| 1 | '''[[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerse Main Character Index]]-]]]''' |
| 2 | '''[[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseKaiju Kaiju]]-]]]''' |
| 3 | '''[[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseGodzilla Godzilla]] | 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]]-]]]''' |
| 4 | \ |
| 5 | '''[[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseHumans Humans]]-]]]''' |
| 6 | ''' [[center:[-[[Characters/MonsterVerseFamilies Families]] ([[Characters/MonsterVerseRussellFamily Russell Family]]) | [[Characters/MonsterVerseMonarch Monarch]] ([[Characters/MonsterVerseIshiroSerizawa Dr. Ishirō Serizawa]]) | [[Characters/MonsterVerseUSGovernmentAndMilitary U.S. Government & Military]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseSkullIslandExpedition Skull Island Expeditions]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseEcoTerrorists Eco-Terrorists]] | [[Characters/MonsterVerseApexCybernetics Apex Cybernetics]]-]]]''' |
| 7 | |
| 8 | ---- |
| 9 | !King Ghidorah, "The One Who is Many" / Monster Zero |
| 10 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/godzilla_king_of_the_monsters___ghidorah_poster___clear_keyart.jpg]] |
| 11 | [[caption-width-right:350:''Bow down... and worship the Golden Demise.'' (L-R: Ni, Ichi, San/"Kevin")]] |
| 12 | !!!'''Portrayed By:''' Jason Liles (Center Head), Alan Maxson (Right Head), Richard Dorton (Left Head) |
| 13 | !!!'''Appears In:''' ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' (cameo) | ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' (tie-in comics - cameo) | ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' | ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' (skull) |
| 14 | !!!'''Species:''' Gargantuan flying three-headed electric reptile | "Titanus Ghidorah" |
| 15 | ->''"The Devil has three heads."'' |
| 16 | -->--'''Dr. Vivienne Graham''''s field notes |
| 17 | |
| 18 | A gigantic, three-headed, dragon-like daikaiju which Monarch found frozen in Antarctica and initially refers to as "Monster Zero". He's known to have a special kind of enmity with Godzilla himself as a potential rival Alpha, battling Godzilla to usurp the latter's dominance over the lesser Titans. But unlike Godzilla, Ghidorah displays true malice, and his rule is a complete disruption of the natural order which Godzilla normally maintains. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Ghidorah is an ancient monstrosity dating so far back that countless legends have been made based on his physical appearance. Though his name is mostly lost to the ages, never spoken as though to deliberately wipe any trace of his existence clean from history, he is described by Monarch as a "living extinction event," assured to cause massive destruction in his wake from simply existing. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | His wings' extreme turbulence combined with his bio-electricity causes hurricane-sized thunderstorms to form around him wherever he goes. That, coupled with his gargantuan size, and his ability to control lightning, makes Ghidorah a destructive and chaotic force that will surely cause the collapse of human civilization if left alone. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | Each of Ghidorah's three heads -- Ichi (middle head), Ni (right head), and San (or Kevin; left head) -- have a distinct personality. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | For the Toho versions of Ghidorah, see [[Characters/GodzillaTheGhidorahs here]]. |
| 27 | ---- |
| 28 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 29 | |
| 30 | !!Tropes applying generally |
| 31 | %% |
| 32 | %%Any trope entries applying to Mechagodzilla or to the Ghidorah skull belong under the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' spoilers folder |
| 33 | %% |
| 34 | [[folder:A-D]] |
| 35 | * AdaptationalAbomination: In the original ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' continuity of the Showa films, Ghidorah was established as a civilization-destroying world eater from the depths of space, but when he became Godzilla's most frequently-recurring enemy, VillainDecay set in pretty hard, and even his first film has a pretty light and campy tone. Most of the Japanese films since played him as just another kaiju, albeit one of the franchise's more iconic villains. With this version of Ghidorah, [[spoiler:his alien biology defying the known laws of science is emphasized]]; his threat level is returned to a truly global scale, with his capacity to rival Godzilla and malevolent intentions for the Earth; and he's given a folkloric backstory as TheDreaded tormentor of ancient civilizations. |
| 36 | * AdaptationalBadass: |
| 37 | ** King Ghidorah has usually been a major threat in the past Godzilla movies. But after his first Showa movie, VillainDecay kicked in, with him [[DemotedToDragon repeatedly being used by other alien races as a mind-controlled pawn]]. Heisei King Ghidorah had no difficulty fighting the newly nuclear-powered Godzilla, but only with the Futurians directing him in battle. GMK Ghidorah was practically the weakest version of them all, being easily beaten by Godzilla even after getting the last-minute powerup. However, this incarnation not only defeats Godzilla three times (whereas not a single other version has beaten Godzilla), but he also [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomps Rodan]], has a HealingFactor, can call upon and dominate other Titans to make them do his bidding, and drops the original's cowardice in favor of even more sadism. The ''only'' time Godzilla is able to get the advantage on him one on one is when they're underwater and he has a HomefieldAdvantage. Even then [[spoiler:Ghidorah {{No Sell}}s the Oxygen Destroyer and wins again]]. |
| 38 | ** Even scarier is the fact that Ghidorah wins his fights by analyzing his foes and adjusting his tactics to fight them. Closer inspection of the first fight shows Godzilla choke slamming Ghidorah and grabbing his side heads. Ghidorah's reaction? Use his wings to create a gap between them where his covering fire and longer reach allow him to attack Godzilla from relative safety. Ghidorah effectively used the rock-paper-scissors theory from professional boxing to hold his own against Godzilla. In the first fight, he even learns to dodge the atomic breath and defeats Godzilla by blasting him with all three heads at the same time knocking Godzilla into the hole Ghidorah came out of. Unfortunately for Ghidorah, the second fight has Godzilla employ a sneak attack to allow him to secure a solid grip on Ghidorah, denying the dragon his reach or maneuverability, allowing Godzilla to dismember him with such ferocity that Ghidorah's [[http://gozilabo.com/archives/38272683.html fate is sealed]]... until a certain missile arrives, nearly killing Godzilla but doing nothing to Ghidorah. In the third fight, Ghidorah defeats a supercharged Godzilla by feeding on an active city-wide power grid to supercharge himself, outsmarting and beating Godzilla a third time. |
| 39 | ** Ghidorah is shown in his third fight with Godzilla to turn the latter's own grappling and slamming techniques on him, further enhancing them with his wings to allow him to completely lift his opponent off the ground. |
| 40 | ** In the [[Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster original incarnation]] and the [[Film/GodzillaVsKingGhidorah Heisei incarnation]] both, Ghidorah losing ''one'' of his three heads was more or less a mortal blow, prompting him to immediately flee the battle and wait inbetween movies to recover (if he wasn't killed mid-retreat). That is ''not'' the case with the Three-Headed Devil of the [=MonsterVerse=]: not only does he barely seem to notice after Godzilla has ripped off one of his heads, but unlike the Showa and Heisei Ghidorah's, he has a powerful HealingFactor which enables him to ''completely'' bounce back from losing a head within ''minutes'', none worse for wear, and then the conflict against him for the fate of the world resumes. [[spoiler:In fact, unlike the previous iterations of Ghidorah, the climax of ''King of the Monsters'' reveals that this version still remains alive when there's ''nothing left of him'' except his dominant middle head and a neck stump, implying that Ghidorah could furthermore regenerate ''his entire body'' from just a severed middle head if he was given enough time and regeneration-fueling radiation]]. |
| 41 | ** While all King Ghidorah incarnations are capable of destroying all life on a planet, most of them have to spend their time doing it via the typical kaiju destruction. While this Ghidorah does his share of that, his storm generation, according to the novel, enables him to blanket the Earth in a never-ending hurricane that will destroy all life on Earth in short order. |
| 42 | ** He's also the first incarnation to not only be the main antagonist of multiple films but not suffer any VillainDecay between them. Notably, the [[EcoTerrorist eco-terrorists]] are completely unable to control him with the ORCA in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'', and [[spoiler:even when Apex Cybernetics try to posthumously turn Ghidorah into their puppet by using his telepathic skull as a Mechagodzilla control mechanism, Ghidorah's lingering consciousness takes over the system and annihilates Apex]], in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. |
| 43 | * AdaptationDyeJob: For his Toho film appearances, whenever he's received lethal injuries from other kaiju such as Godzilla or Anguirus, his blood was colored red, which is similar to the many organisms of Earth. [[spoiler: To highly show off how completely alien this depiction of King Ghidorah is,]] he bleeds out an oily black liquid when [[spoiler: Godzilla tears off San's head with his jaws, as his blood spills and oozes out of his neck.]] |
| 44 | * AdaptationalIntelligence: One of the things that set this particular King Ghidorah apart from his predecessors: he's extremely intelligent by kaiju standards. Not only does he show extreme intelligence in combat, unlike previous versions whose strategy to destroy the Earth was 'spam gravity beams until everything is dead' or were being controlled by the invaders via mind control, but this Ghidorah also has an actual plan [[spoiler:and is leading the invasion himself.]] |
| 45 | * AdaptationAmalgamation: He mashes up traits from every incarnation of Ghidorah that came before him. |
| 46 | ** His roar is a combination of the original Showa cackle with a little of the Heisei shriek and Millennium echoic laugh. He's an AxCrazy [[spoiler:evil space alien]] like the original Showa King Ghidorah, with a sadistic streak a mile wide. |
| 47 | ** Like the Heisei King Ghidorah, he is ''gigantic'' and towers over Godzilla, with the Heisei incarnation's [[TwoBeingsOneBody Three Beings, One Body]] origin being reimagined as the [=MonsterVerse=] incarnation's MultipleHeadCase, and he has a set of horns on each side of his heads. |
| 48 | ** And he has the wing lightning abilities and HealingFactor of the ''Film/RebirthOfMothra3'' King Ghidorah. |
| 49 | ** Like the Millennium King Ghidorah, he's found frozen in ice and can fold his wings out of the way when not using them. He has Keizer Ghidorah's VampiricDraining bite and Death Ghidorah's ability to absorb energy, albeit this time it is electricity. |
| 50 | ** Lastly, like the Anime King Ghidorah a year prior, he can manipulate storms and weather upon his arrival. He seems to have some control over the lightning in question. During their first on-screen battle, Godzilla is hit by a golden lightning bolt from an angle Ghidorah couldn't have spat out of his mouths. |
| 51 | * AgeLift: Judging by TheStinger of ''Kong: Skull Island'', Ghidorah is also a lot older than his Toho counterparts. The original movie involving Ghidorah mentioned that he was over 5,000 years old, and his ''Rebirth of Mothra'' incarnation was 65 million years old, but based on Godzilla's own AgeLift and the fact that the two have already fought at some point in ancient history -- coupled with [[spoiler:the uncertainty of how long he'd already lived before he first came to Earth, or how long the journey here might have realistically taken him without FTL]] -- he's most likely '''[[TimeAbyss significantly]]''' older here. |
| 52 | * AlienBlood: Ghidorah has black blood that in the novelization is described as being similar to oil. |
| 53 | * AlienInvasion: Legends indicate [[spoiler:he fell to Earth from outer space, which also means he exists outside Earth's natural order of Titans, and he's likened to [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity an invasive species whose presence harms the ecosystem]]]]. Upon temporarily succeeding in usurping Godzilla as the dominant Alpha Titan, Ghidorah commands the other Titans on Earth to tear down humanity's cities and wreak total destruction on the planet's biosphere, with Dr. Stanton speculating that his goal is [[HostileTerraforming destructively xenoforming the Earth to suit himself]]. [[spoiler:Notable in that while past King Ghidorah incarnations have been part of alien invasions, this incarnation is actually ''leading'' the invasion]]. |
| 54 | * AliensAreBastards: [[spoiler:The first extraterrestrial creature featured in the [=MonsterVerse=]]], and the first giant monster who crosses the line between being an aggressive predator and outright evil. |
| 55 | * AllegoricalCharacter: As [[https://azdoine.tumblr.com/post/185717418822/ described by this Tumblr user]], in line with the GreenAesop theme of ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' and how the Titans come into it, Ghidorah is essentially reimagined as a ClimateChangeAllegory. It's also worth noting that Ghidorah's unquenchable desire for domination over the Titans (nature) is comparable to humanity's own attitude toward the rest of the animal kingdom which manmade GlobalWarming is a product of. The ''King of the Monsters'' {{novelization}} specifically compares Ghidorah's extinction event-creating process to Global Warming but ''massively'' sped up. |
| 56 | * AllThereInTheManual: Ghidorah's heads do not receive individual names in the film; the designations Ichi, Ni, and San and/or Kevin are production nicknames. |
| 57 | * AllWebbedUp: Ichi, Ni, and San/Kevin basically became outright glued to the side of a building after Mothra swooped behind him and ejected net-like silk from her mouth that left all 3 of his heads momentarily trapped within it. While Ni was able to get himself out rather quickly, his brothers were still tangled by the webbing and attempted to get them loose by pulling it apart... Godzilla, who suddenly appears behind Ni after spotting his reflection, "frees" them as he barrages King Ghidorah's body by destroying the very building he was formerly stuck against. |
| 58 | * AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: Of all the tiny primates' cities he could take up residence in when he [[spoiler:becomes king]], the one he chooses just happens to be the capital of the United States -- when he was on the other hemisphere's America no less. |
| 59 | * AncientAstronauts: [[spoiler:Ghidorah is extraterrestrial in origin. How he got here is unknown, but he arrived on Earth during the last Age of the Titans, where humans viewed him as a cataclysm and the Titans saw him as a potential Alpha. His biology is vastly different from theirs and he's trying to remake the planet into the perfect habitat for himself]]. |
| 60 | * AncientEvil: He's been around since at least ancient human history (and he's likely much, ''much'' older than that due to his [[spoiler:extraterrestrial origin]] coupled with the [=MonsterVerse's=] comparatively realism-grounded tone among most of the ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' continuities), and he's one of the select few Titans who is consciously evil and malicious on top of being a global threat to all life as we know it. Little information on Ghidorah from before modern times remains due to him being the {{Unperson}}, with Drs. Chen and Serizawa commenting that it's as if the ancient peoples who witnessed Ghidorah were ''deliberately'' trying to erase him from memory because they were so horrified by him. |
| 61 | * AnimalMotifs: Despite his [[DraconicAbomination overall appearance]], the more that is known and seen about Ghidorah, the more he brings to mind an ''octopus'' of all things. Whilst he may not have the exact same number of body extensions as they do, he has enough to bring to mind their numerous tentacles. His neurons are scattered throughout his body like an octopus, enabling a genetic memory to persist even when his heads are destroyed, and said head can regenerate like new, just like an octopus can with their tentacles. The heads can also act semi-independently, which again is something octopi tentacles can do thanks to the scattered neurons as part of their means of checking out their surroundings; San/Kevin's curiosity brings this to mind and another of Ghidorah's heads acts independently to get the whole being an electrical boost in power. Octopi are also remarkably intelligent animals - with Ghidorah possessing a wicked sentience compared to the other simply animalistic Titans - and regarded as one of the most bizarre species in the world - Ghidorah's [[spoiler: status as an alien works as a parallel to this, as he completely violates biological laws.]] Finally, Ghidorah was the inspiration for various draconian myths, such as Yamata-no-Orochi - the '''eight''' headed serpent. |
| 62 | * AnimalTalk: Can hear and understand the ORCA's bioacoustic messages like the other Titans (though he [[ThereCanOnlyBeOne never responds positively]]). Besides that, Ni (the right head) chirps something to Ichi (the middle head), which puts a SlasherSmile on the latter head, before they all proceed to blast the G-Team to ashes. He can also utilize the Titans' whale-like reliance on complex bio-acoustic communication (which also applies to him) to take command of the Earth's non-Alpha Titans and direct them to help him destroy the planet. |
| 63 | * TheAntiGod: While he is obviously a SatanicArchetype, he's this as well. Rather than being a former servant that went rogue, he is an equal and superior opposite force to Godzilla, a false king that could easily destroy everything and reshape it to his liking. |
| 64 | * ArchEnemy: To Godzilla. The press release for the film even refers to him as Godzilla's nemesis and the film itself describes him as a 'rival Alpha to Godzilla.' On the short ORCA communication video, he's labeled as Godzilla's Ultimate Nemesis. In the film proper, he and Godzilla oppose each other multiple times and Godzilla goes out of his way to kill Ghidorah when he senses the dragon has reawakened. Unlike the [=MUTOs=], the two's expressions and body language during these moments make it clear they genuinely despise each other, proving once again, no matter the reality, Godzilla and Ghidorah will ''always'' remain bitter enemies. |
| 65 | ** Of note is just how Ghidorah chooses to engage Godzilla. Does he use the natural advantage of flight, as he did during his duel with Rodan? No, he chooses to brawl at close range on the ground with Godzilla, fighting and overpowering his enemy on their own terms. He wants to get in close, and he wants to show that even without one of his greatest abilities, he's stronger. |
| 66 | * ArmlessBiped: Averted this time. Ghidorah's wings are essentially his forelimbs, which he uses to walk on the ground wyvern-style. But in homage to his original design, when Ghidorah stands upright and spreads his wings, he looks like he has no arms. |
| 67 | * AxCrazy: Unlike almost all other Titans, Ghidorah goes out of his way to slaughter any humans he sees (with a SlasherSmile or two on his heads) without any kind of provocation; contrasting how other Titans -- even the truly destructive [=MUTOs=] and Skullcrawlers -- only cause harm to humans due to HorrorHunger, territorialism, or the humans actively provoking them. The novelization explicitly states that unlike any other animal Mark Russell has encountered, Ghidorah lives for killing, and at another point speculates on Ghidorah's nature thusly: |
| 68 | -->''Maybe he was a god - but there was nothing that said a god had to be sane.'' |
| 69 | * BeamSpam: Pulls this off as a MultiDirectionalBarrage with devastating effect in Boston after chomping on a transformer; firing lightning-bolts in all directions which singe and beat back Godzilla, and single-handedly obliterate the majority of the considerably numerous aircraft in the skies. |
| 70 | * BeastOfTheApocalypse: Literally. Is implied that Ghidorah inspired the Christian Beast of the apocalypse, as well as Satan himself. And indeed, his intention is to terraform Earth after his liking and command the other Titans. |
| 71 | * BeenThereShapedHistory: Given how many stories and artworks featuring dragons have been traced to Ghidora's legend, it's implied the beast was the inspiration behind the idea of dragons. |
| 72 | * BerserkButton: Hearing the ORCA's signal always drives him to chase down whatever's emitting it with murderous intent until the signal stops (and even if you live just beyond the moment he destroys the speakers, he might still kill you anyway). |
| 73 | * BewareMyStingerTail: Very much {{downplayed|Trope}}. He has sharp, flexing spines along the clubbed ends of his tails, but he never really uses them offensively (at least not on purpose). Whenever his tails knock over something, it's often unintentional on his part. |
| 74 | * BigBad: He's Godzilla's main opponent for ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters''. While [[BigBadEnsemble sharing the spot of the main villain]] with the human antagonist, Alan Jonah, Ghidorah quickly becomes the biggest threat as he awakens many other kaiju and intends to terraform the Earth into a suitable habitat for himself. Notably, this is the first time since his original appearance that King Ghidorah has been the BigBad of a Godzilla film rather than just TheHeavy. [[spoiler:And he continues to maintain this role into ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' by being made into [[EvilDoppelganger Mechagodzilla]] after regaining his sentience.]] |
| 75 | * BigBadEnsemble: While Ghidorah shares the BigBad role with Alan Jonah, they're technically against each other. Jonah, [[spoiler:Dr. Emma Russell]], and Jonah's men intend to take control of Ghidorah, but he can't be controlled by the ORCA and has plans of his own. Poetically, [[spoiler:Emma]]'s realization that Ghidorah is much more dangerous than they thought he was and that his continued victory will spell the opposite of their own end-goals causes her and Jonah's BigBadDuumvirate to break apart. |
| 76 | * BigEntrance: His awakening has him emerging from a pit filled with howling wind, fog and lightning-flashes surrounded by fiery-looking light, while thunder crashes and lightning flashes in the sky ''in Antarctica''. There's also his arrival in Boston where he's heralded by his ominous unnatural storm billowing lightning-filled mist between the buildings, and him shaking Fenway Park when he himself physically appears. |
| 77 | * BizarreAlienBiology: [[spoiler:''Literally'', in this case]]. Stanton remarks that Ghidorah's HealingFactor "violates everything we know about the natural order", especially compared to creatures like Godzilla (who also possesses a healing factor, though it can take years to finish its work depending on the severity of his injuries). It's all but stated in the text that this trope is why Ghidorah was able to NoSell [[spoiler:the Oxygen Destroyer, as he presumably doesn't require oxygen to survive like the other Titans]]. Although Ghidorah's [[https://www.monarchsciences.com/ Monarch Sciences profile]] indicate there's a brain in each of Ghidorah's heads like with a one-headed terrestrial organism, [[https://twitter.com/Mike_Dougherty/status/1136281731349323776 Mike Dougherty]] states most of his neurons are scattered throughout his entire body and limbs like an octopus, which enables his heads to recover their memories and personalities if they're lost and then regenerate. What's more, [[spoiler:one of Ghidorah's severed heads when it's decomposed to just a skull still retains the heads' {{telepathy}}, and it also retains a SoulFragment of the three-headed dragon's consciousness/es, with the ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' novelization outright stating that the skull's bone matter is an integral component of Ghidorah's consciousness rather than just being a casing for the brain matter]]. |
