustAKid despite her highly-commendable acts of heroism and cunning during the previous movie, and wanting her to stay out of the investigation into Godzilla's rampage so that he won't have to worry about her life. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, Mark's treatment of Madison crosses into MyBelovedSmother territory.
* PastExperienceNightmare: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization states that he still has [[PlaguedByNightmares recurring dreams]] of the moment he found Madison [[NearDeathExperience near-dead]] in the rubble of Boston during Godzilla and Ghidorah's battle.
* PermaStubble: He's a bitter and cynical man due to the death of Andrew, and he has a 5 o' clock shadow in both his film appearances.
* PlaguedByNightmares: Mark's aforementioned recurring PastExperienceNightmare in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization highlights his overprotectiveness of Madison since the incident and his inability to move past any of his trauma.
* PointyHairedBoss: In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Mark is working for Monarch once more in a managerial role, but [[TookALevelInDumbass all his smarts as a so-called Titan expert apparently disappeared with Boston in the previous movie]]. He's of no help throughout the crisis with Godzilla's rampage; refusing to listen to Madison or let her get near Monarch's investigation, only arriving to Godzilla's Hong Kong attack after Guillerman has already begun the evacuations of his own initiative, and being none the wiser to Apex's evil plans progressing underneath Monarch's noses [[spoiler:until the Ghidorah-possessed Mechagodzilla that Apex made is already slaughtering half of Hong Kong]]. In the novelization, Mark ''does'' cotton onto Apex's true colors, but not quickly enough [[spoiler:to stop Mechagodzilla's rampage, and worse yet [[AdaptationalDumbass he's stupid enough to temporarily wonder if they should]] ''[[AdaptationalDumbass let]]'' [[AdaptationalDumbass the Ghidorah-possessed Mecha kill Godzilla]]]]. Serizawa's trust that Mark would be up to carrying on his legacy in the previous movie was clearly misplaced.
* PsychologicalProjection: Oh, he definitely has a knack for this.
** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', he thinks Monarch are deluding themselves with their assertions that humans can coexist with Titans, ignoring that ''he'' is deluding himself by asserting [[GreenAesop in this setting]] that all the Titans including [[HeroWithBadPublicity Godzilla]] are monsters that should be wiped out; assertions that are based in Mark's rage over his son's death more than the objectivity of the sheer destruction that a Titan is capable of. In the same movie, Mark criticizes Emma putting her commitment to her work and the Titans ahead of her own well-being and her family's welfare, which is '''exactly''' what Mark has been doing with his own rage, drinking problem and inability to confront his unresolved grief ever since Andrew died.
** In the novelization of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', it's implied that part of the reason why Mark has become an ObsessivelyNormal [[MyBelovedSmother smotherer]] to Madison, and why he's irrationally acting like he knows what Madison wants better than [[UnderestimatingBadassery Madison]] does whilst being wilfully ignorant of the problems he's causing her, is because Mark is projecting his own desires for a normal life (which he can't have since he rejoined Monarch) onto his daughter.
* ReallyMovesAround: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization mentions he and Madison moved four or five times per year and went all over the globe after he rejoined Monarch.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: ZigZagged in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', where he's rejoined Monarch and apparently become a "director". Although he's no longer vengeful over his son's death, he's still as HotBlooded and judgmental as ever. He dismisses everything Madison has to say to him about a possible lead on why Godzilla's rampaging because he wants her to stay out of the whole thing out of fear for her life, even though her pointers (regardless of [[ConspiracyTheorist where she obtained the evidence]]) only amount to common sense. The novelization also shows that Mark is [[MyBelovedSmother a very far cry from a reasonable authority figure]] in Madison's home life. All of that being said, Mark ''is'' sensible enough to know that Monarch should prioritize getting citizens out of Godzilla's way over trying to engage him, and the novel shows that he's quick to suspect Apex and (reluctantly) admit to himself that Madison might've been right as the evidence against Apex racks up.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
** He both hands one to Emma and gets an ArmorPiercingResponse in turn.
** It's so short it's barely a speech, but when Godzilla is seemingly killed, Serizawa perfectly sums up the folly of Mark's grudge against Godzilla in light of what's happening in just seven words, and it seems to give Mark a JerkassRealization based on [[TookALevelInKindness his subsequent change in behavior]].
--->"''Looks like you got your wish, Mark.''"
** Barnes comments that if he had parents like Mark and Emma, he'd run away from home.
** Madison briefly gives him a well-deserved one after he tries to guilt-trip her into obeying his wishes of her, in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization:
--->"''You're blackmailing me. With ''your'' fear. I'm supposed to cower at home for the rest of my life because you're afraid something might happen to me?''"
* ResignedToTheCall: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization indicates that Mark [[KnightInSourArmor isn't exactly thrilled about rejoining Monarch]], and he would much rather have a normal life where he doesn't have to see another Titan again, but he believes working for Monarch is the right thing to do. So instead, Mark projects all his longings for a normal life onto Madison.
* RevengeBeforeReason: Averted. He's initially hellbent in his belief that every monster on the planet should be killed, Godzilla in particular, but he's at least sane enough to recognize a situation in which taking Godzilla head-on is tantamount to suicide, and orders everyone to lower their weapons to show Godzilla they're not posing a threat. In the novelization, Mark finds himself begrudgingly rooting for Godzilla in Antarctica and at Isla de Mara, and he's doubtful when he declares the military launching the [[spoiler:Oxygen Destroyer]] at Godzilla and Ghidorah is "not the worst idea" because he realizes that killing Godzilla is tantamount to killing humanity's best defence against any other Titans that might pose a threat. Mark eventually comes to accept that while Godzilla did cause his son's death, he's also the best chance at saving the planet from Ghidorah, and so Monarch and the military must help him however they can in the final battle.
* RevengeMyopia: For the first half of ''King of the Monsters'', Mark doesn't care that Godzilla is a gigantic animal who didn't in any way deliberately cause Andrew's death, he just wants Godzilla dead out of rage. This is made all the more egregious by the fact Mark is a professional zoologist [[{{Hypocrite}} and should therefore know better than most people not to attach such feelings to an animal]].
* RightForTheWrongReasons:
** In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', his prediction that recreating the ORCA for communicating with Titans would lead to the creatures causing "a thousand San Francisco's" ends up being semi-prophetic, but the ORCA doesn't cause it for ''quite'' the reasons that Mark believed it would. Mark predicted that using the wrong frequency on the wrong Titan would incite a Titan rampage, but the global Titan rampage is ultimately caused by the eco-terrorists deliberately using the ORCA to indiscriminately incite as many Titans as possible to awaken; including [[Characters/MonsterVerseKingGhidorah one Titan]] who has both the power and the ''intent'' to create the [[OmnicidalManiac absolute worst-case Titan scenario]]. [[spoiler:The "Wrong Reasons" part is somewhat {{subverted}} when it's revealed in the film's ending that advanced ancient civilizations likely fell because they tried to use artificially-replicated bio-acoustics to manipulate the Titans, supporting Mark's concerns about the ORCA being used to manipulate Titans for human ends]].
*** If the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization is to be believed, the "Wrong Reasons" part didn't stop Mark from ''still'' insisting that the ORCA was [[NoManShouldHaveThisPower too dangerous to use]] after the device prevented Ghidorah's [[NearVillainVictory otherwise-certain]] victory, and his solution was to have the project scrapped when he rejoined Monarch.
** In the aforementioned novelization; Mark, during the investigation into Godzilla's attack, derisively calls Team Kong's efforts to reach the HollowEarth with Kong (to help Apex ostensibly neutralize the rampant Godzilla) a boondoggle[[note]]meaning a wasteful, unnecessary and fraudulent project[[/note]]. He's ''half''-right; it's not that the expedition is a waste of time, but rather that it's actually aiding the evil plan of the CorporateConspiracy whom are the true culprits behind Godzilla's rampage, [[spoiler:a plan which involves activating a part-Ghidorah HumongousMecha]].
* RightlySelfRighteous: ZigZagged. Mostly, he's [[HolierThanThou just plain self-righteous]], but in ''King of the Monsters'' he does have a couple moments where he's in the right while acting in such a way. As high-horsed and pointlessly rude as he is about it, Mark is right when sarcastically calling out Dr. Chen and the rest of Monarch for pretending that the Titans' awakening was anything other than inevitable and for not focusing on making any adequate preparations for when it came to fruition. [[spoiler:Mark is also very right to call Emma out on [[SanitySlippage all but losing her mind after Andrew's death in such a horrific way]], for putting their only surviving child's life in mortal danger, and for planning to kill billions of people by proxy whilst taking the fate of the world into her own hands]].
* RobbingTheDead: When he runs into the eco-terrorist occupied Outpost 32 on his own looking to save Emma and Madison, he picks up a dead operative's handgun for use against the eco-terrorists.
* SayMyName: He shouts every one of his family members' names at the top of his lungs ''at least'' once for each of them throughout ''King of the Monsters''. He repeatedly howls Andrew's name in desperation when he's trying to find his son amid the devastation in the opening flashback. [[spoiler:He does the same for Madison when he's searching for her [[{{Bookends}} amid the movie's chaotic final battle in Boston]]]]. He also screams Maddie's name in despair in Antarctica [[spoiler:after [[EvilAllAlong Emma]] and the eco-terrorists have taken Madison back, blown the explosives, and left Mark to die]]. Finally, in the movie's last scene, Mark screams out Emma's name [[spoiler:when she rushes off to her certain death by HeroicSacrifice]].