| 78 | * BodyHorror: Ghidorah regenerating his severed head is not a pretty sight. The stump of the neck basically sprouts a cancerous-looking mass at its end, and the first organ to develop in the growing mass is its ''tongue.'' After Ichi tears off the membranous sac protecting the regrowing mass, jaws form around the tongue, followed by a skull, and finally fleshy tendrils wrap all around it to fully reconstruct the head. Oh, and the head starts regenerating ''upside-down'' before snapping around into place. |
| 79 | * BondVillainStupidity: {{Downplayed}}. When he had Godzilla downed in Boston, the smartest thing might've been to break Godzilla's neck with his jaws and then drain the excess radiation from his corpse, what with how Godzilla is the only Titan able to oppose Ghidorah's rule and has proven very difficult to get rid of. |
| 80 | * BreathWeapon: His signature Gravity Beams, bolts of yellow lightning fired from his jaws. The cave painting shows Ghidorah and Godzilla locked in a BeamOWar, and an ancient Sumerian carving depicts it firing beams of lightning at a group of warriors. |
| 81 | * BrightIsNotGood: Has a bright gold color scheme, and he's one of the evilest characters if not ''the'' evilest in the whole of the [=MonsterVerse=]. |
| 82 | * BringIt: When [[ItsPersonal Ghidorah and Godzilla]] see each-other for the first time since Ghidorah went into the ice, Ghidorah tries to make himself look big and intimidating (despite the Kevin head's lone anxieties) just before they square off: the hydra stands up tall on his hind legs, spreads his wings wide and arches his necks like cobras while roaring. [[https://twitter.com/GodzillaMovie/status/1253484408704655363 The director]] commented that his intention was for Ghidorah to look blusterous and defiant in the face of his renewed war against Godzilla. |
| 83 | * CameFromTheSky: {{Implied}}. Ancient legends say that he "fell from [[spoiler:the stars" (which leads Monarch to conclude that he's actually an alien lifeform based upon this and other evidence); indicating that ancient humans saw Ghidorah falling to Earth like a meteorite]]. |
| 84 | * TheCameo: |
| 85 | ** Makes an EarlyBirdCameo via cave painting in the post-credits scene of ''Skull Island''. |
| 86 | ** [[spoiler:The golden hydra makes a minor appearance scanned by a monitor in ''Godzilla: Aftershock''.]] |
| 87 | * CharacterDevelopment: ''Surprisingly''. When Ghidorah first wakes up in Antarctica, the left head looks at their environment almost in awe and takes a curiosity towards the humans that are trying to attack him -- all three heads even take time investigating and cruelly toying with the human-filled Osprey nearby. After Antarctica, none of the heads show much interest in humans beyond obliterating them [[ForTheEvulz for the fun of it]]. See the heads' folder for more details. |
| 88 | * ChokeHolds: His 3 heads all have elongated serpent-like necks that can also be used for a brutal strangulation. Ni, at one point, attempted to choke Godzilla, only to get blasted away by his Atomic Breath along with Ichi and Kevin. [[spoiler: One of his head are seen coiling his entire neck around Godzilla's by choking the living daylights out of him while being carried into the sky to be dropped into the city of Boston with a nearly fatal plummet.]] Right after [[spoiler: killing Mothra]], '''all''' of his heads proceeded to wrap their necks around Godzilla's body, just so they can drain his empowered radiation [[spoiler: after her ashes were absorbed into him.]] |
| 89 | * ClipItsWings: The first thing Godzilla does to Ghidorah after gaining his SuperMode is unleash a thermonuclear pulse that eradicates Ghidorah's wings. No wings = no flight = no methods of escaping = Ghidorah is screwed. |
| 90 | * ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: Averted. At first, Monarch calls him [[MythologyGag Monster Zero]]. Then ancient texts call him Ghidorah. This shortened form of his name is the one that sticks, although the military refers to him as King Ghidorah when he's [[spoiler:controlling all the Titans from in Washington D.C.]]. |
| 91 | %% |
| 92 | %%See AdaptationAmalgamation for traits shared with other Ghidorah incarnations -- do not list CompositeCharacter for that |
| 93 | %% |
| 94 | * ConflictKiller: Once Ghidorah [[TyrantTakesTheHelm usurps Godzilla's dominance]] and directs the subordinate Titans to begin ravaging the planet, it leads to pretty much everyone else who was formerly at odds throughout the movie (with the exceptions of [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Alan Jonah]] and his troops) working together to take their planet back from King Ghidorah: Monarch, ''all four branches'' of the U.S. military (whom were formerly opposed to Monarch and their pro-Godzilla stance), Godzilla, Mothra, all three of the divided Russell family (with Mark Russell putting his rage against Godzilla behind him, and with Emma Russell [[spoiler:outright making a HeelFaceTurn after realizing how dangerous Ghidorah is to the planet]]). |
| 95 | * ContrastingSequelAntagonist: |
| 96 | ** In both the previous two films, the [=MUTOs=] and the Skull Devil were ferocious and an ultimately apocalyptic threat, but they were still animals following their instincts to survive, and they were primarily associated with the earth and underground; furthermore, in both cases, they mostly match the AntiHero Kaiju in a fight due to superior numbers rather than individual superiority. By contrast, Ghidorah is an actively malicious OmnicidalManiac whose behavior defies nature as we know it and indicates he's truly evil, he's a GiantFlyer associated with the air and storms, and in Ghidorah's case it's ''Godzilla'' who implicitly needs a second kaiju's back-up or a HomeFieldAdvantage to get one up on Ghidorah. |
| 97 | *** The [=MUTOs=] in the [=MonsterVerse's=] previous Godzilla-centric movie, ''Film/Godzilla2014'', were [[DarkIsEvil dark-colored]], insectoid [[NonMaliciousMonster non-malicious monsters]] and a BattleCouple that threatened the Earth by virtue of being dai{{kaiju}} ExplosiveBreeders, had no interest in other Titans so long as they didn't come to challenge them, they were young and newborn by Titans' standards (with their adult forms having only just been born when they emerge in the movie's present time frame); and the [=MUTOs=] cared little to nothing for humanity, whom were in the [=MUTOs'=] eyes just a pest that was in their way. Ghidorah is a serpentine, reptilian, [[LightIsNotGood bright-golden]] monster with a MultipleHeadCase, who threatens Earth by virtue of actively seeking to take control of the other Titans around the world and deliberately engulf the planet in global [[NaturalDisasterCascade natural disasters]], storm systems and Titan rampages, either to [[HostileTerraforming xenoform the Earth to his own liking]] or simply out of omnicidal hatred for all other life. Ghidorah is an AncientEvil who is at least thousands of years old as an individual specimen (and likely much, much older than that), and he actively attacks and destroys as many humans as he possibly can with a demonic level of sadistic relish. |
| 98 | *** And to the Alpha Skullcrawler/Skull Devil in the [=MonsterVerse's=] previous overall movie, ''Film/KongSkullIsland''. Ghidorah and the Skull Devil are both old, intelligent, reptilian-looking and serpentine-themed creatures with a mean streak, who are comparatively exceptionally powerful among either movie's respective cast of monsters, and they both vie against their respective debuts' resident Protector Alpha Titan (Kong for the Skull Devil, Godzilla for Ghidorah) for that alpha's crown and dominance over their kingdom. They're also both described as the Devil to their Protector opponent's God respectively. However, the Skull Devil was only immediately interested in conquering Skull Island, it has the excuse that it and its kind are driven by ravenous HorrorHunger to constantly conquer and eat all edible life in sight, and it's a land-bound, semi-aquatic creature whose main weapons are mostly hand-to-hand combat; including its powerful {{prehensile tail}}, its flexible agility, and its MultipurposeTongue. Ghidorah on the other hand is actively interested in usurping the entire planet from Godzilla, he has a simplistically {{sadist}}ic intelligence and no known FreudianExcuse behind it, and he's a colossal GiantFlyer who can stir up literal hypercanes just by existing but he has a LogicalWeakness to bodies of water deep enough to submerge him, and aside from close-quarters combat, Ghidorah's main weapons include long-ranged electric {{breath weapon}}s and [[PsychoElectro bio-electrical blasts from his body]]. |
| 99 | ** He also serves as this to his previous incarnations: after his first movie, every villainous Ghidorah has somehow or another been DemotedToDragon even in cases where he's the main monster enemy (even the anime version is entirely reliant on his anchor to ''function'') with the exception of the ''Film/RebirthOfMothra3'' Ghidorah. This King Ghidorah is ''always'' the one in charge [[spoiler:and leading the AlienInvasion instead of being a weapon of it.]] Previous villainous Ghidorahs also generally only cause mass destruction with their sheer power, whereas while this Ghidorah ''is'' incredibly powerful, he's actually smart enough to have his own EvilPlan. |
| 100 | * ControlFreak: He forces many of the other monsters on Earth to be his slaves, tearing down human cities and causing earthquakes and other disasters so that they aid his apparent HostileTerraforming of the planet. He isn't pleased ''at all'' when Madison briefly thwarts his control over them with the ORCA. |
| 101 | * ConvergingStreamWeapon: Each head can fire a single gravity beam. However, if they all fire in the same direction, the beams merge into a much more powerful blast. |
| 102 | * CounterAttack: During the Antarctica battle, Ghidorah at one point ''waits'' for Godzilla to fire his Atomic Breath. When he does, Ghidorah's heads dodge the beam thanks to their flexible necks, and they fire back with Gravity Beams while Godzilla is open mid-Atomic Breath, successfully knocking Godzilla down and sending him toppling into a crevasse. Godzilla takes a few lengthy moments to recover. |
| 103 | * CreepyHighPitchedVoice: He has a trilling shriek that sounds like crazed laughter. It's quite unnerving for a kaiju of his size and stature to have such a shrill voice. |
| 104 | * CrownShapedHead: Each of his three heads is adorned with [[HornsOfVillainy ten horns]], giving them a crown moniker, befitting Ghidorah's King moniker after he [[TyrantTakesTheHelm usurps Godzilla as the reigning Alpha Titan]] and befitting his true nature as a creature who is on the same power level as Godzilla in his own right. Furthermore, although it's only visible on closer inspection, each of the heads' horns signifies [[MultipleHeadCase which head]] is the most dominant and expressly cruel ([[{{Sadist}} Ichi]] has longer horns as the sadistic leader head, whilst [[GeniusDitz San]]/[[ButtMonkey Kevin]] has short and straighter horns as the most submissive and least aggressive head). |
| 105 | * CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:Quite possibly the most violent and brutal death Ghidorah has ever experienced. First, Godzilla, in his Fire form, sets off an explosion that reduces Ghidorah's wings to their bones; then the second explosion vaporizes his two side heads, leaving only the middle one to experience the wrath of his nemesis. Godzilla next stomps on Ghidorah's chest and causes him to explode, then he grabs the surviving and still-kicking head in his mouth and vaporizes it entirely, wiping out any trace of the alien forever. Until the post-credits scene where it is revealed that the head Godzilla tore off in Mexico has been recovered and Jonah has some... plans for it.]] |
| 106 | * CurbStompBattle: Ghidorah hands one out to almost everybody that tries to fight him. He dominated his first fight with Godzilla in the Antarctic, defeated Rodan in an aerial battle, destroyed an entire Naval armada, and obliterated Mothra. The only times this gets flipped on him is when Godzilla is able to get him underwater which is Godzilla's home turf, and later when he unlocks his SuperMode and Mothra stabilizes him, as even when Godzilla got a power boost Ghidorah still managed to turn their fight into his favor fairly quickly. |
| 107 | * DarkIsEvil: Unlike the other cave paintings in TheStinger of ''Film/KongSkullIsland'', Ghidorah's is pitch black and he's surrounded by skulls, implying that he's extremely dangerous and maybe even malevolent (which the next movie confirms). He forms black stormclouds around himself which follow him wherever he goes ''just'' by being awake, and if he succeeds in usurping Godzilla and reigning unchecked, he can cover the Earth in stormclouds which will [[TheNightThatNeverEnds create the practical effect of an impact winter]] and cause worldwide extinction. This is a stark contrast to [[LightIsGood Mothra's bioluminescence and her ability to dissipate Ghidorah's stormclouds]]. |
| 108 | * DavidVsGoliath: Godzilla ends up being the David to [[EvilIsBigger Ghidorah's Goliath]] in ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019''. He is not only physically significantly larger than Godzilla but also equipped with a SuperPowerLottery against him. |
| 109 | * {{Deconstruction}}: He serves as this to how his previous incarnations were presented: ever since his first appearance, various villains have managed to take control of Ghidorah and use him as a weapon without much problem. Every single person to try to exploit or control Ghidorah in the Monster'Verse, however, [[EvilIsNotAToy learns the hard way]] that an incredibly ancient, planet-destroying sapient apocalypse isn't so keen on playing along with their plans, and the best anyone manages is [[spoiler:Jonah simply deciding to go with Ghidorah's rampage.]] |
| 110 | * DefiantToTheEnd: ZigZagged between the [[MultipleHeadCase three heads]] when [[spoiler:Burning Godzilla shows up]], with Ghidorah initially refusing to back down. After [[spoiler:Burning Godzilla vaporizes Ghidorah's wings to atoms]], the hydra attempts to return fire with all three heads' Gravity Beams: Ichi and Ni fire back furiously, whilst a visibly-frightened San/Kevin does so reluctantly, and this ends up being the defiant Ni and reluctant Kevin's last stand when [[spoiler:Burning Godzilla vaporizes both the side-heads]]. With his brother heads gone, Ichi's body language, his neck movements and the OhCrap when [[spoiler:his bodiless head realizes he's caught in Godzilla's jaws]] visibly indicate he's in frantic panic [[spoiler:for the short remainder of his life and just wants to escape, before Godzilla finishes vaporizing Ghidorah]]. |
| 111 | * DemonDevilDistinction: The Devil to Rodan's Demon, being explicitly compared by Monarch to the biblical Devil whereas Rodan is called "the Fire Demon". Despite his elegant appearance, Ghidorah is far more destructive, irredeemable, and all-round ''purely'' evil than Rodan; actively and absolutely seeking global destruction, and being impossible to pacify. [[spoiler:An extraterrestrial DraconicAbomination of an animal who fell to Earth "from the stars" like a fallen angel,]] Ghidorah poses a direct singular threat to [[BigGood Godzilla]] as a rival Alpha Titan, forcing Rodan and nearly every other Titan Monarch has found to submit to his apocalyptic will as his thralls. One of Dr. Vivienne Graham's field notes even refers to Ghidorah as the Devil. |
| 112 | * DestroyerDeity: The Titans are described as TheOldGods, and though Ghidorah isn't the only destructive one, he's considered the worst of them by far. He's the only Destroyer-class Titan who is 100% in the same weight class as Godzilla (enabling him to pose a serious challenge to the big guy on his own and dominate all the other Titans to do his bidding), and he's an OmnicidalManiac who ''actively'' and ''consciously'' desires the complete eradication of mankind from the Earth via engineering an extinction event. Whereas the [=MUTOs=] are implied to be responsible for mass extinctions in the Earth's prehistory, the movie {{novelization}}s explicitly say that if Ghidorah has his way with our world, ''[[ApocalypseHow/Class5 nothing]]'' [[ApocalypseHow/Class5 except for Ghidorah himself and single-celled organisms is likely to survive]]. |
| 113 | * DraconicAbomination: A towering three-headed, two-tailed dragon [[spoiler:from space]], with an insatiable appetite for destruction and physiology that goes completely against the known natural order on Earth. First of all, he can recover unscathed from being frozen solid for centuries. He'd also have to be either TimeAbyss-level old or otherwise able to move [[spoiler:through space at super-luminal speeds[[note]]Which could be due to his ability to alter gravity, as if he can affect his own mass then FTL is possible, or due to opening spacial distortions[[/note]], as trying to find life on a habitable world as he did, without knowing where to look, would be like finding a needle in the infinite expanse of space]]. He breathes[[note]]He produces fogged breath in Antarctica[[/note]] but he can NoSell being completely deprived of oxygen, so he might very well have [[spoiler:come to Earth without any [[StandardAlienSpaceship kind of shell protecting him from the vacuum of space]]]]. He can regenerate large portions of his body, including heads, in a matter of minutes, and [[spoiler:if Ichi's demise during the RasputinianDeath is evidence]], he can probably regrow his whole body from just one head (as a disembodied head which would only account for less than 10% of his body mass). He can control the weather, ionic energy, and atmospheric conditions; [[TheStormbringer constantly forming a catastrophic, otherworldly tempest around himself]] from the second he's awoken, and creating further storms which can potentially cover the whole world if he's allowed to reign unchecked. He has three heads with minds of their own that are connected to one body and communicate with each-other telepathically. He can mentally influence and control the lesser Titans on Earth to the point of outright domination, simultaneously driving them into a destructive rampage with his Alpha Call. And what's more, [[spoiler:even when Ghidorah is reduced to just a single decomposed skull, that's still enough to retain some aspect of the three-headed dragon's will and malevolence: the upper-skull of San/Kevin's severed head hijacks the manmade BrainComputerInterface that Apex Cybernetics have built into it and uses it to connect to [[HumongousMecha Mechagodzilla]], with it being creepily unclear whether Ghidorah performs full-on BrainUploading into Mechagodzilla or merely reprograms the Mecha to become hostile]]. This version of Ghidorah has a lot in common with a [[Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu certain octopus-headed dragon being]]. |
| 114 | * DragonInChief: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. Emma Russell and Alan Jonah intend to use the ORCA to control Ghidorah for their own ends, but the three-headed dragon goes completely against their plans by awakening all the Titans at once and setting them loose upon the world to serve his own agenda. By the climax, Emma and Jonah have lost control of the situation -- not that Jonah minds, though, as he's perfectly content to let Ghidorah ravage the world to completely exterminate humanity. |
| 115 | * DragonsAreDemonic: He looks like a western-style dragon straight out of legend, with three heads, and he's presented as a sinister, malevolent presence who bypasses merely being destructive by virtue of sheer size and is instead ''consciously'' a danger to everyone around him. His three heads have [[FourIsDeath four]] [[HornsOfVillainy horns]] apiece; his body is covered in SpikesOfVillainy; he's often framed in shadows or surrounded by a great, swirling vortex, with [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes that]] [[GlowingEyesOfDoom glint in the dark]]; one of his titles is "The One Who is Many", which seems like a reference to [[IAmLegion a certain story]] in Literature/TheBible; [[spoiler:he takes control of the world's Titans in a way that makes him a corrupter to them and a destroyer to the humans of the world]]; in terms of power, he's equaled only by Godzilla -- and even then, [[spoiler:Godzilla is only able to beat him with the help of Mothra and Monarch's air-force]]. Between all that and his [[spoiler:"fell from the stars"]] backstory, [[SatanicArchetype he's basically the MonsterVerse version of the Devil]]! This is subtly lampshaded by a conversation where Ilene Chen and Mark Russell discuss the moral distinction between western and eastern dragons (put simply, ''Godzilla'' is the eastern dragon). |
| 116 | * TheDreaded: Monarch reports that Godzilla himself is keeping his distance from the site that contains him. Ancient civilizations were also terrified of him, to the point where most ancient cultures [[{{Unperson}} didn't even leave any writings on him]]. What little there is have him being called "the Death Song of Three Storms" and his name "unspoken through millennia of whispered nightmares." The Monarch scientists themselves, who normally hold the Titans in awe and wonder, [[MassOhCrap go dead silent]] at the mention of Antarctica where Ghidorah is encased. When Ghidorah first rises, Emma and Madison's faces are full of nothing but horror, in contrast to how everyone reacted to Mothra's birth. Even ''Rodan'' has an OhCrap when he first sees Ghidorah (though this doesn't stop him from challenging him). In ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', [[spoiler:both Madison and Bernie Hayes are ''horrified'' when they discover Apex are using Ghidorah's skull as the hub of Mechagodzilla's neural system]]. |
| 117 | * DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans: His goal is taking over control of the other Titans and devastating the planet with mass extinction-level conditions; and even without the fact [[spoiler:Ghidorah's alien origins make him an EnemyToAllLivingThings who doesn't affect the Earth in a renewing manner]], his {{sadist}}ic streak makes it seem safe to assume he'd make the Earth a very miserable world to live on if anything besides himself survived his apocalypse. The {{novelization}} makes it clear that every act Ghidorah commits is motivated purely by sadism. |
| 118 | [[/folder]] |
| 119 | |
| 120 | [[folder:E-I]] |
| 121 | * ElementalAbsorption: After spotting a power generator, Ichi takes the opportunity to bite down on it, draining '''the Boston city's electrical grid''' into Ghidorah to achieve a massive power boost, [[spoiler:which causes the tide of the FinalBattle to turn in Ghidorah's favor against Godzilla]]. |
| 122 | * ElementalDragon: He's the most dragon-like Titan in the [=MonsterVerse=], and although he lacks the gravity-based affinity of some other incarnations in all but the name of his BreathWeapon, Ghidorah ''does'' possess many potent and prominent electricity-based powers; including his signature lightning breath and the ability to create storms filled with torrential yellow lightning around himself. He's the token lightning-aligned monster in the ''King of the Monsters'' cast. |
| 123 | * EnemyToAllLivingThings: Although all the Titans are capable of causing great destruction merely by existing, their radiation and biological byproducts have regenerative effects on the planet's ecosystems in the long term, meaning that if they aren't actively seeking destruction or [[HostileTerraforming negatively terraforming]] ecosystems to suit only themselves and are respecting the established natural order, then they can actually be entirely beneficial for the planet. Ghidorah however, [[spoiler:as an invasive extraterrestrial Titan]], does not in any way regenerate the planet's biosphere, instead acting like a foreign pathogen whose mere presence disrupts the planet's natural processes by causing climate-altering massive storms to form. Ghidorah demonstrates that he wants to dramatically and destructively overhaul the planet's entire environment in a way which will surely kill off humanity while causing mass extinction, with Emma stating that his actions are doing the complete opposite of restoring Earth's ecology, and the novelizations by Greg Keyes state that the end result of Ghidorah's destruction if he's allowed to reign unchecked will be the [[ApocalypseHow/Class5 thorough eradication of all multicellular life]] besides himself. |
| 124 | * EnergyAbsorption: Besides his ElementalAbsorption described above, Ghidorah is capable of feeding on radiation like the other Titans; such as when he feeds on the geothermal energy of Rodan's volcano to accelerate the regeneration of his severed left head, and also when all three heads try to violently suck [[spoiler:Mothra's BequeathedPower out of Godzilla]] via VampiricDraining. We can only imagine what Ghidorah would have become if he'd finished draining that power into himself. |