* ScrapHeapHero: He became a wreck in the aftermath of his son's death, [[TakeThisJobAndShoveIt quitting his job at Monarch]] and running away to the Colorado mountains as a wildlife photographer. ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' sees Mark being brought onboard by Monarch to help them stop the eco-terrorists and later King Ghidorah with his expertise, and despite a rocky start, he gradually manages to get through his grief. Come ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', and Mark has officially returned to active duty in Monarch – [[AesopAmnesia although his worst impulses haven't gone away]], and his performance as a parent to Madison is questionable.
* SecretlySelfish: He overall shows multiple signs of thinking more about his own feelings than about those of his loved ones or his son's memory. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, after he tries to guilt-trip Madison into obeying him in an attempt to keep her away from Titan-related danger, she [[CallingTheOldManOut calls out]] his oppressive and authoritarian conduct as a parent. Mark is convincing himself that he's keeping Madison safe by [[MyBelovedSmother ordering her around and helicoptering her with his sister's help]], and that her being mad at him for it is a worthwhile price; but Madison points out that he's really putting his own fear of losing his surviving daughter ahead of any consideration for her emotional needs or her own feelings, and he'd rather feel sorry for himself than consider the possibility that his shoddy parenting methods are going to either stifle his [[WiseBeyondTheirYears highly-capable]] daughter's growth and potential or just push her away from him all over again. Worse yet, it takes [[JerkassRealization finding out that his authoritarianism and patronizing of Madison only pushed her to strike out on her own]] for Mark to even take Madison's point seriously.
* SelectiveObliviousness: His entire character in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' can be summed up as this trope.
** In the film version, Mark just as blind as [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter Team Kong]] and [[HumansAreMorons the rest of the world]] are to [[DevilInPlainSight the suspicion that should be falling on Apex]] in light of Godzilla's attack on their factory, but he takes it a step further. He irrationally descends into denial that there's any cause or reason for Godzilla's seeming hostility save for Mark thinking that [[ItsAllAboutMe HE]] [[YouRemindMeOfX is reliving a repeat of what previously happened with Emma]]: as a result, Madison is forced to give up trying to talk sense into the idiot. This gets somewhat subverted in the novelization, where Mark and Guillerman are conducting their own investigation into Godzilla's attack and they don't hesitate to suspect Apex.
** It's strongly implied in the film, and outright confirmed in the novelization, that Mark is in denial that Madison is really an ActionGirl even after she's explicitly proven her capabilities during the previous movie's events. He stubbornly persists in pretending that she's a naïve, ordinary girl in need of shelter, [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent because that's what he wishes he had for a daughter]] instead of [[SecretlySelfish facing up to and dealing with what he's really got for a daughter]], even as Madison makes it increasingly clear how unhappy Mark is making her and as their relationship becomes increasingly strained because of his obstinate adherence to his B.S.. Worst of all, the novel shows when Mark [[JerkassRealization realizes he drove Madison away]] that he ''knows'' deep down that Madison is strong, capable and independent, he just wilfully chooses to ignore it; meaning that not even being a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter can excuse his [[BecauseISaidSo shortcomings as a father]], and showing how SecretlySelfish he really is.
* SelfServingMemory:
** {{Implied}} in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''. He rants about how Godzilla is responsible for his son's death in the San Francisco battle, whilst never making any mention of the [=MUTOs=] who ''actually'' instigated the destruction before Godzilla stopped them. (Notably, even when he admits that he needs to let his grudge against Godzilla go, he never actually admits that he was wrong to blame Godzilla to start with.) The implication is that Mark was ''so'' desperate to have something living to hate over Andrew's death, that he projected all of his rage and blame at the Titan who ended the disaster instead of taking comfort in knowing that the [=MUTOs=] which ''really'' started the destruction were also dead by dawn.
** PlayedStraight in the ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' novelization, where Madison mentally observes that Mark seems to have wilfully forgotten ''all about'' how she committed some of the greatest acts of heroism out of the entire cast during the previous movie, in favor of viewing her as what he ''[[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent wishes]]'' she was [[TookALevelInDumbass and ignoring what she's clearly proven herself to be in reality]].
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: In ''King of the Monsters'', he's the Manly Man to Sam Coleman's Sensitive Guy. He's a physically-fit wildlife photographer and former zoologist who has been living in the Colorado mountains (unlike the skinnier, more indoorsy Coleman), and compared to Coleman, Mark is cynical, bad-tempered, impulsive, outspoken and [[ItsAllAboutMe emotionally self-focused]].
* SharedFamilyQuirks: With his daughter Madison. Despite her being ''much'' less HotBlooded, egocentric and distrustful of the Titans and being more sound-minded than her father, Madison does share Mark's [[NatureLover love for outdoors field work]]. One thing Madison has inherited from both her parents (particularly her father) is a keen connection to the Titans.
* ShutUpHannibal: He's completely unimpressed by [[spoiler:Emma Russell]]'s explanation of why they're working with Jonah to awaken all the Titans. The moment [[spoiler:Emma]] deconstructs Serizawa's inaction and failure to do anything to stop TheGovernment, Mark furiously rebuffs [[spoiler:Emma]], calling them out for putting Madison, [[spoiler:their own child]], in mortal danger, for thinking they alone have the right to decide the fate of the world for everyone else, for overestimating their ability to control the Titans, and above all for [[spoiler:responding in such an insane way to Andrew's death]].
* SoProudOfYou: PlayedWith in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization. Although he never states it openly, the novel portrays Mark inwardly feeling proud of Emma and Madison several times within the confines of his mind: he can't help feeling proud that Emma perfected the ORCA even if he seethes at the fact she remade it with the intention of using it on Titans, he feels a swell of pride in Antarctica when he realizes that Madison is using the ORCA to disorient Ghidorah before the hydra could menace Mark and the Monarch top brass, [[spoiler:and he feels a swell of pride in Emma during the latter's HeroicSacrifice to stop King Ghidorah]].
* SourOutsideSadInside: Downplayed, and a case who's more openly self-pitying than usual. At the start of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Mark is a recluse living in the country, and he quickly shows himself to be bitter, spiteful, snide, anti-social and sardonic; taking nearly every opportunity to lash out at the rest of the Monarch cast. Mark acts this way due to his unresolved grief and trauma over [[OutlivingOnesOffspring his young son's death]] in the destruction of San Francisco when he and his family were caught up in the BehemothBattle, plus his subsequent [[GriefInducedSplit failure to keep the rest of his surviving family together]], running away from everything that reminded him of his problems. That having been said, the next movie demonstrates that it was only Mark's reclusiveness and sarcasm that was tied to his unresolved grief: his idiocy, [[HotBlooded impulsiveness]], [[HolierThanThou high horse]], and leeriness of [[HeroWithBadPublicity Godzilla]] are all [[{{Jerkass}} personality traits that stick past the point where he seemingly made peace with his son's death]].
* SpeaksFluentAnimal: When he was a kid, Mark swore he could talk with his pet German Shepherd and understand what it was saying. Being a respected expert in many fields focused on animals, Mark understands how they live and communicate. The {{novelization}} further explores Mark's sense of connection to animals and their bio-acoustics, with the wolves and Godzilla.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** Mark's backstory of being defined by the loss of a loved one, failing to get over it years later, going into isolation, and having a strained relationship with his living family makes him suspiciously similar to Joe Brody from ''Film/Godzilla2014''. They're also both angry at Monarch: Joe because they're lying to him and the world about what killed his wife, Mark because they won't kill the Titans he blames for his son's death.
** And to Preston Packard in ''Film/KongSkullIsland''. They both have a judgment-clouding vendetta against the protagonist Titan of the movie which either human respectively debuts in (Kong for Packard and Godzilla for Mark), and it's based around said Titan killing people close to Packard and Mark while the Titan was doing what was necessary to defend its territory's balance. Both men also clash with other members of the main human cast who have a more reasonable if not outright pro-Titan disposition towards the object of Packard/Mark's vendetta, and both men are capable of feats of courage. However, whereas Packard [[HeWhoFightsMonsters ends up completely consumed by his vendetta]] after going beyond all reason to fulfil it, and causes his own death; Mark, even at his worst, has enough sense to defuse a suicidal direct confrontation with Godzilla, and he learns to let go of his hatred with time. Whereas Packard ultimately manipulates and exploits his men's genuine loyalty to his own ends, Mark passionately cares about his family first and foremost (although the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization shows even Mark isn't above emotionally manipulating Madison out of [[ItsAllAboutMe selfish desires]] when he feels desperate).
** Mark is also similar to Haruo Sakaki from the 2017-2019 [[Anime/GodzillaPlanetOfTheMonsters AniGo]][[Anime/GodzillaCityOnTheEdgeOfBattle ji tr]][[Anime/GodzillaThePlanetEater ilogy]]. Mark too is HotBlooded and wants to see Godzilla killed because Godzilla caused the death of his family-member (Mark's son instead of his parents like with Haruo), and ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' also demonstrates Mark is slow to grow past his {{Fatal Flaw}}s like Haruo proved to be across the trilogy's latter two movies. However, Mark isn't ''nearly'' as reckless and inconsiderate of other people's lives as [[RevengeBeforeReason Haruo]] was in the pursuit of revenge; and Mark, despite nursing a hatred of Godzilla, was fine with personally leaving him and the Titans alone so he could stew in his own grief, in contrast to how Haruo seeks out a fight with Godzilla.
* TakeThisJobAndShoveIt: After his family's loss during Godzilla's fight against the [=MUTO=]s in San Francisco, Mark quit Monarch.
* TeamPrimaDonna: He's ironically both this trope and the NaiveNewcomer in ''King of the Monsters''. Despite having been brought onboard so that he could help {{the team}} rescue his kidnapped ex-wife and daughter, Mark acts [[UngratefulBastard completely ungrateful]], [[ItsAllAboutMe self-absorbed]] and [[HolierThanThou morally superior]]; hurling {{misdirected outburst}}s at Monarch and criticizing them because they won't kill all the Titans just to satiate his rage. However, Mark makes himself [[InsufferableGenius genuinely and invaluably competent]] at predicting the Titans' behavior, averting multiple failures and losses of life over the film, and even when he pulls a LeeroyJenkins in Antarctica, it works out. Mark more or less gets off his high horse halfway through the film, [[spoiler:when him seemingly [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor getting his wish]] both [[VengeanceFeelsEmpty fails to satisfy him]] and enables King Ghidorah to begin creating a global apocalypse]].
* ThereAreNoCoincidences: This overall appears to be his mindset in ''King of the Monsters''; believing Godzilla's unusual activity at Castle Bravo is linked to the ORCA, piecing together that Rodan's awakening is what has caused Ghidorah's sudden change in direction, and realizing how [[spoiler:Emma created the [=ORCA's=] Alpha frequency]] after appearing to briefly synchronize himself, a human, with Godzilla ([[spoiler:a.k.a. the Alpha frequency's two bio-acoustic components]]). Regardless of how well-founded or rational Mark's assumptions are, he tends to be right.
* TookALevelInDumbass: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', he could be [[InsufferableGenius insufferable]], but he genuinely knew his stuff when it came to predicting Titans' behavior and knowing when they were helpless to stop a Titan. Five years later in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', he's nothing more than an ineffectual moron who obstinately refutes Madison's arguments about finding out why Godzilla's attacking (which unwittingly fuels the success of Apex's plot, leading to thousands of deaths that could have been avoided if he'd been more reasonable), predicated purely on his own [[YouRemindMeOfX projection of past trauma]] which is ''completely'' unrelated to actual events and newfound lack of common sense. Even in the novelization's expansion, Mark is constantly one step behind everybody else during his Guillerman's independent investigation into the crisis; and he's not only ''refused'' to acknowledge his daughter as anything more than [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter a helpless invalid who needs to be sheltered]] after her DamselOutOfDistress actions in the previous movie, he's actually stupid enough to think that helicoptering Madison and bossing her around is going to accomplish ''anything'' except for pushing her to do exactly what he's trying to avoid.
* TookALevelInKindness: He starts ''King of the Monsters'' as a hot-headed, self-pitying jackass who wants Godzilla dead and who lashes out at nearly everyone around him, but he cools his jets and dials back the attitude as the movie progresses, becoming notably more respectful in short time after [[spoiler:Godzilla's apparent death leaves him finding VengeanceFeelsEmpty]]. He seems to further dial down his FantasticRacism against the Titans after [[spoiler:witnessing archaeological evidence indicating that ancient humans once lived in harmony with the Titans]].
* TragicBigot: The battle between Godzilla and the [=MUTO=]s caused his family unit to collapse in the face of his son's death, and he has been unable to let go of that pain since; blaming the Titans and saying they should all be wiped out.
-->'''Jackson Barnes:''' Dude hates Titans.
-->'''Sam Coleman:''' Yeah, well you would too if you were him.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', he treats Madison like she's JustAKid who doesn't have a clue what she's talking about, even though Madison's advice only amounts to common sense ([[HumansAreMorons something which the rest of the human race including Mark are currently lacking]]) and ignoring how Madison's impressive acts of heroism in the previous movie have proven that she is ''not'' some naïve schoolgirl. The novelization reveals this is Mark's fallacious attempt to keep Madison on a leash and out of danger, and Mark inwardly knows that she's more capable of taking care of herself than he gives her credit for, [[MyBelovedSmother even if he's very reluctant to admit it]]. ''However'', even after Mark in the novel realizes that Madison was probably right and that she snuck out to pursue her own investigation into Godzilla's rampage, he's still convinced Madison can't [[spoiler:cross continents in her own search for answers]] -- apparently, he forgot or just wilfully ignored that his daughter is the same girl who spontaneously disrupted Ghidorah's global Titan control and drew the three-headed monster to Boston.
* UngratefulBastard: During the first act of ''King of the Monsters'', Mark acts snarky, sarcastic and rude towards TheTeam whilst throwing his {{misdirected outburst}}s around at them, and he at one point emphatically accuses them of not caring about ''[[ItsAllAboutMe his]]'' [[ItsAllAboutMe kidnapped ex-wife and daughter]]. These are the people whom are currently trying to ''find'' Mark's kidnapped family for him, yet he can't be bothered to show them a decent modicum of gratitude or even respect during the search – not a very decent or even smart thing to do, considering that this team's actions and motivation [[LethallyStupid could be the entire difference between Mark getting his loved ones back safely or never seeing them alive again]].
* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: When Godzilla is seemingly killed by [[spoiler:the Oxygen Destroyer]], Mark visibly ''isn't'' satisfied that he's apparently gotten his wish to see the Titan he blames for Andrew's death killed, especially once Serizawa [[WhatTheHellHero rightfully calls Mark out]] in front of the Monarch brass. The fact that [[spoiler:Godzilla's seeming death]] has left Ghidorah free to reign over and slaughter the planet practically unopposed likely didn't do anything to make Mark feel better.
* WhatIsGoingOn: In ''King of the Monsters'', he approaches Dr. Chen and asks her what's happening when Castle Bravo begins trembling prompting her to inform him succinctly that an abnormally-erratic Godzilla is approaching them.
* WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' drops some notable hints that he's become a FantasyForbiddingFather type to Madison, whilst the movie's novelization outright confirms that Mark wishes Madison was [[ObsessivelyNormal an ordinary girl]] who would obey him and whom he can coddle, instead of the brave, heroic and rebellious young woman that she is. Worse, Mark has convinced himself to the point of SelfServingMemory that Madison really ''is'' the kind of daughter that he wishes she was, and that all he has to do is make her live the kind of life he considers ideal (even if he has to shove it down her throat and ignore all her feelings); and it takes Madison sneaking out and heading towards mortal danger in response to listen to her for Mark to even ''begin'' to admit that he was wrong at all.
* WrongGenreSavvy: In ''King of the Monsters'', Mark when working with Monarch initially seems to think he's the OnlySaneMan among a bunch of reckless negative-type {{zombie advocate}}s, based on [[HolierThanThou the way he holds himself]] when chiding Monarch. Even if he's not completely wrong about the dangers of meddling with the Titans, he's actually the center of a VengeanceFeelsEmpty and forgiveness character arc in a story with a GreenAesop, and the zombie advocates he criticizes are actually a case of GoodIsNotDumb.
* TheXenophile: Despite his rage towards all Titans and particularly Godzilla for his son's death, he's still capable of admiring them seemingly without conscious input even before he gets over his issues, and his zoology expertise enables him to predict their behavior quite well during ''King of the Monsters''. It's heavily implied that on a subconscious level, Mark knows that he's in the wrong to hate the Titans over his son's death, but he's too HotBlooded to admit it.
* YoureInsane: Says as much to [[spoiler:his ex-wife]] when he hears the full extent of their plans, [[spoiler:her justifications for them, and the fact that she got their remaining child involved and put her in harm's way]].
* YouRemindMeOfX: A {{downplayed}} but clear case occurs in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', when Mark justifies his feeble and irrational assertion that Godzilla has [[FaceHeelTurn turned against humanity for no reason]] by stating that "creatures, like people, can change"; clearly projecting his trauma from Emma's unexpected and staggering betrayal five years prior onto Godzilla. Furthermore, in the novelization, Madison inwardly suspects that the reason he's so unwilling to trust her or show any faith in her is because he transferred all his trust issues with Emma onto Madison after Emma died.

[[folder:Madison Russell]]
!Madison Russell
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2021_09_01_at_63621_pm.png]]
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/MillieBobbyBrown, Alexandra Rabe (young)
!!!'''Dubbed By:''' Creator/ClaraSoares (European French), Creator/ManaAshida (Japanese)
!!!'''Appears In:''' ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' | ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' | ''Film/GodzillaVsKong''
->''"You said that you were gonna be careful. That you'd release them one at a time, that you would restore balance!"''

Emma and Mark's daughter, and Andrew's younger sister who survives after him.

* ActionGirl: {{Downplayed}}. A deleted scene shows Madison sparring one of Jonah's men in boxing practice, unleashing all of her frustrations, true to Emma's claim that she "[[ToughLove trained [Madison] to survive]]". In the novelization, when Madison tries to steal the ORCA, she's confronted by a particularly imposing mercenary, who she catches off-guard and manages to incapacitate with a stun gun.