| 125 | * EraSpecificPersonality: He's reintroduced in this series as a wrathful and menacing [[spoiler:alien]], who'll murder anyone or anything in his sights for his malevolent methods, as a form of morbid entertainment just like his Showa counterpart but with his gleeful sick-twisted sadism taken up a notch. |
| 126 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: When he's free and a bunch of panicking soldiers ineffectively shoot at him, Ghidorah's reaction makes it clear he doesn't see them as a threat -- and then he kills them anyway, showing that he doesn't attack because sees things as a threat, but because he can. This scene also works to establish this King Ghidorah incarnation's MultipleHeadCase and the relationships among the three heads: Ghidorah's left head (San/Kevin) in particular responds to being shot at by trying to get a closer look at the soldiers, the middle head (Ichi) promptly shoves Kevin back to get him back in line, and the right head (Ni) chirps a suggestion at Ichi which prompts the dominant head to pull a SlasherSmile (we find out when Ghidorah's gravity beams start charging up just what that suggestion likely was). |
| 127 | * EvilCounterpart: |
| 128 | ** To Godzilla. He's TheAntiGod to Godzilla's God, with not just the capacity to annihilate human civilization, but the ''intent'' to do it. |
| 129 | ** To Mothra in terms of religious symbolism. Ghidorah is a SatanicArchetype, even called the Devil InUniverse, with his physical appearance and role in the story being remindful of the draconic multi-headed Beast from ''Literature/TheBible''. Mothra is rather often compared to an angel, being a MessianicArchetype and possibly having a genuine divine nature to herself. Whenever she appears, she produces bright bioluminescence from her body, and also blinding God Rays to beat back Ghidorah's dark stormclouds. |
| 130 | * EvilIsAngular: All 3 of his snouts are way more stretched out compared to Godzilla's, especially when they're particularly seen from a side view while his chins possess tiny, spiked protrusions underneath, as more of them are visibly seen jutting out of their lower jaws, which greatly convey and brings out more of his villainous expressions. |
| 131 | * EvilIsBigger: The cave painting portrays him as ''towering'' over Godzilla, and what seem to be skulls definitely imply he's no GentleGiant. The Monarch site puts his height at five-hundred and twenty-one feet, the largest live-action incarnation of the character to date and more than fifty meters taller than Godzilla. He's shown in the Antarctica scene to be about ''twice'' the size of Godzilla when standing at his full height with his wings spread. |
| 132 | * EvilIsNotAToy: [[spoiler:Emma Russell]] and Alan Jonah release him in hopes that he'll help restore the world to balance. What they fail to realize is that, unlike the other Titans whose actions seem to revitalize the world, Ghidorah's actually a [[spoiler:hostile alien who has no ties to Earth's natural order]]. After they release him, he quickly goes off script, seizing power from Godzilla and proceeding to command the Titans to ravage the entire world indiscriminately while ostensibly xenoforming the planet to suit his own desire. [[spoiler:Humans haven't learned their lesson by ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' either, leading to disastrous consequences]]. |
| 133 | * EvilLaugh: One of his roars is an updated version of his Showa Era cackling cry, which has traditionally been used to convey this. Most notably is when [[spoiler:he emerges from the water after {{No Sell}}ing the Oxygen Destroyer while Godzilla was seemingly killed, giving the impression he knows he's won and is laughing his head off.]] |
| 134 | * EvilOverlooker: His character poster depicts him in partial silhouette, towering high and looking down on foregrounded fighter jets. |
| 135 | * EvilSlinks: His body's and necks' movements are rather fluid and snakelike sometimes. |
| 136 | * EvilSmellsBad: {{Justified|Trope}}. The novelization states that Ghidorah's hypercane encroaching on Boston is preceded by a stench like "burning hair and rotten eggs". The latter smell is distinctly associated with hurricanes: it occurs due to the hurricane disturbing sediments in low-flowing waters, which hold the anaerobic bacteria responsible for producing this odor. |
| 137 | * EvilVirtues: Creativity (using the Titans to destroy their own world and accomplish his goals), Determination (it's implied he'd already been trying and failing for some time to usurp control of the Earth's Titans from Godzilla before he was frozen), Passion (his extreme {{sadist}}ic streak, as well as the side heads' HotBlooded and overly curious tendencies respectively), and Resourcefulness (see CombatPragmatist). |
| 138 | * EvilerThanThou: One of the things separating this Ghidorah from most of his previous incarnations: this Ghidorah is nobody's minion, and every other antagonist to challenge or attempt to control him comes to regret it. Rodan, Jonah, [[spoiler:Emma, and Apex (specifically Walter Simmons and Ren Serizawa both of whom Ghidorah's reincarnation personally offs) in the sequel]] all learn this the hard way. |
| 139 | * ExpressiveHair: His horns, which flare with the heads' moods or when he's making an intimidation display. |
| 140 | * FashionableAsymmetry: There are subtle physical distinctions between the mostly identical-looking three heads, as someone kindly detailed [[https://www.deviantart.com/pedroaugusto14/art/How-to-differentiate-Legendary-Ghidorah-s-heads-822616304 here]]: the left head has subtly straighter horns than his middle and right heads (which have horns that curve inward and out), probably as a visual motif to highlight this head as the odd one out personality-wise. Furthermore, the shapes and prominence of the heads' noses and "beard" spikes vary between each of them. |
| 141 | * FatalFlaw: His excessive bloodlust and his [[KillAllHumans overt hatred of humans]] are often his undoing. During the Antarctica battle, Ghidorah shifts his attention back to terrorizing the humans on the ground the ''moment'' Godzilla topples into a crevasse, which results in him failing to see Monarch's air support incoming until Ichi and San/Kevin take several missiles to their faces, and it gives Godzilla time to get back up. Ghidorah repeats this mistake when going out of his way to fly after the ''Argo'' above the Pacific Ocean, allowing Godzilla to blindside the hydra and drag him into the water (Godzilla's HomefieldAdvantage and Ghidorah's WeaksauceWeakness) and come close to defeating him. When Ghidorah has [[spoiler:Madison]] cornered at Fenway Park, going to the trouble of charging up all three Gravity Beams to vaporize her instead of quickly stomping on her because he's ''that'' irate with her buys [[spoiler:Madison]] ''just'' enough time for Godzilla's long-range Atomic Breath to floor Ghidorah before he can kill her. And when [[spoiler:Emma]] lies dying, the three heads looming over her as if they're going to savor watching her die slowly for [[spoiler:challenging them with the [=ORCA's=] signal]] means they don't notice [[spoiler:Burning Godzilla's approach until it's too late, leading to Ghidorah's death]]. |
| 142 | * FeatheredSerpent: There are various ancient murals displaying the Titan styled with smooth and wavy-looking multiple hairs around his heads as well as having visible whiskers, which gives him the traditional depiction of an Eastern dragon. [[https://wikizilla.org/w/images/0/08/GKOTM_-_King_Ghidorah_head_turnaround_02.png At one point in production]], a CGI model of the left head even has small individual hairs blended in his horns. |
| 143 | * FisherKing: {{Justified|Trope}} by his elemental powers: Ghidorah ''literally'' causes a massive, howling tempest of fog, black stormclouds, and unearthly yellow lightning to follow him wherever he goes; reflecting his sheer power as a rival Alpha Titan to Godzilla, his purely-destructive nature as an OmnicidalManiac who wreaks apocalyptic havoc on man and nature alike, [[spoiler:and his alien origins]]. More than that, when Ghidorah is the reigning King of the Monsters during the second half of the movie and he's commanding the Titans to begin destroying the planet in his name, nearly every location the cast visits around the world (from the Yunnan rainforest to the North Atlantic Ocean) is being pelted by gray thunderstorms and torrential downpours, which is reflective both of the superstorm that accompanies Ghidorah and of the havoc he's currently wreaking on nature using the Titans (a.k.a. living forces of nature). A brief remark by Dr. Stanton in the movie[[note]]about Ghidorah "creating massive storms" (plural)[[/note]] hints, and the novelization more explicitly confirms, that the worldwide stormy weather is indeed being caused by Ghidorah InUniverse as part of his efforts to clear the planet once he becomes the reigning alpha. Ghidorah might actually be ''deliberately'' [[InvokedTrope invoking]] this trope during the global apocalypse, since Stanton speculates that he's [[HostileTerraforming reshaping the planet in his own image]]. |
| 144 | * {{Foil}}: |
| 145 | ** To he’s one to Godzilla. They're both massive Alpha Titans, but Godzilla is designated as [[GaiasVengeance a guardian of the Earth (if not the humans on it)]], while Ghidorah is an OmnicidalManiac. Godzilla is an amphibious walker while Ghidorah's wings allow him to fly. They both have light-like beam attacks at their disposal, but Godzilla's are blue, while Ghidorah's are yellow. They have {{Healing Factor}}s, but Ghidorah's is much faster. Both are passingly identified with religious idols, but Godzilla is compared with {{God}}, while Ghidorah is compared to [[{{Satan}} the other guy]]. |
| 146 | ** Also to Mothra. They're both intelligent, sentient, and powerful airborne Titans with high-pitched wailing vocalizations, they both [[WeatherManipulation influence the weather with their presence]] (Mothra clears up stormy weather when her cocoon hatches, whereas Ghidorah creates catastrophic tempests), and both of them have certain natural ways of cheating certain death (HealingFactor for Ghidorah, [[spoiler:plus his severed left head's decayed remains retain at least some of his consciousness]], BornAgainImmortality for Mothra). Though that's about where their direct similarities end and give way to contrasts. Ghidorah is reptilian and Mothra insectoid. Mothra has a culture of human worshippers who've survived in some form to the present day, whereas Ghidorah is the {{Unperson}}. Mothra is very benevolent towards other life including humans, whereas Ghidorah is a {{Sadist}} OmnicidalManiac. Life and hope are drawn to Mothra, whereas Ghidorah brings as much death and destruction as he can. Mothra produces mainly teal-colored lights and has multiple colors, whereas Ghidorah solely produces yellow-colored light and has yellow and gold colors. Mothra is initially reborn in a [[JungleJapes rainforest]] in the northern hemisphere whereas Ghidorah reawakens in [[MysteriousAntarctica Antarctica]]. One has a [[WonderTwinPowers symbiotic relationship]] and [[AlwaysWithYou possible genuine emotional connection]] to Godzilla, while the other is Godzilla's ArchEnemy. One barely defeated Rodan while the other more or less [[CurbStompBattle Curb-Stomped]] him. Mothra possesses her allies (Godzilla) via symbiosis and common goals, whereas Ghidorah possesses his (Rodan and the awakened Titans) through domination. Even the [[https://twitter.com/GodzillaMovie/status/1253483600118312963 elements they're meant to represent are opposites]]. |
| 147 | * ForTheEvulz: He shows multiploe signs of committing senseless malice for its own sake throughout the movie. Even assuming per Stanton's theory that Ghidorah is trying to destroy the world because he needs to [[HostileTerraforming xenoform]] it into a more habitable environment for himself, the three-headed hydra seems to ''despise'' humanity just for existing: his first reaction to the G-Team firing at him in Antarctica makes it clear he doesn't see us as a threat, yet Ghidorah repeatedly goes out of his way to ''intentionally'' attack any humans he sees even when doing so is relatively impractical for him (such as during the Antarctica battle, where he takes his attention off of Godzilla in favor of going back to terrorizing the humans within ''seconds'' of Godzilla temporarily tumbling into a crevasse). The novelization outright says Ghidorah ''lives for killing'', and it portrays him as a creature of pure cruelty and rage. It's even briefly speculated by Mark Russell in the novel that Ghidorah isn't really xenoforming Earth at all but simply desires the annihilation of all other life in and of itself[[note]]"''Or maybe Monster Zero just hated everything, and the destruction was a process, a goal in and of itself.''"[[/note]]. |
| 148 | * GiantEqualsInvincible: Slightly {{downplayed}} in this case. Small arms fire predictably does little more than catch Ghidorah's attention ''if anything'', but ballistic missiles can at least irritate him and even distract him, though that's about the full extent to which conventional manmade weaponry can demonstrably harm Ghidorah. |
| 149 | * GiantEyeOfDoom: The movie trailers depict Madison slowly turning around to see all three of Ghidorah's heads looming on a screen behind her, one eye on each head turned towards her. [[spoiler:In the film proper, this shot occurs in the Fenway Park scene, when the heads have pinpointed the [=ORCA's=] exact location in the press box and are glaring in through the box's viewing windows]]. Then Ichi narrows his visible eye at Madison in an unambiguous DeathGlare. |
| 150 | * GiantFlyer: The very biggest of the three flyers. In fact, he's one of the biggest in the history of the franchise. |
| 151 | * GiantFootOfStomping: While Ghidorah and Godzilla are grappling in and above Fenway Park, Ghidorah's foot unintentionally stomps on and destroys the Osprey that Mark Russell and the G-Team have flown into the stadium, leaving them with no way out of the chaos except on foot, [[spoiler:until Emma shows up in a Humvee]]. |
| 152 | * GlowingEyesOfDoom: His [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]] often glint brightly in a certain light to the point where they appear to be glowing, even in dark environments such as when Ghidorah is looming in front of the ''Argo'' inside his hypercane. Ghidorah's eyes are clearly glowing along with his necks when he's [[VampiricDraining sucking Godzilla's power dry]] in Boston. |
| 153 | * GodOfThunder: Ghidorah has a lot of characteristics that make him one of these; he is a PhysicalGod (even by Titan standards) whose primary means of attack is breathing condensed bolts of lightning, and he literally rides a storm so fierce that it can cover half a continent. |
| 154 | * GoldColoredSuperiority: Ghidorah's scales are almost entirely golden, and his Gravity Beams take the form of golden lightning bolts. He's also ''at least'' as powerful as Godzilla, his BizarreAlienBiology enables him to defy the laws of science as we understand them to an extent beyond even the Titans' usual standards ([[spoiler:even cheating death through his severed head's skull]]); and overall, he's one of the most powerful (if not the ''single'' most powerful) Titans by far. The [=MonsterVerse=] incarnation of the Golden Demise also has the distinction of being the only Titan antagonist thus far to actually ''succeed'' in usurping Godzilla or Kong, even if only temporarily and with a significant assist from [[MilitariesAreUseless the military]]. |
| 155 | * GoodWingsEvilWings: His enormous golden bat-like wings are powerful and intimidating, in contrast to the colorful and divine wings of Mothra. |
| 156 | * GravityMaster: The Monarch Sciences website reveals that not only can he create powerful storms, but he can create an 'anti-gravity maelstrom' in the scrolling text at the bottom. His primary energy attack is also called the "Gravity beam", although exactly what this entails is unclear as it otherwise seems to look and behave like lightning. |
| 157 | * GreaterScopeVillain: Ghidorah doesn't take action until ''King of the Monsters'' but he's the greatest threat in the [=MonsterVerse=], and [[BeenThereShapedHistory his presence has impacted human history and culture]]. TheStinger of ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' depicts a cave painting of him battling Godzilla from what appears to be prehistoric times, indicating that Godzilla and Ghidorah's blood feud has, at the very least, endured for centuries. He was apparently the basis of several draconian myths, such as the Hydra and the Zmei, which were actually sightings of him. Despite being frozen by the present day, Ghidorah's presence on Earth is enough to make the threats of the [=MUTOs=] and the Skullcrawlers seem ''insignificant'' by comparison. |
| 158 | * HarmlessFreezing: King Ghidorah was frozen in Antarctic ice sometime in the past [[spoiler:by Shimo]], yet it appears to have done nothing to slow him down once he escapes. [[spoiler:{{Justified|Trope}}, as he has an insane HealingFactor, as well as not needing oxygen to survive, being a space creature.]] |
| 159 | * HealingFactor: This turns out to be his unique power, in this 'verse; whilst Godzilla can also heal, it generally requires prolonged periods spent resting. By comparison, Ghidorah can regenerate severed appendages ''in seconds'' (at least, if there's a source of energy/radiation handy). During his second tussle with Godzilla, Ghidorah's left head along with a good chunk of his neck are ripped off. After {{No Sell}}ing the Oxygen Destroyer, which hits him moments later, he proceeds to Rodan's volcano[[note]]The novelization heavily implies that its radiation was used for the regeneration[[/note]] and regrows his lost head in less than a minute. During the FinalBattle, Ghidorah is visibly regenerating holes torn in his wings in one shot, directly after rapidly absorbing Boston's citywide power supply for a BeamSpam (he's presumably using the leftover absorbed energy in his body to mend the damage). It's also worth noting that [[spoiler:Ghidorah's central head is still alive and ''kicking'' when that head and a bit of neck are literally all that's left of Ghidorah at the battle's end (unlike the earlier-severed left head, which decomposed to a skull and became an UndeadAbomination by ''Godzilla vs. Kong''), indicating that head is the source of Ghidorah's life-force or healing factor and implying that Ghidorah might have been able to regenerate ''just from a severed middle head'' if Godzilla hadn't finished the head off by vaporizing it]] -- [[spoiler:it's speculated in the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization that Ghidorah might be able to grow new bodies from dismembered pieces.]] |
| 160 | * HelicopterFlyswatter: During the Boston battle, he sends one or two helicopters crashing to the ground with his sheer weight and size while he's engaging Godzilla. [[spoiler:Then when he's powered up by draining the city's power grid, Ghidorah's skyward BeamSpam spontaneously destroys almost ''every'' remaining aircraft flying above the city, [[HellishCopter choppers included]]]]. |
| 161 | * HellIsThatNoise: Have a listen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kc86drjq8I here]]. His roar sounds like a mix of his Showa chirps, his Heisei screeches, and his Millenium roars rolled into one and made more sinister. |
| 162 | * HeroKiller: He has quite the body count when it comes to slaying the good guys. [[spoiler:He kills Mothra by incinerating her with a massive burst of gravity beams, he's also responsible for personally killing Vivienne Graham and [[HeelFaceTurn Emma Russell]], and the ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' novelization and a deleted scene hint that he might have also managed to kill [[UncertainDoom Admiral Stenz]]]]. Ghidorah's reign of terror leads to him and the Titans under his thrall massacring ''many'' of Monarch's staff around the world, and the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization claims that more than half of Monarch's total staff died in this crisis. |
| 163 | * HornsOfVillainy: A trope he shares with his [[TheDragon Dragon]] Rodan (with Ghidorah being the worse of the two); Ghidorah has five horns on either side of each head, whilst the heroic Godzilla and Mothra don't have any horns. The horns are also each head's distinguishing characteristic, as the leader middle head's horns are slightly longer than the other two, the battle-thirsty right head has a chipped left horn, and the docile, dim-witted left head's horns are less curvy than the other two heads'. |
| 164 | * TheHorseshoeEffect: Ghidorah's end goals make him similar to the [=MUTOs=] (see MeetTheNewBoss), but whereas the [=MUTOs=] were [[NonMaliciousMonster Non-Malicious Monsters]] who merely wanted to live out their natural life cycles, Ghidorah is genuinely {{sadist}}ic and malevolent. |
| 165 | * HostileTerraforming: |
| 166 | ** Upon becoming aware of Ghidorah's [[spoiler:extraterrestrial origin]], Dr. Stanton speculates that the purpose of his global destruction -- which the movie makes clear will eradicate humanity and cause rapid mass extinction, and which both the ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' and ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' {{novelization}}s explicitly state will likely cause [[ApocalypseHow/Class5 the eradication of ALL multicellular life]] sans Ghidorah -- is that he's probably reshaping the planet to suit his own likings. In the novelization, that's the theory the characters run with, although Mark at one point inwardly suspects that [[ForTheEvulz perhaps Ghidorah's end-goals for killing everything are much simpler]]. |
| 167 | ** During the aforementioned global apocalypse, Ghidorah also inflicts this trope on a ''regional'' scale when he makes Washington D.C. his roost: his [[TheStormbringer expanding tempest]] (which his continued presence is anchoring over the city) inundates D.C. with water-spouts and floodwaters deep enough for a ''battleship'' to sail through, and the buildingtops high enough to stand above the water are scorched by either the superstorm's constant lightning or Ghidorah's Gravity Beams, turning the capital of the United States into a hellscape in which no human life can live. |
| 168 | * HumiliationConga: Sort-of during the Boston battle. Godzilla returns seemingly from the dead to reclaim his kingship from Ghidorah, halting the latter's NearVillainVictory. Ghidorah [[spoiler:succeeds in killing Mothra, but she imbues Godzilla with her radiation; the very humans Ghidorah loves killing so much and who are usually hopeless against him, successfully distract him from finishing his mortal enemy off until it's too late for the dragon; and then Ghidorah gets a merciless RasputinianDeath served to him by Godzilla using his SuperMode which Mothra unlocked]]. |
| 169 | * HydraProblem: Ghidorah is capable of regenerating from wounds far faster than any other Titan seen so far -- this even applies to regrowing severed heads, like the creature of myth. Thankfully, he never grows more than three. It's also worth noting, [[spoiler:Ghidorah's side-heads are both destroyed for the last time before Ghidorah's death by white-hot pulses (similar to how [[AntiRegeneration cauterization]] stopped the hydra's extra heads regenerating in the Greek myth)]]. |
| 170 | * InformedAttribute: It gets mentioned early in the film that Ghidorah is the {{Unperson}} due to ancient civilizations seeming almost too scared to write anything about him and seemingly trying to forget about him altogether. Besides how Dr. Chen later in the film pieces together a myth of Ghidorah's origin in seemingly short time, the Unperson aspect really doesn't come across in supplementary materials and the novelization, which indicate Ghidorah is the source and inspiration of a ''lot'' of well-known ancient myths and legends around the world. |
| 171 | * InSeriesNickname: Monarch calls him Monster Zero, as there's so little mythology surrounding him they don't know his actual name at first. It isn't until the halfway point that they find out his name is Ghidorah (and subsequently dub him King Ghidorah when he's directing the Titan attacks), and as Emma Russell and Alan Jonah don't know this, they still call him Monster Zero. |
| 172 | * IntimidationDemonstration: When he and Godzilla see each-other for the first time since Ghidorah has thawed, they immediately start sizing each-other up -- Ghidorah performs a defiant intimidation display wherein he stands to his full height on his legs and he spreads his wings wide. As shown by an extreme long-shot on the two Titans, this makes Ghidorah appear at least ''twice'' the size that Godzilla is. |