* AdmiringTheAbomination: She's pro-Titan like her mother, though she still grows increasingly horrified by [[spoiler:her mother]]'s and Jonah's plot to inflict millions of deaths. Notably, she was audibly amazed when she saw Godzilla during the San Francisco Incident when she was seven or eight years old. {{Averted}} with King Ghidorah, whom she screams defiantly in rage at after everything the three-headed {{sadist}} monster has done when he's [[spoiler:about to kill her]].
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization indicates she's a social outcast at school and the victim of bullying. Pretty shitty of those other kids, considering how she directly helped ''save the world'' during the crisis with Ghidorah.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: [[spoiler:When things escalate out of control after Ghidorah wakens the other Titans, Emma tries to claim to Madison she can fix this. In response, Madison queries that she thought she was doing it all for Andrew's memory -- would he have wanted any of this? It renders Emma totally silent as her daughter storms off]].
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Her ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' Monarch Sciences bio says she wants to be a normal teenager. Come ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', and she's now attending a public school, but doesn't fit in and is miserable, and she can't get her stubborn and controlling FantasyForbiddingFather to listen to her and let her go back to homeschooling.
* BerserkButton: Downplayed, but the novelizations show that it really fiddles her button when people treat her like she's JustAKid who isn't equipped to get involved in Monarch/Titan matters.
* BetrayalByOffspring: [[spoiler:After renouncing her mother for betraying Monarch and killing millions of people, Madison takes it upon herself to abandon her mother's plan and help Monarch and her dad]]. Emma is visibly stung when she learns what Madison has done, as she seems to realize just how severely her own actions have nuked what remained of her family.
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Madison's first act of defiance against her mother has her snatching the ORCA from Emma and using it to distract Ghidorah in a bid to save her father. After witnessing the destruction Emma and Jonah's plans have caused, Madison steals the ORCA, sneaks out of a bunker full of armed terrorists, hikes miles to Fenway Park, and uses the ORCA to disrupt Ghidorah's communication with the other Titans, meaning she pretty much singlehandedly helps save the world.]]
* BigNO: She screams a frantic string of them when [[spoiler:her mother moves to make a HeroicSacrifice]].
* BrainyBrunette: She's apparently inherited her father's brown hair, and supplementary materials note that she's an exceptionally academically-smart kid – she's also, despite [[JustAKid her young age]], one of the gutsiest human characters in the entire [=MonsterVerse=] period when it comes to using her intelligence to help the world at large. In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', Madison demonstrates that she knows how to operate the ORCA thanks to her mother, [[spoiler:and she has the smarts to steal it from Jonah's eco-terrrorists and navigate her way out of their bunker ''undetected'']]. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Madison is well-aware that they have to work out ''why'' Godzilla is rampaging whilst everyone else is either {{easily condemn|ed}}ing Godzilla or operating on a "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality, and to that end, Madison single-handedly tracks down the enigmatic and paranoid Mad Truth podcaster's real identity and address.
* BreakTheCutie: She already went through the first stage starting from the age of seven, when her older brother died and her parents' marriage collapsed soon after. Despite this, she's still a WideEyedIdealist at the start of the movie with a profound awe for Titans such as Mothra and concern for her parents' welfare (especially her father's). Then she gets dragged by [[spoiler:her mother's manipulations]] into an EcoTerrorist plot where she's forced to watch Monarch operatives she grew up around get massacred by the dozens, she watches her own mother [[spoiler:knowingly leave her father to die]] while unwittingly unleashing a world-ending force which triggers a global apocalypse, she [[spoiler:suffers a NearDeathExperience while caught in the crossfire of a city-destroying Titan battle]], and finally [[spoiler:she helplessly watches her mother die under very similar circumstances to her late brother]]. The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization reveals that Madison has PTSD from her up-close experiences of Jonah massacring Monarch outposts and her [[spoiler:close brush with Ghidorah when the monster was actively hunting her]].
* BrokenTears: She's reduced to tears when Emma sticks to and enacts the deathly next stage of her plan [[spoiler:by awakening Rodan whilst hundreds if not thousands of islanders are in the line of fire]] after Madison ''profusely and desperately'' pleaded with Emma not to. Madison's tears continue rolling when she [[YouMonster calls her mother a monster]] after Ghidorah[[spoiler:, one of the Titans Emma earlier awakened as part of her plan]], has overturned her plan entirely, and also when Madison subsequently calls her mother out on how Andrew would be horrified by what she's done. [[spoiler:It's subtly implied that Madison's tears are ''not'' helped by the knowledge that she was complicit for a while in the mass death and destruction her mother has unleashed due to her blind obedience to the woman before her HeelRealization]].
* CallingTheOldWomanOut: She raves at her mother over how the latter's plan has spiralled completely out of control after Ghidorah takes over the Earth's Titans, for not thinking of a better way to [[spoiler:prevent the government from trying to kill the sleeping Titans than [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorism]] and sacrificing millions of lives]], and most of all, for doing all this in Andrew's name when any sane person in Emma's position should know that their child would ''never'' have wanted this.
* CensoredChildDeath: {{Downplayed}} when she has a NearDeathExperience in ''King of the Monsters''. [[spoiler:She gets crushed by the rubble of a collapsing house offscreen, before she's dug out by her parents and the G-Team in the midst of an NDE and resuscitates]].
* ChildProdigy: Her official profile lists her as one. Not entirely surprising, given she's the daughter of two brilliant scientists, though she would rather learn through hands-on experience outside of a classroom much like her outdoorsman father.
* ConspiracyTheorist: PlayedWith. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', she's a regular listener to Bernie's Mad Truth podcasts to the point of avidly reading between the podcasts' lines as it were, and she's wholly convinced that Bernie is barking up the right tree by investigating Apex Cybernetics. The novelization specifies that Madison is well-aware most of Bernie's conspiracy theories are hocum, but she's listening because he tends to bark up the right tree when it comes to Titans.
* CowardiceCallout: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, she rightly chews out [[CallingTheOldManOut Mark]] when the latter attempts to use [[ItsAllAboutMe pity for himself]] to emotionally blackmail her into obeying him; pointing out that Mark's authoritarian and insensitive parenting style [[SecretlySelfish isn't motivated by legitimate concern for her welfare, but by him being completely wrapped up in his self-pity and his terror of losing her]] to the point that he would rather [[MyBelovedSmother helicopter his daughter into helplessness]] (or unwittingly sabotage his relationship with her while trying) than put what ''Madison'' needs (support, encouragement, and thoughtfulness from a father) ahead of his own insecurities and self-absorption.
* DamselOutOfDistress: In ''King of the Monsters'', she proves herself to be this. It isn't obvious how well she can take care of herself at first, due to subservience to Emma making her stay with the latter and Jonah's goons, and everyone -- from Emma to Mark to Jonah -- assumes she's {{just a kid}} who can't do much about her [[spoiler:''de facto'']] hostage situation on her own. But after Madison [[spoiler:realizes how low Emma has sunk and [[HeelRealization that they're on the wrong side]], and she]] gets an idea about how to stop the Titans' global massacre; she proceeds to steal the ORCA out from under the eco-terrorists' noses, escape through a ventilation shaft, and walk on foot away from the bunker and into [[spoiler:Boston]] to save the world, [[spoiler:with her actions ensuring that the devastating FinalBattle occurs in a relatively-empty city]].
* DeepBreathRevealsTension: {{Invoked}} just after the massacre of Outpost 32, when Emma tells Madison to take deep breaths "just like we talked about" to keep herself calm, when they're walking with Jonah's mercenaries past dozens of fresh corpses.
* DeerInTheHeadlights: In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', when Skullcrawler Number Ten is being released from its paddock, Madison at first freezes up while Bernie and Josh immediately make a break for it. The novelization confirms this is due to the sight of the Skullcrawler triggering her PTSD from her experiences in ''King of the Monsters''.
* DefiantToTheEnd: When Ghidorah [[spoiler:has her cornered with no escape]] and is about to [[spoiler:blast her with all three heads' worth of Gravity Beams]], Madison just screams at the dragon in defiant rage. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Godzilla shows up just in time to ensure this doesn't end up being her final moments]].
* {{Deuteragonist}}: She's the KidHero version where she takes up the last act of the second film luring King Ghidorah to Boston. She takes the protagonist role on Godzilla's side of the story in order to figure out why Godzilla's sudden attacks are directly towards Apex and not humanity as a whole.
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** Luring Ghidorah to Fenway Park using the ORCA's signal, and then [[spoiler:''staying put'' and looking out for signs of the pissed three-headed monster's arrival instead of getting the hell out of dodge]], wasn't particularly smart. The novelization [[AdaptationalExplanation explains]] she remains put both to prevent anyone else finding and turning off the ORCA (at which point the Titans will fall back under Ghidorah's control) and because she incorrectly guesses that Jonah's forces will be out in the city looking for her and the ORCA.
** When Ghidorah arrives at Fenway Park, Madison unplugs the ORCA from the stadium's PA system but doesn't turn off the device itself, which leaves the signal that had originally been broadcasting over the PA speakers now coming from the ORCA's own speakers [[spoiler:in her hands]]. Which allows all three of Ghidorah's heads to almost ''instantly'' zero in on [[spoiler:Madison's exact location, staring through the windows right at her. Additionally, because she ''did'' unplug the ORCA and leave it on, the three heads catch her red-handed at the source of the Alpha frequency, and they correctly conclude that she's Ghidorah's new challenger for dominance which has disrupted their global Titan control, prompting Ghidorah to go ''all in'' trying to vaporize his tiny new rival]].
* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Her response to Ghidorah [[spoiler:cornering her and preparing to blast her with all three heads' Gravity Beams at once]]? She just screams defiantly right up at the 500-foot monster as he's charging his Gravity Beams.
* DistressBall: She's sharp enough and brave enough to use the survival training her mother taught her [[spoiler:to steal the ORCA, sneak through ventilation shafts, and be miles away from the eco-terrorists' base before they even know where's gone, with a plan in place to help the heroes to hinder Ghidorah and his Titan army's global rampage whilst luring Ghidorah to an empty city for the FinalBattle]]. But once she starts broadcasting the ORCA to lure Ghidorah in, Madison doesn't have any plan to avoid being vaporized by the incensed hydra when he arrives, nor does she even seem to see the need to: she stands outside on Fenway Park's rooftops, ''looking'' for signs of Ghidorah coming with a pair of binoculars. [[spoiler:This leads to Madison ''almost'' getting fried by Ghidorah's Gravity Beams once he catches her red-handed, holding his bio-acoustic BerserkButton, before Godzilla arrives]].
* DontYouDarePityMe: Downplayed, but both the ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' and ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelizations show that Madison doesn't appreciate being treated like she's {{just a kid}}, and she refuses to be a victim no matter what she's been through.
* EtTuBrute: She's hurt and ''horrified'' to the point of tears when she discovers what kind of a person her mother really is, [[spoiler:with the latter going through with awakening Rodan despite both Mark and madison's conscientious pleas to at least give the desperate islanders time to get to safety]]. The novelization has this to say about Madison's feelings in this moment:
-->Maybe her mother hadn't lied to her, not exactly. But she felt fundamentally betrayed, in a way she never had before.\\
She'd thought she knew her mother.\\
She knew now that she did not.
* FamedInStory: In ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', she's apparently somewhat well-known in powerful and influential circles, due to her mother's world-changing and [[TheExtremistWasRight controversial legacy]] and her father's high-ranking job in Monarch. Bernie has heard of both her parents, and [[spoiler:corporate billionaire Walter Simmons quickly recognizes her as Mark Russell's daughter by having seen her face somewhere before (possibly in a news report)]].
* FlippingTheBird: When [[PetTheDog Jonah attempts to amuse her]] while they're going down in an elevator, an unimpressed Madison responds to the ruthless killer's display with a middle finger thinly veiled as an eye-rub.
* {{Foil}}:
** To Bernie Hayes. They've both lost people close to them under tragic circumstances, but Madison still has her father after losing her brother and mother, whereas Bernie apparently had no-one after his wife died. Madison is on the receiving end of UnderestimatingBadassery after the events of ''King of the Monsters'', while Bernie is a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} who uses ObfuscatingStupidity to make others underestimate him, and both of them prove to be quite skilled at wiling their ways around security and sinister organizations to get what they want. Bernie is quite a silly and goofy-seeming grown man though not quite a {{Manchild}}, while Madison is a teenager who's WiseBeyondHerYears. Madison is somewhat FamedInStory as Mark and Emma Russell's daughter in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', while Bernie is an unassuming Apex employee in real-life and a somewhat well-known anonymous podcaster on the internet.
** And to Ren Serizawa, something which is slightly highlighted by the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization. They're both cases of [[LikeFatherUnlikeSon Like Father, Unlike Child]]. Both of them were raised by their respective fathers in a way which worked for said father but not for their child and caused strain in their relationship (MyBelovedSmother with a dash of FantasyForbiddingFather from Madison's father and ParentalNeglect from Ren's father), and it leads to both of them respectively rebelling against their fathers' beliefs (Ren on a much more massive scale than Madison). They also both lost their mothers at a young age. It can be argued that Ren and Madison are both somewhat reckless in regards to their self-preservation: Madison tends to head towards danger when she sets her mind on helping, and though she has succeeded in being a massive help, she's also twice almost been killed by a Titan and saved by sheer luck; while Ren is an EvilGenius who commits to a ''horrifically'' arrogant and TooDumbToLive method of achieving his EvilPlan which ultimately leads Ren and his allies [[SelfDisposingVillain to their destruction]]. Where Ren and Madison differ is that Madison still has her father, whilst Ren implicitly went dark-side as a result of his father dying before they could reconcile. Madison has a profound connection to the Titans but is highly compassionate when human lives are endangered, while Ren is a MugglePower supremacist who callously and hypocritically puts thousands of innocent lives in Godzilla's warpath without a second thought.
* FriendlessBackground: The ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' novelization confirms that outside of Monarch staff, Madison doesn't have many friends due to traveling a lot with her mother. According to the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, this hasn't changed much since Mark made her start attending school: she's an [[AllTheOtherReindeer outcast among her school peers]] and hasn't made any friends her age except for Josh.
* FriendToAllChildren: In the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization, she takes a moment to flash a terrified child a reassuring smile at the Fenway Park evacuations.
* FriendToBugs: She shows signs of forming a profound connection with the lepidoterran Mothra, and her Monarch Sciences bio and the ''King of the Monsters'' official novelization both furthermore state that Madison likes to spend free time studying insect ecosystems generally.
* GoodAngelBadAngel: In ''King of the Monsters'', she and Jonah form a metaphorical version of this ensemble, with [[spoiler:Emma]] as the person they're trying to influence. Madison is the Good Angel, positioned by the cinematography on [[spoiler:Emma]]'s right shoulder and trying to convince [[spoiler:Emma]] to ''not'' allow Rodan to be awakened while there are still people caught in the way, while Jonah is the Bad Angel on [[spoiler:Emma]]'s left who is trying to get the latter to stick to their plan. [[spoiler:The Bad Angel wins]].
* HairContrastDuo: Ultimately {{inverted}} between her and Emma. Madison has inherited her father's dark-brown hair color, and she's firmly the [[LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine Light Feminine]] and the good one of the two: starting out as a WideEyedIdealist who's trying to please her mother, and being utterly horrified by the atrocities her mother orchestrates to the point of eventually turning on Emma in disgust. On the other hand, Madison has a sneaky, rebellious and intelligent streak of her own.
* HarmfulToMinors: She was only seven years old when [[{{Kaiju}} the cinematic embodiments of atomic weaponry]] destroyed her home and the surrounding city, with her older brother being found dead; and in the aftermath, she watched her father [[TheAlcoholic slip into alcoholism]] while her mother [[{{Workaholic}} immersed herself in work]]. It gets even ''worse'' by the time Madison is twelve: she witnesses first-hand armed men [[spoiler:whom she and her mother are in cahoots with]] massacring dozens of people including her personal mentors in a haze of gunfire, and that's ''before'' she, and her loved ones in full view of her, start having life-threatening close calls with the Titans.
* HeelRealization: In ''King of the Monsters'', Madison is distressed from the very beginning by Jonah's merciless slaughter of people in Monarch who Madison knew [[spoiler:(something which [[VillainBall Emma had neglected to mentally fortify Madison against whilst indoctrinating her]]), but Madison begins to seriously doubt the EcoTerrorist plan her mother has pulled her into going along with during Ghidorah's awakening; realizing from the sight of the awakened hydra that this is a Titan humans can never coexist with[[note]]Described in the novelization[[/note]], and being horrified when her mother forces her to leave ''her own father'' for dead and at Ghidorah's mercy. Madison's doubts increase after she overhears Mark's scathing deconstruction of Emma's grief and his criticism of her deciding the fate of the world for everyone, and it pushes Madison to try talking Emma out of releasing Rodan whilst people are still in danger. When Emma doesn't listen, and when Rodan's awakening is shortly thereafter followed by Ghidorah taking control of the other Titans, this is the final straw which makes Madison realize her mother is not the hero she thought she was and she's on the wrong side]].
* HeldGaze: Antagonistic type, in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization. When Madison is trying to convince Emma that they don't have to do what Jonah expects them to, Jonah responds to Madison directly telling him to bite her by locking gazes with her and [[WouldHurtAChild gesturing to his gun]], which briefly cows Madison.
* HellYesMoment: This is written all over her face when [[spoiler:Godzilla shows up to battle King Ghidorah at Boston]].
* HeroicBSOD: According to the production crew, and more expressly spelled out in the novelization, [[spoiler:her retreating back to her parents' house in the heat of a city-destroying kaiju battle is this. As Godzilla and Mothra fight Ghidorah and Rodan, Madison tries to flee the battle to avoid being unwittingly stepped on, only to realize that no matter how far she runs the Titans can cover that same distance in a heartbeat. Panicking, she runs to the one place she associates with safety -- the home where she grew up -- and then breaks down upon realizing that it's no safer than anywhere else in the city]].
* HisStoryRepeatsItself: Though she's coped with her brother's death and the San Francisco destruction in a much healthier manner than either of her parents, it's still implied that Madison developed her WellDoneDaughterGirl tendencies at the start of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' amidst the initial fallout among the family. Madison outgrows this as she becomes disillusioned with Emma and realizes how heavily the woman has manipulated her, [[spoiler:before she finally watches her family's original home city get destroyed by ''another'' Titan battle that involves Godzilla, and she loses another member of her family to the destruction]]. ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' shows Madison has become a much stronger person for what she went through, in contrast to Mark who has only exchanged his old shortcomings for new ones or [[AesopAmnesia has failed to shed them at all]].