| 173 | * IntroducedSpeciesCalamity: Dr. Stanton compares him to an invasive species once his origins come to light. [[spoiler:Unlike the other Titans, many of whom have a FertileFeet effect where they go and are capable of maintaining the world's equilibrium if a benevolent Alpha Titan keeps them in line, Ghidorah as an extraterrestrial superspecies that fell to Earth is incompatible with our planet's established natural order]]. His presence outright harms the planet's ecosphere without bringing any kind of renewal, and his goals upon becoming the reigning King of the Monsters are to create a global extinction event – according to the novelizations, if Ghidorah completed his destructive goals, everything on Earth except for Ghidorah and bacteria would have died. |
| 174 | * ItCanThink: Generally, Ghidorah comes across as being just as intelligent, tactical, and aware of his environment (and of humans when taking an interest) as Godzilla is; yet unlike Godzilla, he's ''genuinely'' sadistic and evil. His heads' distinguishing quirks and them "talking" to each-other in the Antarctica scene make Ghidorah seem more like a character (well, three characters) who happen to be a giant hydra-dragon, his body language makes it clear he mutually despises Godzilla beyond having a rivalry for survival, and the {{slasher smile}}s which all three heads have displayed at some point or another while Ghidorah is doing something devious make it clear that he's aware of the havoc he causes and actively relishes it. Ghidorah is also attuned to and understands bio-acoustic long-range communication like the other Titans, recognizing the ORCA signal as a challenge to his dominance. See the heads' folder for more details. |
| 175 | * ItsAllAboutMe: It's speculated that his motives for trying to wipe out life on Earth are [[HostileTerraforming xenoforming]] the planet, whilst Mark suspects at one point in the novelization that he's really motivated by a simplistic sheer hatred of all other life. Either way, Ghidorah is actively trying to ''raze'' the planet's biosphere for nobody's benefit but his own, and in fact ''relishes'' in how this negatively affects everyone who isn't him. |
| 176 | * ItsPersonal: Beyond vying for dominance, Ghidorah and Godzilla seem to genuinely ''hate'' each-other, and one gets the impression that they have an unknown history almost like two cowboys standing off in a western. Godzilla looks outright ''pissed'' when he sees Ghidorah free of his prison, whilst Ghidorah's middle head roars defiantly back at his ArchEnemy before performing an intimidation display and charging him. See the heads' folder for more details. |
| 177 | [[/folder]] |
| 178 | |
| 179 | [[folder:K-P]] |
| 180 | * KarmicDeath: After killing [[spoiler:Mothra]], nearly succeeding in ''torturing'' Godzilla to death, and killing pretty much all human life he encounters just ForTheEvulz and attempting to end the vast majority of life on Earth for his own desires; Ghidorah suffers a merciless RasputinianDeath [[spoiler:at the hands of Burning Godzilla who's empowered by Mothra's ashes (and implicitly by her spirit)]]. What's more, the very humans who Ghidorah was gleefully exterminating are responsible for distracting Ghidorah from finishing Godzilla off [[spoiler:before the latter could go Burning mode]] because Ghidorah's omnicidal intentions have just made him a complete ConflictKiller for most of the human cast and the benevolent Titans. |
| 181 | * KickTheDog: One of Ghidorah's first actions is using the full scope of his lightning breath to wipe out a group of soldiers firing on him. To put this into context, Godzilla also had a handful of soldiers open fire on him in the first film, and he just ignored it as it was no threat to him. Ghidorah wiping out a small group of soldiers with such destructive force just shows how sadistic he truly is. |
| 182 | * KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: The novelization version of the Washington D.C. battle portrays King Ghidorah taking a military battle cruiser out of the battle for good by snapping it in half, and ''then'' [[{{Sadist}} using his Gravity Beams to obliterate the bisected cruiser's remains]]. The book calls attention to how Ghidorah didn't need to do this, but just did it because taking the ship out on its own wasn't pleasing enough for him. |
| 183 | * KillAllHumans: Ghidorah ''loves'' sadistically killing humans whenever he sees us, to a point where he goes out of his way to resume terrorizing the Monarch brass in Antarctica when he has Godzilla ''only briefly'' downed. Notably, whilst Ghidorah's actions wreak apocalyptic havoc on nature and threaten to overall wipe the Earth clean of life, Ghidorah and the Titans under his command seem to prioritize destroying humanity's cities ''personally'' (with Ghidorah turning Washington D.C. into a roost for himself), and one gets the impression that he has something against our species in particular; especially when compared with how Ghidorah is at least willing to enslave the Titans of our world to his will instead of killing them outright. In the novelization, Serizawa speculates that this trait will reduce whatever slim chance the human race has of surviving Ghidorah's apocalypse in some shape or form to zero: ''because'' of Ghidorah's unnatural hostility towards humans, any survivors of the initial global onslaught and disasters, no matter how deeply hidden, will eventually be rooted out and exterminated. |
| 184 | * KlingonPromotion: Technically averted in King Ghidorah's case, as it was the Oxygen Destroyer that took out Godzilla during their fight. The fact Ghidorah technically never even killed Godzilla without outside aid is another reason why he can be called [[FakeKing the False King]] when he becomes the reigning King of the Monsters. |
| 185 | * KnightOfCerebus: He's built up like this by the marketing, and it proves to be no exaggeration. The other kaiju are natural disasters, but Ghidorah is a living ''extinction event'' and genuinely evil. Although the [[MultipleHeadCase three heads' bickering and the left head's subtle bumbling]] adds just a ''dash'' of [[LaughablyEvil black comedy]], mostly the tone of the movie takes a much darker turn the moment Ghidorah appears onscreen. |
| 186 | * LargeAndInCharge: Ghidorah towers over all the other monsters in the [=MonsterVerse=] thus far, and he briefly ''succeeds'' in usurping Godzilla's position as the King of the Monsters. Among his three heads, the middle one ([[MultipleHeadCase who is the leader of the trio]]) tends to hold its neck higher than the other two and it has slightly longer horns than them. |
| 187 | * LeanAndMean: His physique is rather slender, scraggly, and rawboned (albeit in a muscular variant) despite being the largest monster in the film while also being the most heinous and cruelest Titan imaginable. His design seems to heavily contrast Godzilla's. Even though King Ghidorah is way more enormous than him, he's slimmer and has a body suited for flight while Godzilla is smaller but has a wider, sturdier, and bulkier look that makes him more grounded. |
| 188 | * {{Leitmotif}}: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McjvF5MB_2I A very dark and eerie piece]] filled with [[OminousLatinChanting Ominous Hindi Chanting]]. Where Godzilla's themes exude power, Rodan's theme evokes unbridled aggression and rage, and Mothra's theme is filled with grace and beauty, Ghidorah's theme gives an ominous, out-of-place feeling that invokes dread. According to commenters, the lyrics in the theme are drawn from the Heart Sūtra, which in its original context is about emptying one's mind to achieve enlightenment, but when applied to Ghidorah, [[ThePowerOfTheVoid is twisted into a more sinister connotation]]. Ghidorah, known as Monster [[MyHeroZero Zero]], comes from nothingness ([[spoiler:space]]), seemingly needs nothing to survive (not even oxygen), and if allowed to reign over the Earth, is liable to wipe out all life on the planet. |
| 189 | * LightIsNotGood: He's a golden three-headed dragon who produces torrents of yellow lightning from his body and within the massive hurricane that he forms around himself. He's also the most truly malevolent Titan in the [=MonsterVerse=], a "living extinction event" who actively threatens all complex life on Earth if allowed to reign unchecked. |
| 190 | * LightningBruiser: Obvious pun aside, he is one of the largest kaiju to appear in the [=MonsterVerse=] movies thus far, and he's not slowed down by it when it comes to combat, especially with his heads' agile necks. To reinforce the "lightning" aspect, though Rodan is a more acrobatic flyer than this gigantic three-headed serpent, Ghidorah is still able to fly at a greater speed than any natural storm. To reinforce the "bruiser" aspect, due to Ghidorah's sheer size and strength, he's no slouch in combat; fully capable of trading blows with, and even overpowering, Godzilla himself. |
| 191 | * LightningReveal: When the ''Argo'' flies through Ghidorah's storm towards him with Rodan in pursuit, Rodan has an OhCrap reaction and pulls back. Cut to pitch-blackness in front of the ''Argo'', until lightning flashes reveal Ghidorah's huge silhouette flying directly in front of the carrier. |
| 192 | * LogicalWeakness: Ghidorah is a powerhouse, easily able to fight and kill the likes of Godzilla, but he cannot swim. This especially comes to bite him in the ass when Godzilla ambushes him in Mexico, dragging him into the ocean and mercilessly savaging him. WordOfGod agrees that Godzilla would've won that fight [[spoiler:if not for the Oxygen Destroyer's intervention.]] It's also almost poetic that a monster that creates lightning storms -- which require hot weather to form in real life -- is indefinitely incapacitated by being frozen in ice before human intervention frees him. |
| 193 | * LosingYourHead: When Godzilla [[spoiler:reduces Ghidorah to just his middle head]], the bodiless head continues to roar and frantically try to escape Godzilla's jaws until he incinerates it -- possibly {{justified|Trope}} by BizarreAlienBiology. [[spoiler:{{Downplayed|Trope}} with the decapitated left head -- externally, it appears dead, and its flesh has decomposed to leave just the skull by the time of ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', but it retains its telepathic capabilities (which Apex Cybernetics exploit to create a [[BrainComputerInterface psionic uplink]]), and it turns out that some of Ghidorah's consciousness lives on through the skull when it takes over Mechagodzilla's AI]]. |
| 194 | * MadGod: In the novelization, Mark Russell briefly regards Ghidorah as such when he's contemplating the malevolent and destructive Titan's motives for trying to create global mass extinction. Whereas Dr. Stanton suspects that Ghidorah's motives are [[HostileTerraforming xenoforming the Earth in his own image]], Mark at this point passingly wonders if Ghidorah really just desires total destruction in and of itself. |
| 195 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 196 | ** The three heads' names -- Ichi, Ni, and San -- mean One, Two, and Three in Japanese, but they also denote the order of most to least intelligent head. |
| 197 | ** The "''King''" in his name carries particular relevance with this incarnation (see MythologyGag). |
| 198 | ** His alternative title, The One Who Is Many, fits both his MultipleHeadCase and his [[spoiler:use of other Titans as extensions of his will]]. |
| 199 | * MeetTheNewBoss: His goal of wiping out entire ecosystems and creating extinction-level conditions, ostensibly with the goal of [[HostileTerraforming xenoforming]] Earth to his liking, is similar to what ''Godzilla: Aftershock'' portrays the [=MUTOs'=] species as being liable to do (it's speculated that a MUTO brood will destroy or reshape entire ecosystems until resources are depleted), but whereas the [=MUTOs=] have no higher motive than living out their natural life cycle regardless of how it affects other species, Ghidorah is genuinely malevolent and actively enjoys the torment and destruction he's causing. With this in mind, it seems like the [=MUTOs=] were {{foreshadowing}} Ghidorah's coming and goals. |
| 200 | * MindHive: It's implied his heads function this way. While the heads do fight and quarrel at times, Ghidorah never acts erratic or with conflicting movements, and the heads can work disturbingly in sync with each other when there's something other than squabbling to occupy them. More to the spirit of this trope, however, is that Ghidorah's biology means while the three heads each demonstrate their own personality, their brains aren't where the consciousnesses are centralized; rather, Ghidorah's neurons are scattered throughout his entire body (the director stated this is why Kevin regenerates with his memories and personality intact after Godzilla tears him off). It's mentioned in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' that Ghidorah's heads communicated with each other telepathically. |
| 201 | * TheMisophonic: He reacts to the sound of the ORCA being activated with instant, murderous rage. Beyond Ghidorah perceiving the device's acoustics (which mimic a Titan's bio-acoustics including his own to effectively communicate with Titans) as a challenger which threatens his dominance on Earth, Madison playing the [=ORCA's=] signal on overdrive in Antarctica causes Ghidorah to writhe and screech in clear pain and disorientation, and Ghidorah is the only Titan, Alpha or otherwise, who's shown having such an extreme reaction to the device. [[spoiler:The device's final activation in Boston drives Ghidorah to immediately abandon killing a weakened [[ArchEnemy Godzilla]], heads shrieking as he does so, and relentlessly pursue the source of the ORCA signal through the ruins; trying to kill it and howling in fury]]. |
| 202 | * MixAndMatchCritters: His twin tails rattle like a rattlesnake, his wing-spreading posture is a threat display of many birds of prey, and the dominant and submissive behavior of his three heads is similar to pack behavior in wolves. |
| 203 | * MonsterInTheIce: He was discovered by Monarch frozen in a millennia-old Antarctic glacier, before he's awakened by eco-terrorists. |
| 204 | * MonsterLord: He's an Alpha Titan in his own right, existing in the same weight class as Godzilla, Kong and Mothra, and being capable of dominating lesser Titans. After overpowering Rodan and surviving being hit by the Oxygen Destroyer, Ghidorah becomes the ''de facto'' King of the Monsters with Godzilla unable to oppose his quest for domination, and he promptly wakes the seventeen known Titans and drives them to begin destroying as much of the planet as possible, with Rodan in particular serving as [[TheDragon Ghidorah's vanguard]]. He's ultimately dethroned by Godzilla. |
| 205 | * MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: {{Downplayed}}. Ghidorah's heads each mainly have a single row of teeth, but tiny secondary teeth are visible poking out of the gums in a few uneven places; they're also more clearly visible on Ghidorah's skinless skull in ''Godzilla vs. Kong''. |
| 206 | * MultipleHeadCase: Something which sets this Ghidorah incarnation apart from others, sans the ''Series/{{Godzilland}}'' incarnation, is that his three heads each have personalities of their own, and they occasionally squabble or get into physical altercations with each-other like bickering brothers. The middle head Ichi is the leader, the most intelligent, and the most prominently malicious of the three; the right head Ni (Ghidorah's right, our left) is the angriest, most battle-thirsty head and he's bitter that he isn't the leader head; and the left head San/Kevin (Ghidorah's left, our right) is the most playful, curious, childlike, submissive and clumsy of the three heads, often getting pushed around and berated by the middle head. It's driven home by the fact three separate [[SerkisFolk motion capture actors]] portrayed each head. Despite the squabbling between the heads, when Ghidorah is in a serious fight then the heads become very well-coordinated. Ghidorah in this iteration can also [[HydraProblem regenerate his heads from the body if they're cut off]], with the head's original personality intact according to the director. |
| 207 | * MultipleTailedBeast: He also has two tails to go with his three heads, fitting with his real-world origin as inspired by [[{{Orochi}} Yamata-no-Orochi]]. |
| 208 | * MyHeroZero: He is known as "Monster Zero", though he's definitely no hero. |
| 209 | * MysteriousAntarctica: Is found frozen in ice by Monarch there -- WordOfGod states this was a deliberate reference to ''Film/TheThing1982''. The ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization states that the Vile Vortex to the [[HollowWorld Hollow Earth]] that Monarch has found in Antarctica is no more than a few miles away from where Ghidorah was frozen, leaving Monarch to speculate on whether or not Ghidorah was headed to the vortex when he got frozen. [[spoiler:The novelization of ''Film/GodzillaXKongTheNewEmpire'' would confirm he was frozen by Shimo under mysterious circumstances.]] |
| 210 | * MysteriousPast: His Monarch Sciences bio describes his origins as ancient but unknown. Monarch eventually deduce after piecing together what little legends there are about him that [[spoiler:he must be an alien lifeform]], but it's still unknown [[spoiler:how Ghidorah came to Earth, where he originally came from before crossing the stars, and]] if there are others of his species out there. |
| 211 | * MythologyGag: Ghidorah had always been referred to as ''King Ghidorah'', in the vast majority of his Japanese incarnations. In ''King of the Monsters'', he is usually simply called "Ghidorah" (though all marketing and supplemental materials call him King Ghidorah). But his eventual status as the Alpha among the Titans essentially makes him a literal King -- [[InSeriesNickname the military seem to be aware of this]]. |
| 212 | ** Before he lands in Boston where Madison is using the ORCA inside of the football stadium, [[spoiler:his infamous flying sound effect from the Showa series can be actually heard but it's extremely faint.]] |
| 213 | ** At one point where Godzilla and Ghidorah tussle for supremacy a third time he [[spoiler:briefly lets out a screech from his Heisei incarnation.]] |
| 214 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "The Death Song of Three Storms" is not exactly the name of anything good. |
| 215 | * NaturalDisasterCascade: Upon usurping Godzilla as alpha of the Earth's Titans, Ghidorah uses his WeatherManipulation to spread massive storms over the planet, whilst commanding the other Titans to wreak ecosystem-obliterating mass destruction in the form of earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and other severe disasters. The {{novelization}} notes Ghidorah's spreading storms on their own could cause mass extinction in a matter of months at most, but with the other Titans rampaging globally at his command, the likeliest outcome is '''all''' non-bacterial life on Earth besides Ghidorah perishing faster than they can adapt to Ghidorah's new world. In fact, the filmmakers of ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' intended Ghidorah to be a metaphor for GlobalWarming. |
| 216 | * NearVillainVictory: Twice. |
| 217 | ** Basically, the entire second half of the movie is this trope in the bigger picture: Godzilla being [[spoiler:crippled]] by the Oxygen Destroyer, achieves Ghidorah's goal of usurping his dominance of the other Titans by default. And the three-headed hydra promptly awakens the monsters around the world, commanding them to rampage in his name; decimating human cities and threatening to plunge the planet into the extinction event Ghidorah desires, and Mothra and humanity are initially hopeless to stop him with Godzilla out of action. |
| 218 | ** During the FinalBattle, the tide rapidly turns in King Ghidorah's favor after he absorbs the Boston power grid whilst Godzilla's power boost begins causing him to "crash". He manages to beat down and severely injure Godzilla, [[spoiler:kills Mothra, and then begins VampiricDraining Mothra's BequeathedPower out of Godzilla before the latter can achieve his Burning mode. Only the Russells using the ORCA to divert Ghidorah's attention stops Earth's last hope from perishing there and then]]. |
| 219 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: Although his goal was to end all life on Earth, [[spoiler:after he's completely destroyed, the numerous Titans he awakened remain awake, now answering to Godzilla as their new alpha, and are healing the damage to Earth's ecosystems not only caused by Ghidorah but also by humanity beforehand]]. Bear in mind, before this, Monarch was on its last legs short of being shut down by the anti-Titan military and government, and with all the Titans awake and ready to defend themselves but overall being kept in line by Godzilla, delusions of the military euthanizing the Titans in their sleep (and likely screwing the Earth's future overall) are now a pipe dream. |
| 220 | * NighInvulnerable: In addition to [[GiantEqualsInvincible the usual reasons]]; Ghidorah has an insane HealingFactor that allows him to regenerate from damage that would kill any other Titan, as well as a decentralized nervous system and BizarreAlienBiology that mean, so long as any sufficiently large chunk of him with enough neurons survives, Ghidorah isn't completely dead. [[spoiler:Even reduced to half a decapitated skull, some vestige of Ghidorah's consciousnesses is able to survive, reincarnate into Mechagodzilla and return to being a threat]]. Destroying every last piece of Ghidorah is the only surefire way to make sure he's gone for good. |
| 221 | * TheNightThatNeverEnds: Upon becoming the reigning King of the Monsters, he begins spreading [[PerpetualStorm massive storm systems]] all over the planet, darkening skies with thunderstorms and torrential rain. The novelization notes that if this keeps up for months or even just weeks, the dramatic decrease in sunlight ''alone'' will have the practical effect of a nuclear/volcanic/impact winter, causing plant life to die off, followed by everything above them in the food chain. |
| 222 | * NoBiochemicalBarriers: Downplayed. Ghidorah is revealed to be an ancient creature who's [[spoiler:apparently not even from our planet]], and he has no problem surviving in Earth's atmosphere (and can even breathe it, as he produces fogged breath in Antarctica). However, he's the only lifeform that demonstrably isn't fazed ''at all'' by the Oxygen Destroyer's effects, which were explicitly designed to exterminate all lifeforms within the blast radius, and which prove to be enough to annihilate the marine habitat next to Isla de Mara and even [[spoiler:severely cripple]] '''Godzilla himself'''). |
| 223 | * NonchalantDodge: During the Antarctica battle, Godzilla fires his Atomic Breath at Ghidorah, but San/Kevin's sharp eye has noticed Godzilla's charge building in advance: when Godzilla fires, Ghidorah's long necks enable Ichi and San/Kevin to fluidly move their heads a couple of inches (more like a few dozen feet given the scale) away from the beam before promptly firing back with their Gravity Beams. |
| 224 | * NonMammalianHair: When he's first shown as a cave painting for TheStinger of ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' as an EarlyBirdCameo, he's depicted with each of his three heads having strands of feathery-like manes that extends in length at around the upper sections of their necks, likely as a nod to the Showa incarnation being depicted with manes. In his actual film appearance in ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'', none of Ghidorah's heads possess any actual manes -- [[https://www.instagram.com/p/B_MeLPVpSSf/ official]] [[https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XB0oOa models]] indicate that Ghidorah was designed with tendril manes, but they were removed from the model at the very last minute, and even then, the manes were left in one shot of the finished film when Ghidorah is at Isla de Mara. |
| 225 | * NonStandardCharacterDesign: Subtle distinguishing traits exist in all the heads, but there are some which are each unique to one head. The middle head (who happens to be the leader) has two rows of spines on its neck, while both the other heads have a single row of spines each. Meanwhile, the left head (who happens to be the trio's least efficient/malicious member) has straighter horns than the other two. |
| 226 | * NoSell: The Oxygen Destroyer, that [[spoiler:seriously wounds Godzilla, to the point that he's legitimately feared to be dead for a good part of the movie]]? It doesn't even ''scratch'' Ghidorah, implicitly because Ghidorah is [[spoiler:an extraterrestrial Titan]] who is unlike any lifeform on Earth. |
| 227 | * NotDrawnToScale: Not necessarily him, but rather his hypercane. On Monarch's digital maps, Ghidorah's hypercane is more than half the size of Central America, but in the movie proper, its edges don't even reach the horizon. |
| 228 | * NotEnoughToBury: Ghidorah's HealingFactor is so powerful that Godzilla has to [[spoiler:basically ''atomize'' him to finally take him down. And TheStinger with his remaining severed (seemingly dead) head implies he's not completely out of action yet, with ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' confirming that his malevolent subconsciousness lives on in the head's skull]]. |
| 229 | * NotEvenHuman: Ghidorah is a variation of this. After he's released, he immediately proves to be unnaturally sadistic and malicious, in contrast to the other Titans who can be hostile or benevolent but are all ultimately animals with animal instinct. The effect increases halfway through the film when Ghidorah [[NoSell No-Sells]] the Oxygen Destroyer [[spoiler:(which brought Godzilla to the brink of death) and when his unnatural HealingFactor is revealed]]. Monarch discovers from analyzing ancient texts that Ghidorah is [[spoiler:an alien not from Earth]], which also means he does not in any way have a renewing effect on Earth's biosphere like most of the Titans do but instead he acts as a [[spoiler:planetary]] invasive species. |
| 230 | * NothingButSkulls: The very last cave painting for TheStinger of ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' shows a confrontation between Godzilla and Ghidorah, as the latter's side is shown to have plenty of skulls (which are rather large compared to the drawn humans) placed on a hillside from he's standing for unspecified reasons, other than to possibly display his bloodlust and cruelty to others who'll witness the ancient recording. |
| 231 | * NothingIsScarier: We don't know anything about this Ghidorah incarnation's MysteriousPast [[spoiler:before he came to Earth]]. However, Ghidorah's powerful and ''excessively sadistic'' nature leaves enough up to the imagination concerning the questions of where he came from originally, as described under Fridge Horror [[Fridge/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 here]]. |
| 232 | * OctopoidAliens: {{Downplayed}}. Whilst the three-headed DraconicAbomination which originated in Japanese media doesn't ''look'' at all like an octopus – with the closest visual approximation to an octopus trait he has being his possession of a few extra appendages (two extra heads and an extra tail) – [[https://twitter.com/Mike_Dougherty/status/1136281731349323776?s=20 the director]] explicitly said that Ghidorah's displays of BizarreAlienBiology are based on an octopus'; [[spoiler:and Ghidorah is just as much an extraterrestrial here as he is in most iterations]]. Like octopi, Ghidorah has a de-centralized nervous system which leaves his neurons scattered throughout his body; much like an octopus' tentacles, Ghidorah's [[MultipleHeadCase heads]] are capable of operating autonomously to the point of [[MultipleHeadCase developing distinct personality traits]]; and also like an octopus, Ghidorah can [[HealingFactor regenerate lost appendages]], [[spoiler:while the severed pieces can still retain some cognitive functions on their own]]. |
| 233 | * OmnicidalManiac: He's described as being a "living extinction event", and for good reason. He surrounds himself with a ferocious, lightning-filled super-typhoon that follows him wherever he goes and evolves into a [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale "Category 6"]] hypercane, but upon taking over as alpha of the Earth's Titans, Ghidorah actively seeks to create destruction that will cause a global ApocalypseHow/Class5[[note]]Described in the ''King of the Monsters'' and ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelizations[[/note]] on the ApocalypseHow scale. He instigates the other Titans to ''actively'' tear apart humanity's cities and engulf the world in a global NaturalDisasterCascade, causing entire ecosystems to perish faster than the [[spoiler:Earth-native]] Titans' FertileFeet can regenerate them and faster than any non-bacterial lifeform can adapt, plus Ghidorah himself expands his WeatherManipulation to blanket the planet's atmosphere in even more {{perpetual storm}}s besides his hurricane. Worse yet, Serizawa speculates in the ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' novelization that Ghidorah will promptly repeat his destructive campaign in the HollowEarth once he is done asserting himself on the Earth's surface, with the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization all but confirming that Ghidorah at least had knowledge of the Hollow Earth's existence. The main theory about Ghidorah's motives is that he's [[HostileTerraforming xenoforming]] the planet to his own liking, although Mark Russell in the novelization at one point wonders if Ghidorah really just wants to kill every living thing that isn't him as an end-goal in and of itself. |
| 234 | * OneMythToExplainThemAll: He was apparently the basis for many mythical creatures throughout various ancient cultures, with the novelization listing a host of various myths, legends, and tales which Ghidorah seems to have had an influence on, from Proto-Indo-European ''Chaoskampf''-derived myth (Greek Hydra, Norse Jörmugandr, Persian Aži Dahāka, Hindu Vritra) to Shinto Yamata-no-Orochi (which was heavily influenced by the Vedic branch of Indo-European religion) to the Australian Rainbow Serpent (whose civilization had no contact with any Indo-European civilization in the pre-modern era). The remote Taza of Highland New Guinea have a myth about Mandandare Aquenomba which seems to describe Ghidorah with disturbing accuracy, calling him a younger son from somewhere else who came to the world seeking his own territory. ''That'' particular shot in the film with the volcano and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZhlo5wWezg Dr. Graham's promo material notes]] suggest the [[{{Satan}} literal Devil]] might actually be humanity's diluted memory of him... |
| 235 | * OurDragonsAreDifferent: A three-headed, two-tailed draconic kaiju. From the moment he wakes up, his presence generates nightmarish, yellow-themed tempests. He's also [[spoiler:a literal alien, having fallen to Earth thousands of years ago, and is attempting to remake the Earth's environment to his own liking.]] He and Godzilla are at one point subtly compared to western and eastern iterations of dragons, respectively (guess which iteration is the evil kind). |
| 236 | * OurHydrasAreDifferent: A giant, three-headed reptile capable of regrowing severed heads, although they do not increase in number. The middle head seems to be the main source of Ghidorah's HealingFactor (as it was still alive and kicking [[spoiler:when that head and a bit of neck were literally all that was left of Ghidorah, whereas the earlier-severed left head is revealed to be (un)dead and rotting]]); similar to the Lernaean hydra's single immortal head in Greek mythology. Ghidorah's blood isn't known to be poisonous, but it does have a [[AlienBlood poison-evocative color]]. There's also Ghidorah's extreme {{sadist}}ic streak when it comes to eating and killing humans. Unlike the original hydra, Ghidorah [[WeaksauceWeakness doesn't fare well in water]]. |
| 237 | * OurWyvernsAreDifferent: This iteration of King Ghidorah notably averts its classic ArmlessBiped portrayal, being able to fold its wings to trek on surfaces like a bat. |
| 238 | * OutsideContextProblem: InUniverse! Monarch is puzzled by Ghidorah's uncharacteristic malice, and his unusual powers such as his HealingFactor, which they describe in-film as "biologically impossible". When they find legends that claim [[spoiler:Ghidorah is a "great dragon who fell from the stars", they deduce he must be some kind of extraterrestrial lifeform]], which is why he's so different from the other Titans on Earth. It's also what derails [[spoiler:Emma]]'s plan. Even though she's got a point about the Earth's Titans restoring the ecological balance, Ghidorah is ''not'' part of that balance, and his awakening is the complete opposite of a good thing for the Earth's biosphere. |
| 239 | * PerpetualStorm: Once he's awoken, he generates a Perpetual Hurricane filled with yellow lightning around himself which follows him wherever he goes and gets more and more powerful the longer he's active. Once he takes over as the ruling alpha from Godzilla and leads the Titans toward creating an extinction event, Ghidorah's effects on the weather begin spreading offshoot storms around the globe, and it's overall suggested that if he hadn't been stopped, he would've enveloped the entire planet in endless storms. ''Kingdom Kong'' reveals that a perpetual superstorm made by Ghidorah during his passage by Isla de Mara has been raging in the same spot for years since his death, before Camazotz causes it to shift location and permanently merge with Skull Island's own perpetual storm system. |
| 240 | * PersonOfMassDestruction: He is described as a "living extinction event" in viral marketing, and it's no exaggeration. He can fire all-destroying electrical [[BreathWeapon Gravity Beams]] from his mouths; when he's supercharged by Boston's power grid, he fires lightning arcs ''from his wings'' which spontaneously and utterly ''decimate'' [[spoiler:Godzilla]]'s aerial military backup in one fell swoop; and he generates massive hurricanes which in turn spawn thunderstorms, tornadoes and water-spouts around Ghidorah's vicinity. His hurricane gets larger and stronger the longer he generates it, eventually resulting in a Category 6; and it's heavily implied in the movie, and explicitly confirmed in the novelization, that this hurricane gradually evolves into a supercell generating ''more'' storm systems. Mark thinks in the novel that if the storms continue to expand, Ghidorah could essentially blanket the entire planet in a perpetual hurricane which would wipe out all life as we know it even without the other Titans aiding the destruction. |
| 241 | * PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs: {{Implied}}. It's only a very subtle hint, but the ''King of the Monsters'' novelization at one point seems to suggest that Ghidorah might have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event (a.k.a. the Great Dying, which wiped out 80-90% of all life at the time and is considered the single most severe extinction event in Earth's known history), and worse yet it retroactively sounds like the event might've merely been caused by Ghidorah's [[spoiler:''landing'' as a meteorite]]. |
| 242 | * PhysicalGod: Being Godzilla's chief rival and being a nigh-unkillable DraconicAbomination who forms massive hurricanes just by being awake and can single-handedly engineer global mass extinction, Ghidorah qualifies for this trope ''even amongst the Titans''. He's so strong, in fact, that [[spoiler:Godzilla needs to get a SuperMode]] to finally put him down. |
| 243 | * PowerGlows: His necks glow with light when he's charging up his electrical BreathWeapon -- think [[Characters/MiddleEarthFilmSmaug Smaug]], but with lightning instead of fire. Another shot of him firing from one head shows the attached neck is glowing there as well. It fits with how Godzilla and Mothra light up in various ways when charging their built-in energy weapons (i.e., Godzilla's dorsal plates and Mothra's wings), while Rodan has yet to be seen with any such ability at all. Ghidorah's Heisei and Showa predecessors have light-up ''horns'' in ''Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee'' and ''Godzilla: Save the Earth'', so this may be a subtle CallBack to the games. |
| 244 | * {{Prehensile Tail}}s: Uses his twin tails to grapple and lift Godzilla off the ground. |
| 245 | * PsychoElectro / ShockAndAwe: The viral marketing associates him with electricity, and of all the Titans, he's by far the most malevolent. His Gravity Beam attack takes the form of yellow lightning streams surging from his mouths, and from the moment he's awoken, he [[TheStormbringer begins forming a lightning-filled superstorm which follows him wherever he goes]]. Plus, it turns out in the film that he can absorb electricity from other sources and redeploy it to his advantage; when fighting Godzilla, he bites onto a nearby electrical transformer and proceeds to unleash a cascade of arcing electrical bolts from all over his body, including his outstretched wings. |
| 246 | [[/folder]] |
| 247 | |
| 248 | [[folder:R-Y]] |
| 249 | * RasputinianDeath: [[spoiler:In the battle of Boston, Ghidorah is mauled half a dozen times by Big G, blasted again and again by a super-charged atomic breath, and thrown into buildings and the foundation of the city. Burning Godzilla vents nuclear heat with enough force to level Boston ''twice'', resulting in Ghidorah's wings and side heads being incinerated by the blasts, and after that he still has to stomp on Ghidorah's still-alive body and point-blank him with another blast of nuclear heat; and after '''that''', Godzilla ''finally'' roasts the remaining and still-kicking head with an atomic breath which goes up the head's neck from the cut while it's held in Godzilla's jaws and explodes it from the inside-out]]. {{Justified|Trope}}, as Ghidorah's insane HealingFactor practically ''requires'' his death to be this. |
| 250 | * ReadingsAreOffTheScale: By the time that he's [[WashingtonDCInvasion taken up roost in Washington D.C.]], Ghidorah's body-surrounding tempest, which was originally mistaken for a mundane cyclone, has rapidly evolved into what Colonel Foster formally calls a "Category 6 hurricane". The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir%E2%80%93Simpson_scale Saffir-Simpson scale]] officially uses no category higher than ''5'', which is reserved for any hurricanes with sustained wind speeds of 157+ miles per hour. "Living extinction event" indeed. |
| 251 | * {{Reconstruction}}: In contrast to [[DeconstructedCharacterArchetype the anime version of the character]], this Ghidorah takes the original concept and adds enough realism to make it work beautifully. A giant flying dragon will need enormous wings he can fold out of his way that are also sturdy enough to support his weight when leaning forward. The three heads all have minds of their own, causing certain independence from each other, and move around like cobras due to their long necks. Ghidorah belches a conductive ionized gas ignited by his body’s bio-electricity, and his electrical powers cause massive storms to form around him. His occasional mind control powers are reworked into his status as an Alpha Titan with the ability to direct the other Titans as he sees fit on an instinctual level. Also, while previous King Ghidorah incarnations were ''said'' to be {{Planet Killer}}s, ''how'' they did so wasn't elaborated on other than 'fly around spamming Gravity Beams until everything is dead.' This Ghidorah is capable of destroying life on Earth by a combination of: commanding the Titans to tear down humanity's cities and eradicate ecosystems faster than they [[FertileFeet regenerate them]], and by virtue of his storm system spreading until it blankets the entire planet in a neverending hurricane. [[spoiler: His status as an alien is also used to fit in with the franchise's theme of Kaiju simply being animals in touch with nature, [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity invasive as this makes him an outside species which damages the ecosystem he encroaches on.]]]] |
| 252 | * RedBaron: The viral marketing repeatedly refers to him as [[MythologyGag Monster Zero]], which is also the name given to him by Monarch before they discover his real name from ancient legends. Ancient Sumerians call him the Death Song of Three Storms. Other legends such as this which name him Ghidorah also call him the One Who Is Many, and in the novelization he's implied to be the source of the myths about [[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Azhi-Dahaka Azhi Dahaka]] whilst the Taza of Highland New Guinea (whose legends about him appear to be the most accurate to the reality) know him as Mandandare Aqenomba. |
| 253 | * RedEyesTakeWarning: He has beady, bright-red eyes which glint to the point they appear to be glowing in the dark (and outright ''do'' glow when Ghidorah is [[VampiricDraining draining Godzilla's power]]). |
| 254 | * ReptilesAreAbhorrent: He is a three-headed, reptilian-looking dragon [[spoiler:from outer space]] who wants nothing more than to dominate and eliminate all life on Earth. |
| 255 | * RoarBeforeBeating: Like his arch-enemy Godzilla, he tends to wail in rage when he's mid-charging into a battle against another Titan. He shrieks at the start of his first and last battles against Godzilla during the movie, and when he's flying towards Rodan. |
| 256 | * RuleOfSymbolism: He's a SatanicArchetype, even being called the Devil in Dr. Graham's notes, and there are times in the movie where one can really see how {{Satan}} could very well be humans' memory of ancient encounters with him. In Antarctica, Ghidorah emerges from a pit filled with smoke and lightning (fire), looking like Satan coming unbound from his prison in Hell to bring about the End Times; and in Antarctica and Boston, he has reddish-yellow light coming from underneath him (due to fires and/or his own electrical powers) which make him look like a dragon born straight out of Hell. One of the [=MonsterVerse's=] most iconic shots frames Ghidorah beside a cross, lit infernally by lightning and the lava of an erupting volcano as if to say "Where's your God now?" as Ghidorah [[spoiler:takes control of the other Titans unopposed and basically begins the End Times]]. |
| 257 | * RunningOnAllFours: Whenever he's on land he can fold his gargantuan wings that can be visibly seen as his "arms" and uses them for mobility across the terrain in a wyvern-like fashion. When Godzilla starts charging towards him in the climax, Ghidorah lifts himself off the ground with the boost and leverage of his wings to give himself a running start. |
| 258 | * RunningGag: ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' director [[https://twitter.com/GodzillaMovie/status/1253490418790084613?s=2 Mike Dougherty]] stated he likes to think that [[ButtMonkey San/Kevin]] has gotten decapitated ''a lot'' during Ghidorah's god-knows-how-long life. In ''King of the Monsters'', Kevin is the only head that gets decapitated ''twice'' (first when Godzilla rips his head off halfway through the film, then again after Ghidorah regrows Kevin's head and the new one gets [[spoiler:obliterated alongside Ni during Ghidorah's RasputinianDeath]]. And then [[spoiler:in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', Mechagodzilla -- which is controlled using the skull of Kevin's head from Isla de Mara, and which essentially becomes Ghidorah reincarnated as a direct result of this -- gets defeated specifically by Kong ripping the Mecha's head (along with the spine) out]]. |
| 259 | * {{Sadist}}: Excessively so when it comes to [[KillAllHumans his interactions with humans]]. The middle head is the most pronounced, but Ghidorah as a whole has a sadistic streak. He takes joy in personally slaughtering humans and trying to wipe them off the face of the Earth not because he views them as a real threat (if his first reaction to the G-Team shooting at him upon his awakening is any indication), but because he ''can'' and because he gets a kick out of it; going far beyond the callousness and provoked aggression of the [=MUTOs=], the HorrorHunger of the Skullcrawlers, or the other purely-animalistic instincts which motivate the Earth Titans generally. Ghidorah also has a ridiculous tendency towards [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overkill]] when it comes to ''how'' he slaughters humanity, something which the novelization explicitly points out. One of the best examples of Ghidorah's sheer malice is when Monarch's Osprey is downed and Ghidorah could easily crush it with his foot or vaporize it with his Gravity Beams, but instead he chooses to take his time slowly crushing it with everyone inside -- the novel again notes that this shows an abnormally high level of malice. Another example of Ghidorah's sadism is when he attempts to kill [[spoiler:Madison]], a single human who's barely larger than one of Ghidorah's teeth, using ''all three'' heads' Gravity Beams once she's crossed him. [[https://twitter.com/GodzillaMovie/status/1253485106179665925?s=20 The director himself]] compared Ghidorah to a cat toying with a mouse before he kills it and says that he outright enjoys what he does more than anything else. |
| 260 | --> It wasn't the expression of one animal that had bested another, or of a predator regarding its prey. Ghidorah ''enjoyed'' killing. He lived for it. |
| 261 | * SatanicArchetype: A multi-headed dragon (like in the [[Literature/BookOfRevelation final book of]] Literature/{{the Bible}}) [[spoiler:who fell from the stars (or rather the heavens)]], was imprisoned in ice (like the three-headed Satan stuck in Cocytus in ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Dante's Inferno]]''), and he's a [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity complete aberration]] to everything that's considered natural (or holy) in the world. Ghidorah is the [[EvilCounterpart dark foil]] and {{arch enemy}} of the setting's God (Godzilla), whom he actively clashes with and seeks to usurp so that he can dominate Godzilla's former kingdom and destroy the entire Earth while ostensibly remaking it in his own image. To help accomplish this, Ghidorah enthralls the other kaiju which are meant to aid Godzilla into instead serving Ghidorah (similarly to Satan seducing his fellow angels into rebelling against God with him) -- Ghidorah's [[TheDragon vanguard]] Rodan is even [[DemonDevilDistinction called a demon whereas Ghidorah is described as a devil]]. Ghidorah happens to embody what humanity consider the worst traits within themselves, namely malice, cruelty, disregard for the very environment which all life on Earth depends on, and a desire for domination and supremacy over all others. Emerging from a giant pit when his ages-spanning imprisonment ends, Ghidorah sets his monstrous minions on the world and brings [[ApocalypseHow global calamity]], [[spoiler:before he's ultimately defeated by God(zilla) in a [[FinalBattle great battle]] for the fate of the world]], again like Satan's role in the end of the Bible. [[RuleOfSymbolism Made out to look like Satan throughout the movie]], Ghidorah is outright referred to in Dr. Graham's notes as the Devil with three heads, with an allusion to ''Dante's Inferno''. |
| 262 | * SealedEvilInACan: He was discovered frozen in a glacier in the Antarctic, and Monarch built a base to study and contain Ghidorah's icy prison. [[https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2477994/godzilla-king-of-the-monsters-director-explains-how-ghidora-ended-up-frozen Word o]][[https://twitter.com/GodzillaMovie/status/1253479851714985984?s=20 f God]] reveals that Godzilla defeated the three-headed dragon during their last ancient battle in Antarctica, and [[spoiler:[[Film/GodzillaXKongTheNewEmpire Shimo had her own mysterious role in freezing Ghidorah solid]], and it's implied in the movie that Godzilla regularly checks up on Antarctica precisely to make sure Ghidorah remains contained. The three-headed hydra is unleashed by the actions of Alan Jonah's EcoTerrorist organization, who seek to use Ghidorah to further their anarchist cause; underestimating how impossible Ghidorah is to control in any direct shape or form, and unaware that Ghidorah's destruction will mean the complete opposite of ecological restoration for the planet. |
| 263 | * SequelAdaptationIconicVillain: The first film had the [=MUTOs=], {{Canon Foreigner}}s, as the kaiju Godzilla faces. Likewise, ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' had the equally-foreign Skullcrawlers as the [=MonsterVerse=] Kong's primary foes. The next movie brings in Godzilla's iconic archenemy from the Toho films, Ghidorah, as the movie's BigBad. |
| 264 | * SerkisFolk: Each of Ghidorah's three heads has its own motion-capture actor, providing each head with a distinct set of quirks and mannerisms. |
| 265 | * ShortLivedLeadership: Unlike all of Godzilla's (and also Kong's) other Titan enemies so far, Ghidorah stands apart for actually ''succeeding'' in [[TyrantTakesTheHelm wresting Godzilla's dominant position from him]], however temporarily. Although Ghidorah's reign seems to last less than 24 hours [[spoiler:before Godzilla kills him]], during that time, Ghidorah manages to spontaneously awaken and enslave over a dozen other Titans around the world and command them to attack, causing worldwide devastation to mankind's cities and to multiple ecosystems, [[spoiler:and he also kills Mothra]]. One of the major indirect consequences of Ghidorah's brief reign of terror as King is that one of the Titans he awakened, Camazotz, subsequently invades Skull Island [[spoiler:and causes the island's functional extinction as an ecosystem]]. |