* HomeschooledKids: She received this kind of education during the years she was living with her mother and traveling the world with her and Monarch. Come ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Mark has enrolled her in public school, but she would much rather return to homeschooling, except she can't, due to Mark's unmoving stubborness and refusal to seriously listen to her.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: According to her ''King of the Monsters'' Monarch profile, despite her natural scientific prowess and curiosity, Madison wants to be a normal teenager and live a normal life. She appears to have [[JumpedAtTheCall changed her mind]] after finding herself less than satisfied with her father's somewhat overbearing attempts at normalcy in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization.
* IdiotBall: Even though she knew that being with her dad was safer, Madison still decides to stay with Emma Russel, despite knowing that they're with dangerous people in a dangerous place.
* TheInsomniac: Somewhat downplayed, but in ''Godzilla vs. Kong: The Official Novelization'', she has frequent sleeping problems due to PTSD from her experiences in the previous movie.
* InterspeciesFriendship: She forms a fledgling bond with the giant insectoid Titan, Mothra. In the novelization, [[spoiler:Madison has something like an out of body experience and her connection with Mothra and her memory of the Titan somehow resuscitates her after she's buried by her house collapsing]].
* JumpedAtTheCall: In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', she has no interest in staying in school as Mark wants of her when Godzilla starts rampaging, particularly when she realizes [[HumansAreMorons no-one but her]] is actually going to have the basic common sense to investigate the targeted Apex facilities before it's too late. The novelization expands on this, showing that Mark has become a [[MyBelovedSmother smothering]] and helicoptering FantasyForbiddingFather who wants Madison to have as normal a life as he can imagine, but Madison would much rather return to being [[HomeschooledKids homeschooled]] as she'd been for most of her life before ending up in Mark's custody.
* JustAKid:
** It's never said to her face, but in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization, Dr. Mancini feels this way about Madison's presence, which inwardly irks her. It's also implied this trope causes Madison's parents and also Jonah and his goons to underestimate her capabilities.
** In ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', Mark doesn't say it outright, but it's fairly clear part of the reason he's so condescending and dismissive of her when she tries to approach him about Godzilla's attack is because he still sees her as the little girl he left behind almost a decade ago rather than an equal, [[UnderestimatingBadassery despite ALL evidence to the contrary]]. Things between Mark and Madison are even worse in the novelization's AdaptationExpansion, where Mark is shown to be a [[MyBelovedSmother smothering]] and over-authoritative FantasyForbiddingFather who doesn't listen to anything Madison has to say nor give much thought to her feelings if they run counter to his own wants, and he acts like Madison knows less than him about what's best for her. In the novel, Madison also attempts contacting other Monarch operatives after she's unable to talk any sense into her father, but all of them respond to her about the same way Mark did.
* TheLeader: Of Team Godzilla. She leads a team consisting of herself, her friend Josh, and a Titan conspiracy theorist named Bernie as they go to the Apex bases and try to find out why Godzilla has been attacking them.
* LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine: She's the Light Feminine to her mother's Dark Feminine in ''King of the Monsters'', which is ironic considering Madison's darker brown hair comparative to her mother's light blonde hair. Madison has an intimate connection to benevolent Titans including an almost maternal link to Mothra, yet she's far more compassionate and empathetic than Emma when it comes to people's lives. Madison also starts the movie as a little bit of a WideEyedIdealist due to her mother's manipulation, but she proves to be much more emotionally mature than Emma once she catches on to just how dangerous some of the Titans are and how serious the stakes are.
* LikeFatherUnlikeSon: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, she and her father differ in that Madison has no interest in being normal following her early upbringing with her mother in a LimitedSocialCircle at Monarch, and her experiences in ''King of the Monsters'' which turned her into a ShellShockedVeteran. Mark on the other hand has implicitly rejoined Monarch solely out of a sense of duty, and he would be all too happy to never deal with Titans again if it could be helped, and unfortunately; he's implicitly [[PsychologicalProjection projecting his own longing for a normal life onto Madison]]. The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization also notes that Madison [[DontYouDarePityMe vehemently refuses to be seen as a victim]] (despite what [[MyBelovedSmother her father]] thinks of her), which stands in stark contrast to Mark's chronic self-pitying tendency.
* LimitedSocialCircle: Given how she was homeschooled and traveled a lot growing up with both her parents in Monarch, Madison doesn't have many friends outside of them and other Monarch employees, as confirmed in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization. In the novelization of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Mark attempted to defy this trope for Madison by enroling her in a public school and expecting her to make normal friends her age, but the only friend she's made is Josh whilst being an outcast among the rest of her school peers.
* LittleMissBadass:
** When a 12-year-old girl [[spoiler:steals a high-tech gadget from a ruthless terrorist group right under their noses because it's the right thing to do, and then uses it to pacify a host of giant monsters and in doing so incur the wrath of what is basically [[SatanicArchetype the Satan of Titans]] in order to save mankind from certain annihilation]], you know she's got balls the size of Ghidorah's heads. Best of all, ''she succeeds'' where all the militaries on Earth would've failed miserably, effectively saving the world.
** [[Film/GodzillaVsKong Three to five years later]] as a teenager, she's practically the only human on Earth who has the basic common sense to ask ''why'' Godzilla attacked the Apex facility, acts an AmateurSleuth by tracking down Bernie Hayes, break into Apex, discover their plans to [[spoiler:create a Titan-killing death machine in the form of [[EvilKnockoff Mechagodzilla]], gives Walter Simmons a [[TheReasonYouSuck Reason You Suck]] speech, and is basically responsible for her team being in a place to help Godzilla and Kong take down Mechagodzilla.]] At this point the girl deserves a medal for basically saving the world ''twice''.
* LoudOfWar: In ''King of the Monsters'', she tries to distract Ghidorah in order to save her father's and the Monarch top brass's lives by activating the ORCA and seemingly amplifying its bio-acoustic signal massively (based on how its pulses are much more rapid), an act which causes Ghidorah to outright scream in pain. It only works until the ORCA is turned off just before Ghidorah can try to shut the noise up himself.
* TheMeddlingKidsAreUseless: {{Subverted}} by her and the rest of Team Godzilla in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. Their investigation into Apex doesn't affect the plot and it merely serves as a plot device and P.O.V. for the audience to uncover Apex's true intentions. Until the battle against Mechagodzilla, where Bernie and Josh both being in the right place at the right time due to Madison bringing them along in her investigation ''was'' pivotal to Mechagodzilla's downfall [[spoiler:– if Josh and Bernie hadn't been there at that moment to short out Mechagodzilla's computer and cause it to briefly stall when it was in the middle of trying to kill Kong, then Mechagodzilla would have likely won]].
* TheMillstone: {{Justified}} [[spoiler:when she's on the villainous team]] in ''King of the Monsters''. [[spoiler:She's basically just being dragged along by a mother whom she initially wants to please; a mother who failed to do anything to properly condition Madison for the horrors they were going to partake in (much to Jonah's ire), meaning Madison is struck by horror at the atrocities she's complicit in by association, and she only ever takes an active part in what's happening when it's to the eco-terrorists' detriment]]. Madison uses the ORCA against her mother's and Jonah's demands in order to save her father and the Monarch brass's lives by disorienting Ghidorah, at the price of almost getting herself and all [[spoiler:the eco-terrorists]] shot out of the sky by the hydra; later on, Madison argues with her mother against [[spoiler:awakening another Titan]] while their time window to continue with the group's plan is rapidly closing.
* AMinorKidroduction: She makes her very first appearances as a nine-year-old girl in the opening flashback of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', and in the prequel graphic novel ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' which was released to promote the movie before its premiere. In the former, she expresses awe at the sight of Godzilla despite the destruction surrounding her, and in the latter, she has a moment of intelligent empathy for Godzilla when she recognizes that he's hurt; foreshadowing her sense of emotional connection to and positive view of the Protector Titans like Godzilla, and her ability to look deeper at them past the destruction their presences cause. The young Madison is also physically close to and being held/supervised by Emma, foreshadowing that she's closer to her mother in the ''King of the Monsters'' movie's present [[spoiler:at first, and that [[EvilAllAlong Emma]] has a [[AbusiveMom powerful emotional grip on Madison]]]].
* MissingChild: She's kidnapped by Alan Jonah and his mercenaries alongside her mother [[spoiler:(in reality, she was manipulated by her mother into going along with their plot willingly)]]. From there, Monarch's and [[IWillFindYou especially Mark]]'s objective is getting Madison and her mother back. After Emma [[spoiler:is revealed to be EvilAllAlong]], finding Madison alone becomes Mark's main focus, with the G-Team accompanying him into Boston to look for her and the ORCA.
* MouthyKid: She nonchalantly flips Jonah -- a murderous eco-terrorist who kidnapped her and her mother -- the bird, and isn't afraid to stand up to her mother. [[spoiler:She flat-out rhetorically asks Emma if Andrew, whose name she's dedicated her actions to, would be pleased knowing what Emma has done, which sends Emma into tearful introspection]]. In the novelization, after Jonah condescends Madison for [[spoiler:buying into a completely sugar-coated version of the eco-terrorists' plan which her mother told her]], she gives him this reply:
-->'''Madison:''' Bite me, dickhead!
* MustMakeAmends: The ''King of the Monsters'' novelization shows that after Madison has [[spoiler:completed her HeelRealization]], she's motivated by making up for her own part in helping [[spoiler:Emma]] and Jonah to unleash Ghidorah on the world and indirectly jump-start the global apocalypse when she steals the ORCA and [[spoiler:disrupts King Ghidorah's global Titan control]].