| 266 | * ShownTheirWork: Unlike most incarnations, this version of Ghidorah uses his winged forelimbs to aid walking and running in a manner similar to vampire bats and pterosaurs. |
| 267 | * SiblingsShareTheThrone: {{Implied}}. Word of God compares Ghidorah's MultipleHeadCase to conjoined siblings, which would make Ichi, Ni and San a case of this trope when they [[TyrantTakesTheHelm take over as the reigning King of the Monsters]], by virtue of the fact they're technically one Titan with three minds attached to it. |
| 268 | * TheSilentBob: Like Godzilla, his three voices exclusively consist of shrieks and roars, but his actions and expressiveness speak volumes about his personalities. He's clearly a genuinely-malicious and intelligent beast who takes sadistic pleasure in attacking practically-defenceless humans, and [[MultipleHeadCase each of his three heads]] has a distinct personality and have a codependent relationship with each-other akin to a pecking order. |
| 269 | * SingleSpecimenSpecies: Unlike the other Titans, he technically fits this trope according to the summary, as far as we know. [[spoiler:He's apparently an extraterrestrial that never originated on Earth]], and [[MysteriousPast we don't know anything about where he came from originally]] or if there are others of his kind. |
| 270 | * SinisterSilhouettes: |
| 271 | ** One shot in the film shows him silhouetted with lightning flashing behind him as he unfurls his wings. You can even see [[GlowingEyesofDoom his eyes faintly shining]]. |
| 272 | ** His silhouette is also visible in the cyclone above the flooded, hellish ruins of Washington D.C. when he's made a roost there, illuminated by lightning flashes. |
| 273 | * SnakesAreSinister: His serpentine traits are much more emphasized in this version, including how he has forked tongues that occasionally flick, and how his tails occasionally produce rattling sounds. [[spoiler:In his third and final clash with Godzilla, his heads actually constrict Godzilla in a fashion similar to pythons.]] |
| 274 | * SnowballingThreat: From the moment he's awoken from his suspended animation, Ghidorah begins forming a tempestuous alien hypercane around himself, and it grows stronger the longer he's active, becoming a ''[[ReadingsAreOffTheScale category 6]]'' storm by the movie's third act. It's also heavily implied in ''King of the Monsters'', and confirmed in the novelization, that Ghidorah's hypercane increasingly disrupts worldwide weather patterns as time goes on to cause even more storms around the globe, which could, in effect, ultimately [[ApocalypseHow blanket the entire planet in a perpetual hurricane]]. To say nothing of Ghidorah taking control of the other Titans and altering their behavior to make them his minions... |
| 275 | * TheSociopath: Compared to the other Titans, Ghidorah seems less like a survival-driven animal and more like a bloodthirsty, megalomaniacal psychopath. He doesn't care about anyone or anything but himself, the only two uses he sees for Earth's native lifeforms that aren't him are either making them hapless victims and prey to satisfy his insane bloodlust or making them bend to his will as subordinates and aid him in destroying their own planet, and he has no compunctions against creating mass extinction to serve his own goals in a way which, based on how he seems to survive fine in Earth's current environment, likely isn't necessary to his survival. The novelization explicitly points out that Ghidorah is the only Titan whose behavior indicates he's truly ''evil'', whereas all the other Titans including the bad ones are ultimately animals following natural instincts. |
| 276 | * SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: Unlike the previous two [=MonsterVerse=] movies' monster {{Big Bad}}s, Ghidorah is not just a daikaiju, he's one that's powerful enough to rival Godzilla for dominance over all the others, and he's also a true match to Godzilla's power level, whereas the Skullcrawlers and [=MUTOs=] all relied on extra numbers to get an advantage over Godzilla and Kong respectively. Furthermore, Ghidorah is much more malevolent and destructive than the previous antagonists, and as an [[spoiler:alien who acts as an [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity invasive species]] and is actively trying to destroy as much life on Earth as possible]], it's indicated he'll cause a far worse ApocalypseHow than either of the previous two villains if he wins (bear in mind the [=MUTOs=] could've caused ''[[ApocalypseHow/Class4 Multiple Species Extinction]]'' if they won – Ghidorah however could cause [[KillAllHumans the complete extinction of all humanity]] and, according to the {{novelization}}s, [[ApocalypseHow/Class5 the thorough eradication of all multicellular life on our planet]]). [[spoiler:When Ghidorah is briefly reborn in Mechagodzilla in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'', he loses his previous identity's more outlandish and apocalyptic storm-wreaking powers, but he does exchange them for a strictly anti-Godzilla manmade arsenal that allows him to utterly dominate a weakened Godzilla even when the latter has backup from Kong, and Mechagodzilla fully retains Ghidorah's malevolent desire to wipe out all human life he encounters]]. |
| 277 | * SpikesOfVillainy: He has bat-like wings with spiky, blade-like tips on the fingers' ends, crowns of horns on each head, and two long tails ending in spiky clubs. |
| 278 | * TheStormbringer: Ghidorah is essentially a living hurricane -- his electrical powers cause him to generate a devastating, typhoon-like [[PerpetualStorm perpetual thunderstorm]] of yellow lightning which follows him wherever he goes, aided by the hurricane-like winds produced by his wings. The ''moment'' he awakens in Antarctica, unnatural winds, fog and yellow lightning stir up before he's even taken flight; and over the film, Ghidorah's storm rapidly evolves into a hurricane nearly the size of Central America, and by the time of the final battle is a ''Category 6''. Although Ghidorah's hurricane gets a lot of DoNotTouchTheFunnelCloud treatment in the film, it still makes conditions around him very ominous and foreboding, and it can damage aircraft with lightning bolts. The art book implies that Ghidorah's storm generation is a direct byproduct of being in Earth's atmosphere where he doesn't belong. |
| 279 | * SuperPowerLottery: Out of all of the Titans which are able to destroy cities, survive military weapons and affect environments, it's no contest that King Ghidorah is absolutely the key winner. Having the power to surround himself with a tornado- and water-spout-spawning superstorm which covers a whole city's or even continent's worth wherever he goes, and the ability to furthermore cover ''most of the planet'' in widespread offshoot storms; the power to channel electrical energy intense enough to instantly ''disintegrate'' humans from his body (mostly from his mouths); [[HealingFactor great regenerative capabilities]]; SuperStrength; the power to [[VampiricDraining absorb a victim's life force just by biting]]; oxygen independency; and the power to awaken and enslave multiple Titans by command, there's a reason why Godzilla and humanity view Ghidorah as a horrible threat to everything that must be destroyed, and why Godzilla is the only Titan on Earth who can seriously challenge him. |
| 280 | * SuperToughness: He tanks Godzilla's Atomic Breath without any lasting damage done ''twice'' in the final confrontation in Boston. This feat is made all the more impressive by the fact Godzilla's strength is currently greatly increased due to absorbing a nuclear warhead's full power. |
| 281 | * TelepathicSpacemen: [[spoiler:Ghidorah is the first and so far only extraterrestrial Titan introduced in the [=MonsterVerse=], and]] it's confirmed in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' that Ghidorah's heads are [[{{Telepathy}} telepathic]]. Whereas Titans like Mothra and Camazotz have shown [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane possible signs of having psychic powers]], Ghidorah's telepathy is confirmed explicitly. |
| 282 | * ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Essentially his way of thinking when he encounters (or thinks he's encountered) another Alpha. They're a rival that needs to be taken out at all costs, and if they resist, they need to be put down for good. |
| 283 | * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: |
| 284 | ** He seems to have a preference towards using his Gravity Beams, an attack that throws Godzilla around, as his main method of killing humans. He attempts to kill [[spoiler:[[WouldHurtAChild Madison]]]] with ''all three of them'' in Boston, after she uses the ORCA to disrupt his global Titan control and essentially issue a challenge to him. Given his appearance in ancient cave paintings has him using the beams to blast soldiers with spears, he's always done this. The novelization notes that Ghidorah can never settle for just killing opposition quickly and efficiently, he absolutely has to inflict deranged overkill when finishing them off. |
| 285 | ** On the other hand, a combination of Ghidorah's HealingFactor and decentralized nervous system means that this is the ''only'' way to truly kill him, as if a large enough piece with enough neurons survives, he can potentially come back. [[spoiler:Godzilla ''atomizes him''... but the severed head of San/Kevin allows something of Ghidorah's consciousness to survive and reincarnate into Mechagodzilla]]. Thus, it's likely only ''complete'' annihilation is enough to permanently put Ghidorah down for good. |
| 286 | * ThinChinOfSin: Each of their wicked chins look incredibly skinny, sharp, and heinously chiseled. While it may be rather difficult to see because of the film's lighting, his chins also have defined, but particularly two tiny visible spikes that are poking beneath them. |
| 287 | * [[TwoBeingsOneBody Three Beings, One Body]]: The director indicates Ghidorah's MultipleHeadCase is this rather than SplitPersonality, comparing them to conjoined triplets; while Ghidorah's Monarch Sciences bio comments there's "a divergent frontal lobe density in the brains of the three heads, denoting each head has disparate levels of cognitive functions and possibly even independent thought". |
| 288 | * ThroatLight: Yellow light visibly ripples through the undersides of Ghidorah's necks and fills his mouths when he's charging up his Gravity Beams to fire, somewhat similar to the incarnations in the Pipeworks Software video games. |
| 289 | * TinyHeadedBehemoth: Each of his three heads is roughly the size of a house excluding the necks, and yet the rest of his body is so much larger (especially his wings when he spreads them), to the point that his heads comparatively don't look much larger than three of his toes; [[https://wikizilla.org/w/images/b/bd/Vlcsnap-2021-10-22-09h36m21s456.png.jpg as shown in this image]]. |
| 290 | * TooPowerfulToLive: Arguably the single most powerful (and most malevolent) Kaiju in the [=MonsterVerse=] yet, and the only way to stop him from ending the world after he escapes his [[SealedEvilInACan evil-sealing can]] is by killing him in the same movie. [[spoiler:Of course, then there's TheStinger suggesting he might be NotQuiteDead, with the sequel confirming that his mortal remains have ensured he can still live on in some form or another]]. |
| 291 | * TopGod: As a rival Alpha Titan in his own right, Ghidorah has the capacity (and also the active desire, unlike Kong), to usurp Godzilla as King of the Gods; a task in which he temporarily succeeds once [[spoiler:Godzilla is crippled to near-death by the Oxygen Destroyer]] and thus unable to fight Ghidorah off. Unlike Godzilla however, Ghidorah is presented as TheUsurper and TyrantTakesTheHelm on a truly apocalyptic scale. The film's FinalBattle focuses on Godzilla [[RightfulKingReturns fighting to take back his kingship]] via YouKillItYouBoughtIt. |
| 292 | * TopHeavyGuy: Slightly downplayed. His legs are a lot shorter and skinnier regardless of his gigantic mass compared to his visibly protruding and muscular chest. |
| 293 | * TruerToTheText: This version of King Ghidorah is the most faithful to the original portrayal in ''Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster''; being a sadistic, alien, nigh-unstoppable killing machine, who is entirely serving his own agenda rather than that of HumanAliens in his campaign to destroy humanity and scorch the Earth. |
| 294 | * TyrantTakesTheHelm: When Godzilla is taken out of action by [[spoiler:the Oxygen Destroyer]], Ghidorah usurps his position as King of the Monsters; and he wastes no time in directing the other Titans to [[NaturalDisasterCascade trigger cataclysmic, ecosystem-ravaging natural disasters on every continent]] while obliterating human cities. It's furthermore implied in the novelization that the Earth Titans under Ghidorah's control would've eventually died if Ghidorah remained in charge. |
| 295 | * UndignifiedDeath: [[spoiler:After Burning Godzilla obliterates Ghidorah's side-heads and body, the surviving middle head is all that's left. Normal Godzilla has him in his mouth by the neck stub as he screeches and writhes futilely before Godzilla destroys him with his atomic breath. For a planet-destroying alien, it's almost comical.]] |
| 296 | * {{Unperson}}: Ancient cultures barely wrote anything about him, and Serizawa and Chen observe it's as if they were scared to leave any record of him and were hoping he would eventually be forgotten. |
| 297 | * TheUsurper: Is presented as this after he [[spoiler:ousts Godzilla as the King of the Monsters]], even being referred to as a "[[FakeKing False King]]" due to [[spoiler:his true nature as an extraterrestrial invasive species who doesn't in any way conform to this planet's natural order]]. |
| 298 | * VampiricDraining: In reference to [[Film/GodzillaFinalWars Keizer Ghidorah]]; after a wounded Godzilla begins to [[spoiler:morph into Burning Godzilla]], Ghidorah begins viciously and excruciatingly draining the life out of Godzilla via bites. [[spoiler:Only Emma's use of the ORCA stops him from sucking Godzilla dry]]. |
| 299 | * VictoriousRoar: A villainous version. First, he's wailing his two remaining heads off when he blasts out of the Pacific Ocean, having survived the [[FantasticNuke Oxygen Destroyer]] unscathed [[spoiler:whilst Godzilla is critically injured]]. Just a minute later, immediately after regenerating his lost head, Ghidorah lets out a far more impressive and terrible roar from atop Rodan's volcano; [[JustifiedTrope one which awakens all the other Titans around the world and bends them to his will, now that Godzilla is no longer around to stop the three-headed monster]], marking the point at which things go FromBadToWorse for the heroes and the setting. And from the looks of video feeds that are monitoring Ghidorah later during the ensuing global disaster, he kept on posing and roaring to the heavens atop that volcano for quite some time, just to show how triumphant he is. |
| 300 | * VilerNewVillain: Whereas the [=MUTOs=] and the Skullcrawlers were generally just following their natural instincts (albeit instincts that greatly threatened the resident humans and local ecosystems), Ghidorah is an intelligent [[spoiler:alien]] who displays true malice in his interactions with humans, and he poses an even greater threat to humanity and Earth's natural balance. The novelization even suggests that perhaps Ghidorah isn't driven by any kind of necessity to reshape the Earth with an extinction event but is really doing it purely out of hatred for every living thing that isn't him. |
| 301 | * VillainExitStageLeft: [[spoiler:After getting ambushed by the military and seeing Godzilla recover on his flank, Ghidorah decides to book it by flying out of the Antarctic scenery, much to Godzilla's agitation.]] |
| 302 | * VillainousBreakdown: Ghidorah has a minor one when Godzilla traps him underwater, visibly panicking and struggling to break free. [[spoiler:The real one comes when Godzilla activates his SuperMode -- Ichi and Ni in particular seem enraged to the point of freaking-out, while San/Kevin looks cowed more than anything else after Godzilla incinerates their wings. Immediately after Ni and Kevin are obliterated, Ichi's body language (well, neck language and facial language) grows visibly intimidated and frantic]]. |
| 303 | * VillainousLegacy: |
| 304 | ** After his death, humanity's cities have suffered untold devastation due to his reign of terror, but in a positive twist, the Earth's ecosphere is being renewed by the Titans he awakened now that they answer to Godzilla, which has furthermore (as noted in the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' novelization) silenced the public's and TheGovernment[='s=] outcry demanding that the military try to wipe the Titans out. Ironically, Ghidorah has indirectly played a role in ''aiding'' both man and nature in the long run. While Ghidorah failed to make Earth his own hostile world or kill all life on it, he did succeed in making Earth a world of monsters. |
| 305 | ** On the downside, it's revealed in ''Kingdom Kong'' that Ghidorah's passage over the Pacific Ocean left a [[PerpetualStorm perpetual superstorm]] anchored there which didn't dissipate upon his death, and Camazotz takes advantage of this by drawing the superstorm into Skull Island's own Perpetual Storm barrier, ultimately causing the certain doom of the island's ecosystem. [[spoiler:''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' reveals that Ghidorah's leftover severed head's skull is being used by [[PeaceAndLoveIncorporated Apex Cybernetics]] to control Mechagodzilla, and Ghidorah's influence is directly responsible for the mech going rogue]]. |
| 306 | * VocalDissonance: Terrifying, cruel, has the ability to manifest endless widespread storms, and is pure malevolence compared to the other Titans (especially Godzilla). Yet his screeches and shrills don't seem to match his sadistic nature. This can be purely justified mainly because he's [[spoiler:an alien with BizarreAlienBiology]], so it makes sense why his "roar" is different and off-putting. |
| 307 | * WalkingTechbane: Due to his electrical powers, he tends to short circuit or damage any technology in his broad vicinity. Ghidorah using his Gravity Beams nearby is enough to cause a static power surge which strands Mark's and the Monarch brass's Osprey on the ground. |
| 308 | * WalkingWasteland: Much like the fairly realistic depiction of a creature Godzilla's size displacing enough water to create tsunamis upon landfall, Ghidorah's massive size, powerful wings, and ShockAndAwe powers alter the barometric pressure around him to create a ''lightning-filled hurricane'', and it only gets more powerful the longer he's active. |
| 309 | * WashingtonDCInvasion: Upon taking over as King of the Monsters, whilst the other Titans now under Ghidorah's thrall attack various cities around the world, Ghidorah himself flies north from Mexico to quickly invade Washington D.C.: turning the city into his roost, he scorches the buildings with his lightning and he inundates the entire city with his hypercane. [[spoiler:For bonus points, Ghidorah unlike the other Titans is actually an alien creature]]. And thus [[Film/KongSkullIsland Bill Randa]] was proven quite wrong when he said there would never be a more tumultuous time in D.C.. |
| 310 | * WeaponStomp: After he's drawn to Fenway Park by the [=ORCA's=] signal issuing a challenge and disrupting his global Titan control, a cornered Madison throws the still-transmitting device towards him in a last-ditch effort to save herself. One of Ghidorah's heads (likely the left) leans in to get a closer look at the device, before he crushes it underfoot, [[spoiler:then prepares to kill Madison anyway]]. |
| 311 | * WeatherManipulation: Ghidorah is TheStormbringer, and his weather-altering superpower doesn't even end there. When he takes over as the ruling Alpha Titan, Ghidorah's hurricane begins causing massive offshoot storm systems to spread all over the planet. Mark notes that the decreased daylight ''alone'' will plunge Earth into a [[TheNightThatNeverEnds makeshift volcanic winter]] if it keeps up, "[n]ever mind all of the flooding, the saturation of reefs with fresh water...". A "living extinction event" indeed! |
| 312 | ** BlowYouAway: {{Downplayed}}. He's capable of creating massive and destructive Category 6 hurricanes simply by ''existing in the Earth's atmosphere'', although DoNotTouchTheFunnelCloud is in full effect throughout the movie, making the winds look no worse than a mild gale when the humans are out in the open underneath Ghidorah's storm; in contrast to [[WindFromBeneathMyWings what Rodan's devastating wingbeats can do]]. |
| 313 | ** MakingASplash: After he books it out of Antarctica, Ghidorah's hurricane brings torrential downpours wherever he goes, presumably due to his storm absorbing the water of the South Atlantic Ocean while he was flying over it. His hurricane floods Washington D.C. in waters so deep that a ''battleship'' can cruise through the flooded ruins. |
| 314 | ** OminousFog: His hurricane brings eerie, billowing clouds of otherworldly-looking fog wherever he goes, to dramatic effect. |
| 315 | * WindFromBeneathMyWings: The promotional materials state his wings produce hurricane-force winds, which help his electrical typhoon to form and expand. It doesn't really show in the film, except for a rather chilling moment where winds falling and then rising again seemingly in rhythm appear to indicate his wingbeats as he approaches; before his storm surges into the city. |
| 316 | * WingShield: Employs this as a defensive maneuver. Works well against the military's weapons, and against Godzilla's atomic breath. [[spoiler:Doesn't work at all against Burning Godzilla's thermonuclear pulse.]] |
| 317 | * WorldsBestWarrior: The only Titan on Earth until Shimo that can defeat Godzilla in a straight fight one-on-one and needs an arduous and dedicated team effort to be defeated every time. Likely because [[spoiler:he isn't from Earth.]] |
| 318 | * WouldHurtAChild: He comes uncomfortably close to vaporizing Madison shortly after landing in Boston. He could have easily just squished her but preferred to use overkill on a teenage girl, either because he was pissed at her for crossing him by [[spoiler:using the ORCA to disrupt his global control over the Titans and issue a challenge at him]], or simply to satisfy his own bloodlust. |
| 319 | * WrittenRoar: The onomatopeia of "BIDIBIDIBIDIBIDI!" has been widely embraced by the fandom as his signature cackling cry. |
| 320 | * YellowLightningBlueLightning: Ghidorah's bioelectric Gravity Beams are yellow in coloration, as is the lightning in the storms he creates, in contrast to Godzilla's bright blue atomic rays. The "standard warning sign color" of Ghidorah's lightning fits with how it ultimately turns out [[spoiler:that he isn't really a part of Earth's natural order at all, and that]] he will cause even more destruction than either humanity or the Earth Titans acting on their own wills would if he's allowed to reign unchecked. |
| 321 | * YellowPurpleContrast: Across two movies, Ghidorah has this contrast. See the Skull's character folder for details. |
| 322 | [[/folder]] |
| 323 | |
| 324 | !!Tropes applying to the heads |
| 325 | [[folder:In General]] |
| 326 | * AlphaAndBetaWolves: Mark compares Ghidorah to a pack alpha when explaining to Admiral Stenz how Ghidorah is making the other Titans ignore the military's nuclear bait and actively rampage as an extension of Ghidorah's will, but Ghidorah's heads themselves have this dynamic with ''each-other''. Ichi (the middle head) is described as the "alpha" head who leads the other two, Ni is next on the pecking order, and San/Kevin is at the bottom. Ichi also tends throughout the movie to hold his head and neck slightly higher or further forward than Ni and Kevin hold theirs, similarly to how pack wolves express dominance or submission by holding themselves higher or lower. |
| 327 | * CharacterDevelopment: ''Surprisingly''. When Ghidorah first wakes up in Antarctica, Kevin looks at their environment almost in awe and takes a curiosity towards the humans that were trying to attack him -- all three heads even take time investigating and cruelly toying with the human-filled Osprey nearby. After Antarctica, all three heads don't show much interest in humans beyond obliterating them [[ForTheEvulz for the fun of it]]. |
| 328 | * CombatPragmatist: Ichi is the most focused on the bigger picture, such as the ORCA or challenging Godzilla, and it shows a degree of cunning when it uses a nearby power generator to charge up a lightning attack from Ghidorah's wings. Meanwhile, Ni keeps an eye on what's happening around it when it's trying to free the other heads. During the FinalBattle, one of these two heads[[note]]The view makes it unclear which one, but it's apparently either the middle or right head since another head is visible on this head's left in the shot[[/note]] appears to summon Rodan and have the latter keep Mothra from backing Godzilla up, based on how Rodan emerges and intercepts Mothra just moments after this head trills at the sky in the Queen's direction. |
| 329 | * TheComicallySerious: {{Downplayed}}. Ichi and Ni try their best to look terrifying, while Kevin just lives in his own little world; not that Ghidorah himself isn't exactly comedic as a whole if still [[KnightOfCerebus terrifyingly intimidating]]. |
| 330 | * DeathGlare: Ichi notably gives Madison one when Ghidorah's heads spot her in Boston and realize she was responsible for broadcasting the ORCA signal. [[PerpetualFrowner Ni]] looks like he's sporting such a glare whenever he sees humans. |
| 331 | * TheDividual: (Syndividual) Ghidorah's three heads are physically near-identical, and they work as one in a fight. Individually however, they display distinct personality traits, their horns are slightly different from each other, and the middle and left heads each have some NonStandardCharacterDesign relative to uniform physical traits among their fellow heads (see the General folder for more details). |
| 332 | * FreudianTrio: Kevin is the Id, Ichi is the Ego, and Ni is the Superego. |
| 333 | * ItCanThink: Each of Ghidorah's heads has a distinct personality. The right head is angry, tactical and looks like it wants to savage everything it lays eyes upon; the left head is absentminded, curious, playful and slightly timid; and the middle head is intelligent, focused, and domineering over the other two. Upon awakening, as the G-Team open fire with their guns, the left head curiously leans down (completely unphased by the weapons) and examines them, before being disciplined to get back in line by the middle head. In general, the middle head seems to be stern and wants the left to focus on the mission, and he's also prone to {{slasher smile}}s. The {{death glare}} the middle head gives Madison in Fenway Park hammers home how unmistakably intelligent Ghidorah is, not unlike Godzilla. During the final fight with Godzilla, the middle head recognizes an electrical power station as a power source and quickly uses it to give Ghidorah a massive boost in energy. See the General folder for more details. |
| 334 | * LaughablyEvil: Though it doesn't make Ghidorah harmless nor any less threatening in the slightest, it can be amusing to watch the heads squabble and the left head act like an idiot. |
| 335 | * TheNoseKnows: [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]]. When the trio [[spoiler:have Emma dead to rights and are [[KubrickStare staring her down before the kill]], Ichi notably smells the air with his nostrils, and San's nostrils also appear to be moving, as both heads sense Burning Godzilla's approach before seeing him.]] |
| 336 | * NoRangeLikePointBlankRange: [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]] during Ghidorah's fight with Rodan, when the side-heads restrain Rodan's wings and Ichi blasts his gravity beam point-blank at Rodan's chest (bear in mind Ghidorah's gravity beams are a rather devastating long-range attack). It immediately takes Rodan out of the fight. |
| 337 | * OffWithHisHead: |
| 338 | ** {{Subverted}} in the first instance. Kevin ([[IronButtMonkey the poor bastard]]) gets brutally decapitated by Godzilla during the underwater battle in Mexico, but Ghidorah regrows a new head which (as confirmed by [[https://twitter.com/Mike_Dougherty/status/1136281731349323776?s=20 Word of God]]) has Kevin's personality and memories intact. Meanwhile, the severed head [[spoiler:is ''mostly'' dead, but ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' reveals it retains its innate {{telepathy}} and [[SoulFragment some vestige of Ghidorah's malevolent consciousness/es]]]]. |
| 339 | ** PlayedStraight in Boston when [[spoiler:Burning Godzilla's thermonuclear pulse disintegrates both Ni and Kevin's heads to ash and the Big G promptly proceeds to vaporize the rest of Ghidorah before he can regenerate]]. |
| 340 | * OhCrap: In quick succession: |
| 341 | ** Look closely at Kevin's head when Ghidorah senses [[spoiler:Godzilla's SuperMode after Emma's LastWords]], and you'll see that he's openly frightened. |
| 342 | ** After [[spoiler:Burning Godzilla obliterates both the side heads]], the middle head Ichi becomes visibly terrified, based on the way he slightly recoils his neck and the frantic neck movements when [[spoiler:Burning Godzilla is planting his foot on Ghidorah's chest]]. |
| 343 | ** When Ichi's head [[spoiler:emerges from the rubble]], look closely at his facial cues – he only seems to realize that his neck is [[spoiler:in Godzilla's jaws]] at the exact same time as the audience. |
| 344 | * QuizzicalTilt: Ni notably tilts his head when Ghidorah and Godzilla are facing off in Antarctica, as if sussing their old enemy out for strengths and weaknesses. In the Fenway Park scene, Ichi turns his head from one side to the other when all three heads spot [[spoiler:Madison]], before narrowing his eye in a DeathGlare. |
| 345 | * SiblingsInCrime: The three heads are described by Word of God as being like brothers to each other, with the middle head being the boss and the left head being the runt who gets picked on. |
| 346 | * SlasherSmile: The heads often look like they're smiling when Ghidorah is doing something evil. Notably, Ichi pulls a lopsided smirk after the right head [[AnimalTalk chirps something to him in Antarctica]]... right before the trio prepare to blast the humans before them to ashes. Kevin and Ichi are both smiling when Ghidorah is closing in on the ''Argo'' with full intent to kill everyone onboard, and Ni can be seen smiling cruelly right after Ichi kills [[spoiler:Vivienne Graham]]. |
| 347 | * {{Telepathy}}: It's revealed in ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' that Ghidorah's heads each have telepathic capabilities which they used to communicate with each-other. [[spoiler:Apex Cybernetics exploit this (see the Skull folder for details)]]. |
| 348 | * TerribleTrio: Ghidorah is a rare case of a single character who can form one of these by himself, thanks to being effectively three characters rolled into one with each of his three heads having its own individual personality. He's also [[KnightOfCerebus a lot more serious, scary and efficient overall]] than most examples of this trope, with his position as the movie BigBad being very well-earned. |
| 349 | ** The middle head, Ichi, is the brains and leader, as he's clearly the one calling the shots when it comes to coordinating teamwork between the heads during battles, as well as being the quickest head to notice and react to unexpected occurrences. He's also the most visibly and actively malicious of the three towards humans, and he growls at and bites San/Kevin when the latter in particular doesn't do what Ichi wants. Unlike the other two heads, he tends to arch his neck so that his head is positioned above them, he has the longest and curviest horns of the three, and he has an extra row of spines on his neck indicating his dominance. |
| 350 | ** The left head, San/Kevin, is the biggest ButtMonkey of the group, suffering the most abuse; be it from human forces, Godzilla, or the other heads themselves. His behavior is decidedly indicative of a PsychopathicManchild (dim-witted curious, and often losing focus which prompts the middle head to harshly berate him in order to get him back on track), and he's the submissive [[AlphaAndBetaWolves omega wolf (a.k.a. the scapegoat)]] among the three heads. |
| 351 | ** The right head, Ni, is the most aggressive and HotBlooded, and a bit of a FearlessFool. He's submissive to the middle head's dominance, but still doesn't get treated as badly as the left head, and he shows a degree of tactical competence and spatial awareness when the other two heads are immobilized by Mothra's webbing. |
| 352 | * TomTheDarkLord: Mike Dougherty [[https://twitter.com/Mike_Dougherty/status/1136289119729016833 confirmed the names of the heads on his Twitter account]]: Ichi (center), Ni (right), and San A.K.A. ''Kevin'' (left)[[note]]If you don't know your numbers in Japanese, they're basically "one", "two", and "three"[[/note]]. |
| 353 | * ToServeMan: The middle head eats [[spoiler:Vivienne]] along with a huge clump of ice she was running across. The right head snaps up crushed ice and possibly bits of her that fall out of the middle head's mouth, while the left head is looking at them both and chirping as if he's thinking, "I want some too, I wish they'd let me have some". |
| 354 | [[/folder]] |
| 355 | |
| 356 | [[folder:Ichi, the Middle Head]] |
| 357 | * BigBrotherBully: Ichi has this dynamic with Kevin, growling at it and biting its horns whenever it gets distracted by something to get it back to focusing on whatever they're doing. |
| 358 | * BigBrotherInstinct: Right after [[spoiler:Ichi and Ni were devouring Graham on the spot]], Kevin lowers himself to see the human bystanders as potential snacks where Ichi was probably going to bite his horn again, only to have missiles blow up him in their faces. One of their wings is used to ''shield Kevin'' from being attacked again. |
| 359 | * CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Ichi acts as a rather harsh one towards San/Kevin, snapping at the latter head to get him back on-task whenever his [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny curious and distractible tendencies]] make him go off-track. |
| 360 | * EnragedByIdiocy: San/Kevin is sometimes clueless and gets sidetracked, forcing Ichi to bring Kevin's focus back to what they're trying to do. Ichi accomplishes this by biting at Kevin's horns or roaring in his ear, something Ichi is never seen doing to the somewhat more competent Ni (even when Ni is messing up himself, such as when ''both'' side-heads are distracted eating the G-Team's ashes). |
| 361 | * JustDesserts: PlayedWith. After Ghidorah's [[spoiler:body and side heads are vaporized]], Godzilla is munching on Ichi's leftover severed head by the neck stump, before [[spoiler:he reduces the head to ashes with his Atomic Breath]]. [[https://comicbook.com/anime/news/godzilla-king-of-the-monsters-ghidorah-death-alternate-plans-mike-dougherty/ Apparently]], Godzilla was originally going to [[PlayedStraight play this trope straight]] with the head, but Creator/{{Toho}} (who have a taboo against Godzilla being shown ''eating'' living things) persuaded the director to change it. |
| 362 | * OnlySaneByComparison: Ichi appears to be the most intelligent of the three and has quicker reactions than the other two when they notice an unexpected turn of events. He also appears to be the ''most'' sadistic of the three if his greater propensity for {{slasher smile}}s than his brothers and his attack on [[spoiler:Dr. Graham]] are any indications, plus if just one of the heads can be held responsible for Ghidorah's EvilPlan to reshape the Earth and wipe out life on it, it'd be Ichi as the leader head. |
| 363 | * ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: Yes. Amusingly, Ichi – the most dominating, wicked, and vicious of the three heads – emits a very high-pitched squeal of alarm and panic when he's realized that [[spoiler:his severed head's neck stump is lodged in Godzilla's jaws in the aftermath of Burning Godzilla nuking his body]]. The seemingly girlish scream adds a lot more humiliation to his [[spoiler:imminent UndignifiedDeath]]. |
| 364 | [[/folder]] |
| 365 | |
| 366 | [[folder:Ni, the Right Head]] |
| 367 | * BloodKnight: While Ichi is the most focused on challenging Godzilla in Antarctica and Boston and Kevin is mostly curious, Ni seems to want to savage anything it lays eyes upon and is furthermore said by [[https://www.cbr.com/godzilla-king-of-the-monsters-michael-dougherty-interview/ director Mike Dougherty]] and [[https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/monstrous-undertaking-vfx-behind-godzilla-ghidorah-mothra-and-rodan animation supervisor Spencer Cook]] to be constantly ready and eager for a fight. |
| 368 | * EarNotch: A variation. Ni can be distinguished from the other two heads by his chipped horn. It reflects how he's more of a BloodKnight than the other two heads, and how he's [[FearlessFool rasher and less calculating than the middle head]]. |
| 369 | * FearlessFool: When the other two heads are too engaged to keep it in line. Look closely when Godzilla charges a webbing-restrained Ghidorah through a skyscraper, and you'll see that Ni actually tries to stop Godzilla with nothing but its own jaws. This head also appears to be the first head to start attacking and dismantling the Fenway Park speakers when Ghidorah is drawn in by an alpha frequency challenging his dominance. |
| 370 | * FlatCharacter: San/Kevin is curiosity-driven, submissive, and an implicit GeniusDitz sentry; Ichi is dominant, intelligent, yet also the most prominently sadistic head; and Ni is... just a teeth-baring hothead. |
| 371 | * HairTriggerTemper: [[https://nerdalertnews.net/king-ghidorah-motion-capture-interviews/ Word of St. Paul]] describes Ni as having such a temper, although it's hard to tell in the film since he's a PerpetualFrowner who seems angry ''all'' the time. [[https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/monstrous-undertaking-vfx-behind-godzilla-ghidorah-mothra-and-rodan Spencer Cook]] likewise described Ni as "hyperactive". |
| 372 | * HotBlooded: Both [[https://www.cbr.com/godzilla-king-of-the-monsters-michael-dougherty-interview/ the director]] and the [[https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/monstrous-undertaking-vfx-behind-godzilla-ghidorah-mothra-and-rodan animation supervisor]] have described Ni as the most AxCrazy, impulsive and hyperactive head who is [[BloodKnight "always ready" to fight and attack]]. Ni demonstrates this in the film with his near-constant seething expression, and when he tries without hesitation to fend a charging Godzilla off with no backup and nothing but his own jaws. In most scenes where Ghidorah has set his sights on something or someone with murderous intent, it's going to be Ni who's going to have the most vicious snarl and stare. |
| 373 | * HyperCompetentSidekick: Though he's not as intelligent or mission-focused as the middle head (Ichi), he has his tactical priorities and spatial awareness straight -- he takes stock of Mothra's position and his immediate priority to free his brother heads when they're glued to a building by Mothra's webbing, and he notices ''remarkably'' quickly when Godzilla is coming up behind them. |
| 374 | * PerpetualFrowner: Compared to the other two heads, Ni's default expression is a crooked-shaped, teeth-baring grimace; reflecting his perpetually angry and violent personality. |
| 375 | * TheResenter: A villain-on-villain case with Ni. [[https://nerdalertnews.net/king-ghidorah-motion-capture-interviews/ According to Ghidorah's actors]], he hates the fact he's taking orders from Ichi and wishes he was the head calling the shots. |
| 376 | * RevealingReflection: When Ni is trying to free his brother heads from Mothra's webbing which has glued them to a glass skyscraper, he's alerted to Godzilla approaching behind him by Godzilla's reflection in the building. |
| 377 | [[/folder]] |
| 378 | |
| 379 | [[folder:San / Kevin, the Left Head]] |
| 380 | * AdaptationalDumbass: The original Showa incarnation of Ghidorah was '''FAR''' from stupid since he [[KnowWhenToFoldEm knew when to actually quit and live to fight another day while facing defeat]]. With Kevin, it takes a bite to the horn from Ichi just to get him on track, and he shows signs of clumsiness or carelessness comparative to his brother heads: misfiring his Gravity Beam at Fenway Park's surroundings, whereas Ichi and Ni kept their beams focused on the stadium itself where their quarry is located, and also being the only head who ''rams himself'' through buildings instead of sliding his neck around them when Ghidorah is [[spoiler:chasing Emma's Humvee]]. |
| 381 | * AdaptationalNiceGuy: Somewhat, especially when compared to the other two heads. He has his {{sadist}}ic moments in his own right, and he seems fine with fighting and killing when the heads are working together, but he also seems quite curious about humans instead of just obliterating them straight away, and he seems to be acting more on [[NonMaliciousMonster instincts]] and/or submission to the other two rather than outright malice. |
| 382 | * AffablyEvil: {{Downplayed}}. There's nothing onscreen to really imply that he's ''nice'' per se, but his tendencies hint that he's less actively malicious than the other two heads. He seems more interested in curiously investigating and playing with Ghidorah's food than in getting around to killing it in Antarctica, and his facial features upon closer inspection often look docile and almost air-headed; comparative to Ichi's {{Slasher Smile}}s and glares of calculated malice, or Ni's [[PerpetualFrowner constant teeth-baring grimaces of anger and hatred]]. The director himself jokingly [[https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-godzilla-director-ghidorah-mothra-rodan-20190602-story.html admitted that he thinks]] Kevin probably wouldn't be an antagonist if he wasn't taking orders from Ichi. |
| 383 | * AttentionDeficitOohShiny: San/Kevin tends to get distracted and sidelined, comparable to A.D.H.D.. Probably the ''biggest'' instance of this is when he momentarily looks off to the side ''when Ghidorah is [[spoiler:right in the middle of being obliterated, one portion of its body at a time]]''. |
| 384 | * BewareTheSillyOnes: Kevin may be a little sillier and more inept-seeming than the other two heads, but he's just as dangerous as them and won't hesitate to strike in the middle of a fight. [[spoiler:One also has to wonder about the fact that it was Kevin's skull specifically which granted Mechagodzilla a ferociously sadistic and murderous mind of its own, even if the Mecha's personality traits were markedly different from Kevin's[[note]]the Mecha displays none of Kevin's curiosity for humans before killing them on sight, nor does it display any timidness about fighting Godzilla as Kevin did[[/note]]]]. |
| 385 | * ButtMonkey: Whether getting bullied by the other heads, taking missiles to the face, being the only one to smash his head through a skyscraper, or [[spoiler:getting his head violently destroyed by Godzilla ''twice'']], he's the head who suffers the most indignities. According to Mike Dougherty, [[https://twitter.com/GodzillaMovie/status/1253490418790084613 the latter indignity has probably been happening to Kevin A LOT over Ghidorah's long life]]. [[spoiler:Ironically, this head (or rather its previously-severed rotting remains) are all that's left of Ghidorah by the movie's end]]. |
| 386 | * CharacterDevelopment: San/Kevin begins very timid against Godzilla, showing reluctance as the other two heads challenge him in Antarctica, and mostly hanging back out of the way through the up-close-and-personal part of the subsequent fight. However, after being decapitated by Godzilla and regrowing, Kevin's notably more ready to fight Godzilla at the Boston battle and he even tears viciously into Godzilla's throat when the heads are draining Godzilla's, suggesting that Lefty [[ItsPersonal holds quite a bit of a grudge...]] |
| 387 | * {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: San/Kevin is a GeniusDitz who stands apart from Ichi and Ni for being [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny easily-sidetracked]], wiggling his horns like a puppy at one point, for being timid of Godzilla (when Godzilla isn't vulnerable that is), for being clumsy with his head and his Gravity Beam, and being curious about humans to a point where it sometimes seems like [[PsychopathicManchild he'd rather play with them than murder them if he could have his own way]]. However, despite his silly antics and despite [[BigBrotherBully being abused by]] [[CloudcuckoolandersMinder Ichi]] for them, San/Kevin can still be competent and dangerous in his wn right. |
| 388 | * DirtyCoward: {{Downplayed}}. He doesn't hesitate to join his brother heads in obliterating any human life that crosses their path for fun, even flashing a SlasherSmile of his own when Ghidorah is attacking the ''Argo'' while the ship is helpless, but he's visibly more afraid when it comes to their ArchEnemy Godzilla who ''can'' put up a real fight against them '''and''' poses a serious mortal threat to them. In Antarctica, Kevin is visibly more timid than the other two heads are to confronting Godzilla again and keeps his head and neck out of the initial brawl, [[spoiler:and he moreso [[OhCrap flashes a look of unmistakable fear]] when the heads first sense Burning Godzilla, and he's visibly shocked after Burning G incinerates Ghidorah's wings to the point that he hesitates longer than Ichi and Ni do to [[BreathWeapon fire back]], although he ultimately [[DefiantToTheEnd dies trying in vain to defend himself]]]]. It's about the closest that [=MonsterVerse=] Ghidorah ever comes to exhibiting past Ghidorah incarnations' [[PlayedStraight much-straighter]] Dirty Cowardice. |
| 389 | * GeniusDitz: {{Implied}}. He's for the most part an easily-distracted goofball who displays comparatively less active malice than his "brothers", and his personality is, in a nutshell, very [[TheDitz ditzy]]. [[https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/monstrous-undertaking-vfx-behind-godzilla-ghidorah-mothra-and-rodan Spencer Cook]] furthermore said that San/Kevin generally waits to see what the other two heads are doing and follows their lead instead of taking his own initiative. However, it's also implied that San/Kevin actually functions as a lookout for the trio: he has a habit of looking over his respective shoulder, he's the head that reels back and watches what Godzilla does instead of engaging during the Antarctica battle, and he's the first head to notice Godzilla charging his atomic breath, enabling Ghidorah to dodge in time and counterattack. Kevin does however do a comparatively poorer job of watching their flank when Godzilla blindsides Ghidorah above the ocean. The implication is that Kevin's curiosity is just a side-effect of being hardwired to be a lookout, and Ichi gets annoyed with him not doing his job properly. |
| 390 | * HumansAreInsects: San/Kevin is somewhat curious about humans, but still doesn't hesitate to blast them into oblivion alongside the other heads once Ichi gets him back in line. |
| 391 | * ItsPersonal: Implied. Kevin is at first is timid and fearful when facing Godzilla, but after being beheaded and regenerating, he's notably more confrontational and willing to get into the fight at the FinalBattle. He even tears into Godzilla's neck like a puppy with a chew toy as the heads drain Godzilla's energy, something which notably causes Godzilla to scream in pain each time Kevin bites down, whereas the other two heads biting other parts of Godzilla's body produces no such reaction. This suggests Kevin holds some degree of a grudge for what Godzilla did to him earlier in Mexico and is probably torturing Godzilla on purpose as payback. See the General folder for more details. |
| 392 | * TheKlutz: On top of being a PsychopathicManchild and exhibiting a [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny limited attention span]], San/Kevin shows clumsiness. When Ghidorah is razing Fenway Park with his Gravity Beams while trying to obliterate [[spoiler:Madison and]] the ORCA, Kevin mis-aims and sweeps his Gravity Beam widely over the buildings ''outside'' the stadium where Ghidorah's targets are located. Later, when Ghidorah is pursuing the ORCA-carrying Humvee through Boston and frantically trying to destroy it, Kevin's head bulldozes through buildings in Ghidorah's way whereas Ichi and Ni have the sense to slink their necks ''around'' the buildings. |
| 393 | * MinionWithAnFInEvil: {{Downplayed}}. He's decidedly less aggressive and malicious than the other two heads, acting more docile and curious about humans than the goal-focused, malicious middle head and the hot-headed, battle-thirsty right head. His first response to humans firing bullets at Ghidorah is to lean his head down in order to get a closer look, even knocking down and nuzzling a soldier with his chin, which annoys Ichi into pushing him back. [[https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/monstrous-undertaking-vfx-behind-godzilla-ghidorah-mothra-and-rodan Spencer Cook]] commented that he'll wait to see what the other two heads do and then follow their lead. Overall, the left head's characterization seems to hint that he's only a villain because he was born attached to the decidedly-murderous and -genocidal Ichi and Ni. That having been said, San/Kevin does still bare a SlasherSmile when Ghidorah is launching an unprovoked attack on the ''Argo'', and he does perform competently enough when the heads are working together in a fight. |