* NatureLover: She's had a fascination with nature and the outdoors (particularly the entomology of insects), not unlike her father's, since her childhood.
* NearDeathExperience: The novelization confirms she has one when [[spoiler:she's buried under debris while hiding in her home's bathtub before awakening. It also indicates Mothra's intervention is responsible for resuscitating her]].
* NiceMeanAndInbetween: She's firmly the Nice among the three Russells who survived San Francisco, possessing all the best traits and none of the worst traits of both her parents. She passionately and selflessly cares about other people as human beings (unlike her mom), and she lacks her father's bull-headed tendencies and his [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered streak]].
* NotNowKiddo: She's on the receiving end in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. She's pretty much [[HumansAreMorons the only person in the world besides Bernie]] who's not being selectively oblivious to the obvious pattern when Godzilla begins attacking population centers and concentrating the destruction on local Apex facilities, but Mark (and multiple other people in Monarch whom Madison tries to alert in the novelization) dismiss her out of hand.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: In the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization, she pulls the "innocent kid" act when caught by a {{Mook}} trying to steal the ORCA, [[spoiler:before she tazes him]].
* OhCrap:
** When she realizes [[spoiler:Ghidorah has zeroed in on her at Fenway Park]], all she can do is slowly turn around to see Ichi, Ni and San are [[spoiler:looking through the window ''right at her'']], and the middle head is visibly pissed. She promptly says "Oh shit!" and [[spoiler:makes a run for it]].
** The ''King of the Monsters'' novelization's version of Madison's first scene in the present shows that she's inwardly dismayed and cursing when Emma arrives in the kitchen, realizing that her mother is all the more likely to catch her trying to contact Mark given Emma's perception skills as a paleobiologist. Madison also inwardly curses in panic the moment she realizes her mother is about to risk going into an aggravated Mothra's chamber in an effort to calm the Titan down herself. [[spoiler:During the battle in Boston, she quickly realizes that she's in danger of being unwittingly stepped on and flees through the city in terror back to the only place she instinctively thinks of as safe: her childhood home]].
** In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', her face fills with horror and she says "Oh, my God!" when she comes across [[spoiler:Ghidorah's wired-up skull in Apex Cybernetics' headquarters]]. When Bernie promptly identifies the creature, Madison is visibly on the verge of dread-fueled tears, whispering the name of [[spoiler:the dreaded nightmare dragon which almost ended the world, tried to kill her, and caused her mother's death]].
* OhCrapSmile: Subverted in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization, when she's caught by one of Jonah's men. She puts on a sheepish, innocent smile to catch him off-guard [[spoiler:before she tazes him]].
* OnlySaneByComparison: She has shades of this amongst the three-man Team Godzilla in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. She's debatably the most intelligent of the trio, if one subtracts intelligence points from Bernie due to him being a hardcore ConspiracyTheorist and {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, despite him having more resources than Madison at the movie's start. She's also a lot more serious than the other two team-members, with their [[PluckyComicRelief comic relief tendencies]]. That being said, Madison still has no compunctions against going head-first into probable unknown danger if it'll get her closer to the answers she seeks; a trait she shares with Bernie, but the cautious Josh notably lacks, so ultimately this trope is PlayedWith between her and Josh.
* OnlySaneWoman: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', she's effectively this among her surviving family: between her father the cynical [[TragicBigot Titan-hater]] and her mother the [[spoiler:pro-Titan radical EcoTerrorist]], Madison is by far the most well-balanced and well-adjusted of the three surviving Russells. She lacks her father's [[HotBlooded hot-bloodedness]] and rage against the Titans, yet she's far more moral and empathetic than Emma when it comes to [[spoiler:bloodshed and sacrificing millions of innocent lives]]; and she's delighted by benevolent Titans such as Mothra, but she realizes far sooner than [[spoiler:her mother]] does that an awakened Ghidorah is bad news for humanity.
* ParentalNeglect: She was on the receiving end of this after her brother's death: her mother became a {{workaholic}}, while her father turned to drinking, divorced Emma and became estranged from Madison. It's hinted in ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' and outright stated in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization that the presence of Madison's HonoraryAunt Vivienne Graham was a source of stability for her during this period. Five years after Andrew's death, Madison and Mark have only sporadic contact[[note]]Described in the novelization[[/note]] (although it's subtly hinted, and further implied in a deleted scene and the novelization, that this is partly due to Emma trying to alienate Madison from her father out of spite), and even Emma is somewhat distant. It's revealed to be horrifically downplayed in Emma's case: she's been [[ToughLove giving Madison survival training]], trying to bond with her by letting her participate in Emma's Monarch work, and [[spoiler:she's indoctrinated Madison into her and Jonah's EcoTerrorist plot ''without'' doing anything to in any way give Madison the mental fortitude to expect and bear the plan's bloodshed; causing Madison to be traumatized when the plan starts, whilst Emma seems to take a very long time to twig the seriousness of this due to her mental instability]]. By the time of the FinalBattle, both of Madison's parents have come to regret the way they've treated their surviving child.
* PursuingParentalPerils: She's just as passionate about and drawn to Titans (particularly Godzilla and Mothra) as her mother [[spoiler:whilst having none of Emma's more... ''unsavory'' qualities]], despite Madison's brother [[spoiler:and mother]] being casualties of Titan attacks which she and her family got caught up in. In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', she's determined to do anything and everything she can to get stuck in and work out what's provoking Godzilla's attacks. This is a source of friction between Madison and [[FantasyForbiddingFather Mark]] in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', as Mark wants her to stay away from Monarch and the Titans partly ''because'' of the loved ones they've lost to the creatures.
* ReallyMovesAround: As noted on her Monarch Sciences profile, she's been moved around the world for most of her life due to her mother's job at Monarch before the events of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''. In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, it's stated that after Emma's death left Madison in Mark's custody, the latter's re-employment with Monarch led to them moving around the world, until Mark insisted on settling down in Pensacola a year before the main time frame.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Delivers an absolutely ''brutal'' one to her mother; calling her out for killing millions if not nearly causing the ''extinction of mankind'', all in the name of her deceased brother when she knew fully well Andrew wouldn't have wanted that and Emma was doing all this for her own delusional misguided reasons.
** Gives Walter Simmons the same, if briefer, treatment when she confronts him about building [[spoiler:Mechagodzilla]] as a weapon to protect humanity, when doing it so actually endangered it.
* RebelliousRebel: She ends up rebelling against a rebel group in ''King of the Monsters''. [[spoiler:She's been manipulated by Emma into joining her and Alan Jonah's anarchist plot to set the Titans loose on the world in the name of creating a utopia, but Madison becomes disgusted and disillusioned when she realizes just how happy Emma and Jonah are to murder billions of innocents, just how little control Emma really has, and just how dangerous the Titans are under [[OmnicidalManiac King Ghidorah]]'s control. It culminates in Madison betraying Jonah's faction by stealing the ORCA out from under their noses and slipping away after she overhears Jonah refusing to try and combat the threat of Ghidorah]].
* RebelliousSpirit: Somewhat downplayed. Madison is a consistent rule-breaker who doesn't care much for listening to authority if she doesn't agree with it. Her Monarch Sciences bio notes that she's committed more than one security violations while growing up in Monarch, she doesn't hesitate to defy Dr. Mancini by stealing his I.D. card and using it to access Mothra's inner sanctum when her mother is in danger, and she chafes the entire time she and Emma are around Alan Jonah despite the fact this is ''[[NightmareFuel Jonah]]'' we're talking about. To say nothing of [[spoiler:when Madison [[RebelliousRebel steals the ORCA from Jonah, her mother and the other eco-terrorists]] of her own initiative, nor]] when Madison rebels against Mark's [[MyBelovedSmother smothering]] shtick in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''; in order to do what's right both times.
* TheRunaway: Madison runs away with the ORCA from the Monarch bunker that Alan Jonah and his mercenaries are in by sneaking through the air ducts so that not even Emma can hear it.
%%* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: The Energetic Girl to Josh's Savvy Guy.
* SharedFamilyQuirks: A Daughter variation regarding both her parents. Despite being ''much'' less HotBlooded, egocentric and distrustful of the Titans and being more sound-minded than her father, Madison does share Mark's [[NatureLover love for outdoors field work]]. Compared to her mother, Madison is much more moral and compassionate with a far better sense of right and wrong, but the Monarch Sciences website reveals Madison does share her RebelliousSpirit with Emma. One thing Madison has inherited from both her parents (particularly her father) is a keen connection to the Titans.
* ShellShockedVeteran: The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization confirms that she has PTSD after her traumatic experiences at Outpost 61 and Boston during the events of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''.
* ShortTeensTallAdults: In ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' where the character is supposed to be a preteen (but is portrayed by the then mid-teenage Millie Bobby Brown), Madison is notably shorter than most of the adults around her including her mother, but only by half a head. Due to ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' and ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' being filmed back-to-back with each-other, Madison appears to be about the same height relative to adults in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' despite the narrative's TimeSkip meaning she's now seventeen.
* SinsOfOurFathers: A mild case in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, which mentions that her mother's infamous actions in ''King of the Monsters'' are one of the reasons why she's bullied and ostracized at school.