| 394 | * ObsessedWithFood: San/Kevin is apparently a bit of a foodie when Ghidorah first awakens. Alongside Ni, San/Kevin eagerly licks at the G-Team's charred human corpses in Antarctica, but more than that; when Ichi [[spoiler:eats Vivienne]] and Ni is eating the falling ice, San/Kevin looks like he's thinking "I wish they'd let me have some", then he promptly turns his attention to the other humans as if intending to make snacks for himself out of them. |
| 395 | * OddNameOut: {{Downplayed}}. All three heads have a Japanese number as their name, but the goofball left head has a second, rather plain, English name. |
| 396 | * PetTheDog: {{Downplayed}}. [[EstablishingCharacterMoment When Ghidorah awakens]], San/Kevin alone seems genuinely interested in playing with the humans more than anything else: he lowers his head and "nuzzles" them with his chin once the G-Team have drawn the heads' attention, and Ichi has to physically shove Kevin back to get the latter back on point. Still, it doesn't save those humans from being atomized by Kevin once Ichi's gotten the side-heads in line. |
| 397 | * PsychopathicManchild: Kevin (the left head) leans towards the CuteAndPsycho variety. He's the least mature of the heads, showing childish curiosity and often needing correction from Ichi (the middle head), and the [[https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/monstrous-undertaking-vfx-behind-godzilla-ghidorah-mothra-and-rodan animation supervisor]] even said that he just waits to see what his brother heads are doing before he follows their lead; yet Kevin is still very nonchalant about joining the other heads in blasting whatever's in their way to atoms, and he's fine with causing Godzilla excruciating pain by biting into his neck when the three heads are [[VampiricDraining draining his radiation]]. Kevin responds to the G-Team shooting at Ghidorah by bending his neck down to get a closer look at them, and even nuzzles one of them with his chin. After Ichi gets him back in line and all three heads kill the G-Team, Kevin resumes his curious inquiry by licking their ashy remains, like a kid in the grocery store getting their hands on a bar of tasty chocolate before their mom has paid for it. This is reinforced by Kevin's relationship with Ichi, who [[BigBrotherBully is in charge of the trio and abuses Kevin (more than he does Ni) whenever Kevin's not doing what Ichi wants]]. |
| 398 | * ReplacementFlatCharacter: Initially, Kevin was the quirky head. After being ripped off by Godzilla and regenerating, the new San-head behaves more in line with the others. |
| 399 | * TheRuntAtTheEnd: The left head is quite a quirky character even among Ghidorah's heads: he's the least aggressive and least intelligent of the trio, and he's a ButtMonkey who seems to care more about making pets or toys out of humans than he does about getting around to the part where he kills them, chronically prompting the middle head to berate him; although [[GeniusDitz San can still be efficient and dangerous in his own right]]. He even has an OddNameOut: unlike Ichi and Ni, San also officially has the moniker Kevin in the tweet which named Ghidorah's heads. |
| 400 | * TokenGoodTeammate: Downplayed; he seems to be more curiosity-driven than malice-driven compared to the other two heads, and the [[https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/monstrous-undertaking-vfx-behind-godzilla-ghidorah-mothra-and-rodan animation supervisor]] commented that he tends to follow the other two heads' lead instead of taking the initiative himself when doing evil; but he still displays a sadistic side in his own right, and he doesn't balk at Ghidorah's acts of evil at all. The director himself [[https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-godzilla-director-ghidorah-mothra-rodan-20190602-story.html joked]] that San/Kevin probably wouldn't be a bad guy if he weren't stuck to the other two heads with Ichi calling the shots. |
| 401 | * VileVillainLaughableLackey: Downplayed. Ghidorah overall is extremely malevolent and dangerous, but San/Kevin is a bit of an [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny easily-distracted]] goof who's a bit too curious about humans, forcing Ichi to bite him and push him around to get him to focus on killing people. |
| 402 | [[/folder]] |
| 403 | |
| 404 | !! '''Unmarked spoilers''' for ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' |
| 405 | |
| 406 | [[folder:Ghidorah Reborn]] |
| 407 | -> See [[Characters/MonsterVerseMechagodzilla Mechagodzilla]] |
| 408 | [[/folder]] |
| 409 | |
| 410 | [[folder:The Skull]] |
| 411 | !! The Skull |
| 412 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghidorahskull.jpg]] |
| 413 | !!!'''Appears In:''' ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' | ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' |
| 414 | The post-mortem remains of Ghidorah, presumed to have come from the severed left head which was retrieved by Alan Jonah at Isla de Mara after the rest of Ghidorah was vaporized by Godzilla. It's been converted by Apex Cybernetics into a living supercomputer which acts as the core component of their psionic uplink technology for controlling Mechagodzilla, with the pilot sitting inside a cockpit fashioned into the skull and taking advantage of its lingering telepathy. |
| 415 | |
| 416 | It turns out the skull retains some of Ghidorah's consciousness as well as the telepathy, which hijacks Mechagodzilla and causes it to begin killing its masters and anything else human or Titan that it encounters. |
| 417 | ---- |
| 418 | * AlienAutopsy: Somewhat in the novelization: Ren Serizawa discovered from examining Ghidorah's skull that metals and minerals considered rare on Earth are laced through the bone, and that Ghidorah's skulls were actually an integral part of Ghidorah's consciousnesses like the nervous tissue rather than just a casing for the brain. |
| 419 | * AmbiguousSituation: |
| 420 | ** Although it's clear that the skull retains Ghidorah's consciousness to some degree and that this is responsible for Mechagodzilla going haywire, it's unclear if the skull retains Ghidorah's full sentience and awareness (making Mechagodzilla essentially Ghidorah as a ManInTheMachine) or if it only gave the Mecha a SoulFragment (essentially making Mechagodzilla a {{reincarnation}} of Ghidorah's mind/s at most). [[https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/mw71gb/im_adam_wingard_director_of_godzilla_vs_kong_ama/gvgua0o/ Word from the director]] has supported the latter interpretation, as he believes Ghidorah's consciousness merged with the Mecha's AI to create a new personality; and the novelization further supports the director's interpretation. The novel version of the story also seems to hint that Mechagodzilla's mind is partly formed by Ren Serizawa's mind, which in this version [[MindReformatDeath drowns within the Mecha's half-formed mind]] (instead of bouncing back to his body and being electrocuted as in the movie); and it occurs ''in the same moment'' that the Mecha's mind is becomes fully realized. |
| 421 | ** It's also unclear whether the skull's consciousness remnants only awaken when the Hollow Earth energy is integrated into Mechagodzilla as an unforeseen side-effect of the substance, or if the skull was awake the entire time and waiting to take control of its new body. It's implied in the movie, and confirmed by the novelization, that Ghidorah's remains were signaling Godzilla with a Ghidorah-like call whenever Mechagodzilla was activated (notably, the Mecha's parts visibly send out this signal ''after'' the Mecha's activation phase when it's supposed to be out of power). And that GhostlyWail that the skull is producing ''before'' it comes into contact with the Hollow Earth energy isn't exactly a ''green'' flag. The novelization also hints that Ren has been suffering some low-grade SanitySlippage due to repeatedly interfacing his mind through the skull with experimental technology, which is driving Ren towards seeing Mechagodzilla completed with a power source so he can realize his GodhoodSeeker ambitions, lending further credence to the idea that Ghidorah was active and was inflicting MoreThanMindControl on Ren to push him to complete the undead hydra's reincarnation. |
| 422 | * ArtificialZombie: [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]]. Ghidorah becomes reincarnated within Mechagodzilla as a direct result of the skull, which retains a SoulFragment of Ghidorah's consciousness/es, being hooked up to psionic technology to act as the Mecha's remote brain. Probably the most shocking thing is that [[MugglePower Apex]] ''didn't'' expect using a scientifically-incomprehensible DraconicAbomination[='s=] telepathic remains as a BlackBox in ''this'' kind of way would liably backfire on them. |
| 423 | * BackFromTheDead: {{Downplayed}}. Ghidorah's remnant consciousness is able to take over the Mecha, essentially resurrecting himself, but [[https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/mw71gb/im_adam_wingard_director_of_godzilla_vs_kong_ama/gvgua0o/ Word of God]] and the film's novelization both indicate Mechagodzilla itself is more a {{reincarnation}} of Ghidorah than an actual ManInTheMachine, with GhostAmnesia and with the Mecha's AI and/or Ren Serizawa's consciousness being absorbed by the Ghidorah SoulFragment to form a new mind. |
| 424 | * BlackBox: What Apex Cybernetics have done with the skull ''screams'' of "monkey see, monkey do". They know that this alien hunk of bone is still telepathic, and by wiring up the skull, they've learned to harness that telepathy to make it a remote control system for Mechagodzilla, but that's about all that Apex really understand. Ren Serizawa's thoughts in the novelization explicitly confirm that Apex have been using Ghidorah's remains with only a ''surface'' understanding of how they work. As a result, Apex are completely blindsided when Ghidorah's very-much potent and malevolent subconsciousness resurfaces from the skull and takes over Mechagodzilla's systems for itself. |
| 425 | * BrainComputerInterface: Apex Cybernetics built one into the skull, taking advantage of its telepathic capabilities to enable a human pilot who sits inside the BCI to use it as a psionic transmitter. Mechagodzilla meanwhile has another piece of Ghidorah -- speculated by Bernie in the movie and explicitly confirmed in the novelization to be a second Ghidorah skull, [[AdaptationInducedPlotHole although that opens up the question of where the hell Apex got a second skull when San/Kevin's skull was all that was left after Ghidorah's vaporization]] -- integrated into it which acts as a receiver, enabling the pilot to directly control Mechagodzilla's actions. The skull even has glowing, thrumming cables hooked into and connecting out of it per this trope, although the telepathy-based connection to Mechagodzilla is naturally semi-wireless. Unfortunately for the humans, once Ghidorah's remnant consciousness in the skull(s) emerges, it hijacks the Electronic Telepathy and connects to Mechagodzilla itself, subsequently causing the Mecha to become murderously hostile to all humans and attempt to kill Godzilla. |
| 426 | * CameBackStrong: [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]] and {{Zig|ZaggingTrope}}-Zagged. When Ghidorah's remains override Mechagodzilla's programming, the Mecha has none of Ghidorah's apocalyptic WeatherManipulation nor its HealingFactor. But what Mechagodzilla does have is an extremely specialized anti-Titan body, which combined with a frightening intellect in the FinalBattle, allows him to '''''[[CurbStompBattle decimate]]''''' Godzilla and Kong with frightening efficiency that keeps both on the ropes until his weakness is exploited. It's also speculated in the novelization and implied by the movie that the Mecha is more than capable of taking control of the other Titans just as Ghidorah did should it kill Godzilla and Kong, meaning it's ''still'' capable of destroying the world. |
| 427 | * CompositeCharacter: The skull comes from King Ghidorah, but its role is based on that of the original 1954 Godzilla's bones in regards to Kiryu, in ''Film/GodzillaAgainstMechagodzilla'' and ''Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS''. In both cases, the bones are incorporated into a Mechagodzilla, unintentionally enabling the spirit of the late organic kaiju that the bone came from to hijack control of the Mecha from its human controllers and go on a rampage through the city. Also in both cases, the bone's presence inside the Mecha aggravates and attracts Godzilla. |
| 428 | * TheCorrupter: In the novelization, it's strongly hinted that the Ghidorah skull's subconsciousness has been subtly corrupting Ren Serizawa's personality over the course of his repeated usages of the psionic uplink during which his mind is filtered through the skull's telepathy, although it's ambiguous whether or not the skull is ''consciously'' doing this. |
| 429 | * DeathByAdaptation: Sort-of. It's stated in the novelization that the Skull Room (and implicitly the skull itself) has been trashed due to the damage Mechagodzilla has caused to the Apex headquarters, with the novel specifying it happened in the same moment the Mecha killed Simmons before breaking out of the facility. The movie, however, cuts to the Skull Room directly after showing Simmons' death, and the room and skull are completely intact. |
| 430 | * EvilIsNotAToy: Apex had both the hubris and the [[TooDumbToLive truly-unprecedented stupidity]] to incorporate Ghidorah's neurological remains including the skull into Mechagodzilla, ''to act as the Mecha's brain'' for Ren to pilot it. When Mechagodzilla is under-powered, nothing goes wrong. But as soon as Apex integrate a ''second'' eldritch BlackBox (the Hollow Earth energy source) to power Mechagodzilla up, whatever's left of Ghidorah's consciousness in the skull overrides the system and turns Mechagodzilla into a sentient RoboticPsychopath; causing both Simmons and Ren's deaths, whilst Mechagodzilla begins killing everything (human and Alpha Titan) that it sees, doing exactly what Simmons claimed the Titans would do without Mechagodzilla to attack them first. There are even some hints in the movie and its official {{novelization}} that Ghidorah's remnant consciousness might have been active the entire time, manipulating Apex towards unwittingly giving it a new body. |
| 431 | * GhostlyWail: A variation. Although the skull is physically just a hunk of bone with no vocal chords, it's still producing audible echoes of Ghidorah's signature roar and growls, foreshadowing that Ghidorah's consciousness is still in there. Hearing the skull's wailing is actually what draws Madison's attention to the door leading to the Skull Room in the first place, confirming that humans InUniverse can hear it too. Which makes it all the more staggering on [[TooDumbToLive Apex]]'s part that they ''still'' thought it wasn't an overly-risky idea to hook the thing up to Mechagodzilla as its ''brain''. |
| 432 | * GrandTheftMe: In the {{novelization}} where Ren Serizawa has a DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation[[note]]Here his mind is swallowed by that of Mechagodzilla as it becomes sentient[[/note]], it's hinted that Ghidorah's subconsciousness probably performs this on Ren's body. The novel explicitly mentions a "feedback loop" where Ghidorah's subconsciousness is entering Ren whilst Ren's mind, in turn, is stuck inside the Mecha as it gains sentience, and after Mechagodzilla breaks free of the Apex facility, Ren's body has seemingly disappeared from the (admittedly trashed) Skull Room. |
| 433 | * HijackingCthulhu: {{Subverted}} ''big time''. Apex aim to harness the skull's telepathy by building a BrainComputerInterface into it, and at first they don't seem to have any apparent troubles from this; until the Hollow Earth energy is synthesized and infused into Mechagodzilla, [[EvilIsNotAToy at which point Ghidorah's subconsciousness from the skull hijacks Mechagodzilla for itself]]. It's furthermore hinted that Ghidorah's consciousness in the skull [[AmbiguousSituation might have been]] aware and subtly [[UnwittingPawn playing Apex like fiddles]] the entire time. |
| 434 | * MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: It's ambiguous whether the skull's SoulFragment is Ghidorah's lingering consciousness or [[HauntedTechnology Ghidorah's soul literally possessed the Mecha]]. Madison briefly contemplates the latter in the novelization, and while breaking the satellite link hinders and temporarily stuns the Mecha, it starts moving again a couple of moments later, despite Josh believing (albeit based purely on guesswork about a field he doesn't have a remote understanding of, which the movie lampshades when his movie pirating skills prove useless for HollywoodHacking) that should've shut it down entirely, implying Ghidorah's control is more ingrained than a simple remote control. |
| 435 | * MoreThanMindControl: {{Implied|Trope}} in the novelization, which hints that Ren has been suffering some mild SanitySlippage which further drives him to see Mechagodzilla completed due to him repeatedly interfacing his mind through the Ghidorah skull with experimental technology. And the movie and its novelization both ''do'' [[AmbiguousSituation make it quite ambiguous]] whether Ghidorah's subconsciousness only awoke when exposed to the HollowEarth energy, or was consciously waiting for its new body the entire time with Apex none the wiser... |
| 436 | * NamedByTheAdaptation: Sort-of. In the novelization, the skull and/or the chamber holding it is nicknamed the Skull Room. |
| 437 | * NotQuiteDead: First suggested in TheStinger of ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019''. Following King Ghidorah's death in Boston -- keep in mind, when Ghidorah's body was destroyed, the middle head was still alive and conscious, trying to escape before Godzilla incinerated it -- the left head that was earlier severed is seen being obtained by [[GreaterScopeVillain Alan Jonah]], though it's now decomposing and swarming with flies. Come ''Godzilla vs. Kong'', and it's revealed this trope is {{downplayed|Trope}}: the head's upper-skull and another piece of Ghidorah have been incorporated into Mechagodzilla for the heads' telepathic capabilities, but it turns out near the film's end that they retain at least a SoulFragment of Ghidorah's consciousness/es which hijacks the Mecha. |
| 438 | * NotSoHarmlessVillain: The skull came from ''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Kevin]]'s'' head, but when its consciousness overtakes the system and grants Ghidorah's SoulFragment to Mechagodzilla, the Mecha ruthlessly and efficiently murders and destroys all humans in its sights, then proceeds to mercilessly brutalize Godzilla and it almost succeeds in killing both him ''and'' Kong. Notably, Mechagodzilla exhibits none of Kevin's clumsiness, curiosity, childness, distractibility nor his fear of confronting Godzilla, whilst fully possessing Ghidorah's murderous and sadistic impulses. |
| 439 | * PurpleIsPowerful: The Skull Room is saturated in deep purple light from the machinery hooked into the skull which takes advantage of its telepathy, similar to the lighting in [[BigBadWannabe Simmons]]' observation deck. That the room has true purple light like this, compared to the false purple light created by the red-and-blue lighting of the Apex facility's hallways, emphasizes that Apex think they're in control but really Ghidorah's remains retain more agency than Apex thinks. |
| 440 | * SoulFragment: The skull retains at least ''something'' of Ghidorah's consciousness(es) if not the full package, which is directly responsible for hijacking control of Mechagodzilla's system and turning the Mecha into a RoboticPsychopath. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/mw71gb/im_adam_wingard_director_of_godzilla_vs_kong_ama/gvgua0o/ Word of God]] and the {{novelization}} both indicate that rather than being Ghidorah as a direct ManInTheMachine, the sentient Mechagodzilla is essentially a {{reincarnation}} of Ghidorah, created by Ghidorah's consciousness and the Mecha's AI merging to form a new mind. Regardless, the skull's influence once Mechagodzilla was newly-empowered proves to be enough to grant the Mecha the same KillAllHumans tendency that Ghidorah exhibited -- if the Mecha razing half of Hong Kong unprovoked ''the moment it sees it'' is any indication -- and Mechagodzilla seeking a fight with Godzilla (and actively focusing more on him while initially treating Kong's intervention like a mere nuisance) seems to hint the skull also passed on Ghidorah's desire for domination and possibly even [[ItsPersonal his grudge against Godzilla]]. |
| 441 | * {{Telepathy}}: Although the Ghidorah skull is "dead" in the sense that its tissue has rotted away, it still retains the telepathy which Ghidorah's heads naturally used to communicate amongst themselves. Apex exploits this by building a BrainComputerInterface into the skull and incorporating a sample of Ghidorah into Mechagodzilla as a receiver, so that a human pilot at the BCI can harness Ghidorah's telepathy and control Mechagodzilla's actions. If you thought this was ''way'' TooDumbToLive, you'd be right, since Ghidorah's consciousness (or whatever's left of it) in the skull surfaces and hijacks Mechagodzilla the moment the Mecha is empowered with the Hollow Earth energy, causing the Mecha to become independent of the humans and go on a kill-anything-that-moves rampage. |
| 442 | * UndeadAbomination: Ghidorah's leftover is close enough to a given definition of "dead" that its flesh has decomposed instead of [[HealingFactor regenerating]] as the hydra's living body was capable of doing. Yet the skull retains Ghidorah's telepathic capabilities, and what's more, Ghidorah's consciousness/es (or at least some remnant of them) still survive within the bone[[note]]The novelization notes that Apex's studies of the skull have indicated such a thing scientifically shouldn't be possible, true to Ghidorah's science-defying DraconicAbomination[[/note]], hijacking the ElectronicTelepathy once Mechagodzilla is charged with Hollow Earth energy and acting as a SoulFragment to make the Mecha begin to KillAllHumans and challenge Godzilla. It's furthermore ambiguous whether Ghidorah's consciousness awoke when the skull came into contact with the Hollow Earth energy formula through the system, or if Ghidorah's ghost was awake the entire time and waiting to gain a new body. |
| 443 | * WetwareCPU: The skull is being used by Apex as the central hub of a techno-organic neural network which Ren uses to pilot Mechagodzilla. Bernie speculates that a Ghidorah skull was used because of the heads' telepathic neurology, and that there's another piece of Ghidorah's remains inside the actual Mecha acting as a receiver. Concept artist [[https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/niq8wk/comment/gz8efs4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 Jared Krichevsky]] furthermore claims that Apex used the skull because Mechagodzilla's systems are [[MySkullRunnethOver too much for any single human brain to run]] without assistance of some kind. At first, Apex seemingly have no problems from integrating Ghidorah's neurological remains in such a way, but once Mechagodzilla is fully juiced up with the untested HollowEarth energy, whatever's left of Ghidorah's will and personalities in its remains seizes control of Mechagodzilla and makes it attack. |
| 444 | * YellowPurpleContrast: Whereas the all-powerful living Ghidorah in ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' has a golden-yellow color theme, with his aurum-scaled body and [[YellowLightningBlueLightning his hypercane's and Gravity Beams' lightning]]; the undead skull has lost its flesh and golden scales, and the technology that Apex are using to harness the skull's telepathy for Mechagodzilla casts the entire Skull Room in a [[PurpleIsPowerful deep purple light]], fitting the surprise reveal that the skull still has some of Ghidorah's consciousness in it and is able to transfer that consciousness into Mechagodzilla. |
| 445 | * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: The manner in which Ren Serizawa dies (killed by an electrical surge to the skull in the same moment that the newly-sentient Mechagodzilla kills Simmons) certainly makes it almost ''seem like'' the skull is invoking this trope on him now that the arrogant human's usefulness is at an end. It's hinted, particularly in the novelization, that the skull might have been conscious and waiting for Apex to unwittingly complete Ghidorah's mechanical reincarnation the entire time, [[AmbiguousSituation though it's ultimately ambiguous]]. |
| 446 | [[/folder]] |
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