* SociallyAwkwardHero: Madison can summon up the courage to steal the ORCA single-handedly out from under the noses of murderous eco-terrorists, she can scream defiantly in Ghidorah's three faces [[spoiler:whilst Ghidorah is lazer-focused on murdering ''her'' specifically]], and she can get a high-schooler and a conspiracy theorist to help her break into Apex Cybernetics... but, as revealed in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, she can barely stand enduring the snickers, ostracism and ugly looks of kids in high school, not helped by the fact she was [[HomeschooledKids completely homeschooled]] for several years of her education before Mark decided the best way to get her social skills refined was by throwing her in the deep end and making her stick to it.
* StressVomit: The novelization mentions she had one offscreen in response to seeing the massacre's aftermath at Mothra's temple.
* StrictParentsMakeSneakyKids: Both of Madison's parents have proven to be restrictive with her in their own ways: Emma tried to restrict her security access within Monarch [[spoiler:and even worse she brainwashed Madison into blindly serving her EcoTerrorist agenda without question]], whilst Mark after gaining custody of her has been a [[MyBelovedSmother helicopter parent]] who refuses to have any trust or faith in her (''especially' in the novelization, where he [[PsychologicalProjection projects his own]] [[SecretlySelfish wants in life]] onto her and refuses to communicate mutually with her). Not only has this failed to temper Madison's [[RebelliousSpirit independent streak]] in any way, but it's taught Madison to go behind either parent's back when she needs to, and she has a knack for this: successfully stealing the ORCA and escaping without Emma knowing what's happened until Madison is far away, and rebelling against Mark's efforts to keep her at home and under watch by convincing Josh to steal his brother's truck so she can sneak out with it and investigate [[EvilInc Apex Cybernetics]].
* StrongFamilyResemblance: She technically looks like her mother, Emma Russell. Due to their similar hair shapes. The only difference being that Madison's hair has darker shades.
* TagalongKid:
** Due to her LimitedSocialCircle when growing up as a homeschooled Monarch kid and forming friendships with her mother's co-workers, and also due to being a ChildProdigy; Madison was essentially a tagalong kid to Monarch in the years before the events of ''King of the Monsters''
** After she and her mother are kidnapped by Jonah – [[spoiler:actually, Emma and a manipulated Madison were both in on Jonah's plan and being "picked up"]] – she gets pulled along with Emma, Jonah, and the latter's paramilitary troops as they go around the world to free the Titans. More than that, [[spoiler:due to Madison's mother indoctrinating her into the plan yet doing absolutely nothing to mentally condition her to deal with the horrible side of it]], Madison deliberately makes herself TheLoad among the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]] while trying to sabotage some of their worst acts (snatching the ORCA and nearly getting the Osprey they're all on shot out of the sky by Ghidorah in a desperate effort to save her father, and trying to stop [[spoiler:her mother]] from releasing Rodan while there's people in danger); much to Jonah's ire, although he's forced to keep lagging Madison around in order to maintain Emma's cooperation, [[spoiler:until Madison bails]].
* TimeShiftedActor: Creator/MillieBobbyBrown is her main actress, but Creator/AlexandraRabe portrays her child self in ''King of the Monsters''.
* TokenGoodTeammate: She ends up being this among [[spoiler:Jonah's paramilitary. A deleted scene which depicts Jonah and several mercs [[VillainsOutShopping watching Madison's kickboxing lessons]] seems to indicate the organization officially consider Madison one of them. Yet she's expressly horrified and disgusted by all the slaughter that Jonah and his mercenaries commit and by Emma's willing complicitness in it. Jonah for his part seems to be quite annoyed (particularly in the novelization) that he has to drag around a [[TheLoad conscientious liability]] in order to maintain Emma's cooperation]]. It ends with Madison jumping ship on the organization.
* {{Tomboy}}: Specifically an Effeminate Tomboy. She's scientific-minded, she swears a lot, and she has very few known traits that would be traditionally considered "girly".
* TomboyishName: She's overall quite a {{tomboy}}, and the name Madison is technically a unisex name which originally means "son of Matthew".
* TraumaButton: In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', when Team Godzilla first see Number Ten emerging, if one looks closely, Madison temporarily freezes up whilst Bernie and Josh are already running for their lives. The novelization confirms the movie's hint that the sight of the Skullcrawler triggered Madison's PTSD, causing her mind to briefly go back to her nightmarish encounter with King Ghidorah at Fenway Park.
* TwoFirstNames: An American hero in an American ''Godzilla'' movie, whose last name is also traditionally a first name.
* WellDoneDaughterGirl: It's implied in ''King of the Monsters'' that a desire to please is part of the reason why Madison went along with her mother's plan for the ORCA [[spoiler:and has been so easily manipulated by Emma until the bodies start dropping]] – the novelization outright confirms it, saying that Madison felt she needed to please both her parents after Andrew's death, then that she had to please her mother after Mark left them. [[spoiler:It rapidly goes away as Madison rapidly realizes just how far her mother has fallen and that Emma doesn't know nearly as much about what they're doing as Madison thought she did, CallingTheOldWomanOut and turning her back on her]].
* WhatIsGoingOn: In the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization, she asks her father this question over the cellphone when he calls her cellphone and orders her to prepare to be picked up and have an overnight stay. He doesn't give her a straight answer to the question, and Madison finds out herself when we next see her that Godzilla is lashing out.
* WhatTheHellHero: Early on in ''Godzilla vs Kong'', she doesn't hesitate to [[CallingTheOldManOut call her father out]], for just jumping out of hand to the conclusion that Godzilla's attacks mean he's turned against humanity without ''any'' evidence and without even trying to find a cause, insisting there has to be a cause after what they both saw of Godzilla's heroic actions during the events of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''.
* WideEyedIdealist: At the start of ''King of the Monsters'', she admires the Titans, but her mother has only given her exposure to highly-benevolent ones such as Mothra, and she furthermore sugarcoated the other Titans' temperaments [[spoiler:while indoctrinating Madison into the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]]' plan]]. As a result, Madison initially doesn't think there'll be much of a problem with the other Titans awakening. She rapidly begins realizing how wrong she was when she has her first encounter with a hostile Titan, specifically the evilest Titan of them all: just ''seeing'' Ghidorah when he rises, and witnessing the carnage he quickly inflicts out of pure malice and hatred, makes Madison realize that some of the Titans might not be nearly as nice as Emma led her to believe.
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Despite frequently being on the receiving end of the JustAKid trope, Madison in both her movie appearances has displayed courage, ingenuity and independence that goes well beyond her age (she's only twelve years old in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' and seventeen in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''), and it's implied in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' that her [[ShellShockedVeteran traumatic experiences]] have increased her toughness and resolve. Her capabilities, intelligence and strength of character have enabled her to work her way around Alan Jonah's paramilitary [[spoiler:and escape their base, ''on foot'', with one of their most prized assets in hand]], and they've also enabled her to succeed where adult so-called professionals around the world failed at catching onto Apex Cybernetics' [[spoiler:role in Godzilla's rampage]]. That being said, Madison still displays signs of her true age at times: in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', she shows slight JumpedAtTheCall tendencies, and her close brush with death by Ghidorah's Gravity Beams [[SociallyAwkwardHero isn't enough to stop her feeling anxious of school bullies]] in the novelization.
* YouMonster: After Emma makes the call to [[spoiler:awaken Rodan]] in spite of Madison's protests, which escalates into [[spoiler:Ghidorah forcing Rodan into submission, Godzilla accidentally being taken out by the military's Oxygen Destroyer missile, and the other Titans awakening to go on the rampage at Ghidorah's command]]; Madison hits her mother with this.

[[folder:Andrew Russell]]
!!Andrew Russell
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/TylerCrumley
!!!'''Appears In:''' ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]''

Mark and Emma's son, and Madison's older brother. He died amidst Godzilla and the [=MUTOs'=] San Francisco battle in 2014.
----
* CensoredChildDeath: When he dies amidst the destruction of San Francisco, we never see his death nor his body, we just see Mark desperately searching the rubble and yelling out his name; although the novelization explicitly confirms that Mark found Andrew's body offscreen.
* DeathByOriginStory: His death five years before the events of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' is the source of both his parents' angst in the movie. Because of his death, Mark became an embittered [[TragicBigot Titan-hater]] with a grudge against Godzilla in particular, whilst Emma [[spoiler:made a FaceHeelTurn and blamed humanity for causing the Titans' rising which led to Andrew's death in the first place, becoming an EcoTerrorist who betrayed all of Monarch]].
* NeverFoundTheBody: {{Implied}} in the movie and a deleted scene, where it's never shown nor mentioned if the Russells found Andrew's body even in flashback. The novelization however confirms that Mark did eventually find Andrew's body crushed under rubble.
* PlotTriggeringDeath: His death basically sets up the events of the entire movie by causing [[spoiler:his mother's FaceHeelTurn, which leads to her releasing Ghidorah; the true BigBad of the movie]].
* PosthumousCharacter: He died before the start of ''King of the Monsters'' in [[Film/Godzilla2014 the Battle of San Francisco]], but he has a major effect on the plot and on both his parents. He only appears in photos and a family video.
* PreciousPhoto: Photos of him with his family are seen at different points in the movie, a reminder of his lingering influence on the choices they make coming to terms with his absence. [[spoiler: It takes Madison shattering the photo on her tablet to make Emma realize how much she's destroyed her family]].
[[/folder]]