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ultraleebu · 6 years ago

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I swear I’m not going to turn this into a MCU meta blog but the more I think about it the more I like the Kree. And by that I mean I like them as a fictional creation because they are a lot more interesting than they seem at first. At this point we know more about them than any other race, even the Asgardians.

From their very first introduction in the MCU they’ve been shown not be one uniform race that agrees on everything.

In Guardians of The Galaxy Ronan has gone rogue because of a peace treaty with the Xandarians and when their Prime asks the Kree ambassador to do something about it he reacts with a mix of “Yeah we didn’t like the peace treaty either, so…” and “Are you insane?! We’re not making ourselves the enemies of this heavily armed maniac! If he wants to kill you that’s your problem! Goodbye!”

Ronan says people are calling him a fanatic and terrorist because he follow the ancient laws of the Kree. He doesn’t say who is calling him that, but this tells us that it isn’t normal for modern Kree to be this brutal. The only other Kree he’s seen interacting with is Korath, and he has to beg for help from Thanos so he can’t have a lot of support.

In Agents of Shield some Kree scientists preformed experiments on humans, but those experiments were illegal so the Kree Empire shut that shit down real fast once they found out about it. We also saw in the series that if a Kree has no beef with you or your people they can be downright polite and pleasant company. It just so happens they usually have beef with people when they leave Hala. There’s evidence to suggest they aren’t even aggressive by nature because if they are put through a heavy dose of their own memory wiping techniques they become remarkably docile and friendly (depending on their individual personalities of course) We’re also told they have positive qualities too, like free love, but because they’re so unpopular thanks to their warmongering other races tend to be dismissive of Kree culture as a whole.

In Captain Marvel we see a rather wide range of sides.

There’s Ronan who wants to carpet bomb everything with little regard for the lives of other races.

At the other end of the spectrum is Mar-Vell who is a pacifist and tries to end the war on the Skrulls.

In the middle is Yon-Rogg who is shown to want to kill Skrulls because they have been deemed the enemies of the Kree, but he is also shown to have compassion for other races when he tells his team not to kill the locals during their first mission, even though the locals are clearly aggressive and hostile. It almost gets his team killed and Carol is captured because Yon-Rogg refuse to open fire until he realize the locals are Skrull soldiers in disguise. Later he tells Ronan to chill and maybe NOT carpet bomb Earth and kill millions of innocent people to flush out Carol. Just a thought. He later change his mind when Carol realize her true potential because they’re all going to die anyway if Carol comes after them.

(This is part of why I think he will probably get a redemption arc. The movie goes out of its way to tell us that even if he is not a good guy there is some good in him that can be cultivated. Loki was treated as a more hopeless case than Yon-Rogg in his first movies. Not to mention Yon-Rogg is a metaphor for an American soldier who honestly believes himself to be the hero despite knowing he often acts less than heroic, but he does it for the greater good of his people. If Yon-Rogg can’t be redeemed, even a little bit, then the movie is saying something very very dark about American soldiers and anyone who ever respected them)

We even know the Kree have an old and new religion. Ronan is a pagan who follow the old ways, which includes ritualistic sacrifices, bathing in blood, and grinding people’s bones into dust and using it as talcum power in his suit.

That’s too barbaric for modern Kree who follow the new religion, The Supreme Intelligence (We have been told by the creators it’s their ruler and their religion in one). The Supreme Intelligence is heavily coded as a form of Christianity with its church-like high arches, warm sunlight that shines through colored, tall windows and the way people have to get into a prayer-like position to communicate with an unknowable intelligence that changes depending on who sees it.

So we know the Kree used to be brutal as fuck but are sloooooowly getting better to a point where it’s not normal for them to kill civilians (unless they’re Skrulls) and it’s even possible to form peace treaties with them.

They might also have lost or gotten rid of The Supreme Intelligence by the time of Guardians of The Galaxy because it’s offhandedly mentioned that they have a ruling emperor who signed the peace treaty after a millennia of war, so he might be responsible for the Kree becoming more civilized.

Yondu also mentions that he was sold into slavery with the Kree by his parents but this systems seems to have been abandoned and replaced with hiring Sakaarans, the native race of Sakaar where the Grandmaster ruled, so the Kree likely have had dealings with him in some way. His love of battles and sexual orgies certainly goes hand in hand nicely with Kree culture.

So the Kree Empire is the designated villains of the MCU but they’re no Galactic Empire from Star Wars either.

Also, I need to know what happened in the 20 years between Captain Marvel and Guardians of The Galaxy. What happened in their society that made Ronan go from a respected upper-class member to a fanatic terrorist who has to rely on the help of other races? Did Carol somehow end the war on the Skrulls and Ronan was like “This is disgraceful! I’m not giving up on another war!” And why is Korath the only person who joined him? I need answers!

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ultraleebu · 6 years ago

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The deleted scenes from Captain Marvel are giving us new insight into the Kree Empire and I’m loving how fundamentally messed up it is, to the point of the Kree themselves being victims of it.

First we got the Supreme Intelligence. Apparently it always gives the people it imitates white/grey hair and green eyes.

It’s interesting how differently it approaches Carol and Yon-Rogg.

It treats Carol like a friend and acts like a kind mentor because it knows she has always rebelled against people who tries to oppress her, while it’s incredibly abusive to Yon-Rogg

I don’t think it actually takes the form of those whom people admire the most either (though I’m sure that’s what it tells people), but rather those it can use most effectively to manipulate people with. Sure, often times that will be a respected person but if you pay attention both Carol and Yon-Rogg are uncomfortable with who they see.

By taking the form of Mar-Vell, someone Carol only sees in half forgotten dreams, it’s constantly reminding her “See how broken and confused you are. You need guidance”.

It takes the form of Yon-Rogg when talking to him, then mocks him for it “You are so full of yourself. Think you’re real important, huh?” which makes Yon-Rogg think he deserves to be humiliated and abused so he can become more humble.

I can definitely see why they left the Yon-Rogg scene out of the final film (though it’s apparently still canon). First off it’s incredibly unsettling. The SI very much acts like a mix between an abusive parent AND an abusive boyfriend. The way it touches Yon-Rogg gives off some strong sexual predator vibes that leaves you with a slimy feeling that it has used every trick in the book to humiliate him and destroy his self esteem.

And Yon-Rogg actually leans into the touch, maybe because he’s terrified and wants to please the SI, or maybe because he crave it’s acceptance and cherish every little act of kindness. Probably a mix of both.

The scene also puts his and Carol’s last encounter in a different light. Instead of it being a purely triumphant moment for Carol it makes us realize how cruel it is of her to send him back. She of course doesn’t know how the SI treats him and I have no doubt that she’d rather keep him captive somewhere else if she knew, but we’d know and it would sour the moment a bit.

Then there is of course the whole “control your emotions” thing. The SI tells Yon-Rogg that he’s too emotional and he then tells Carol the same thing. A lot of people saw it as him being sexist but it’s pretty clear that all Kree are expected to be as emotionless as possible, probably because the SI see emotions as a liability. Unfortunately they aren’t naturally less emotional. Kree are just as emotional as humans, maybe even more so.

Just look at Ronan. He starts out as an upper-class, well respected member of society who has seemingly mastered his emotions. He doesn’t let Yon-Rogg rile him up when they argue over the “phone” and he hardly even flinches when Carol destroys his ships. But it’s all facade. The people behind the movies have hinted that Ronan has a form of PTSD and that’s why he is the way he is in Guardians of The Galaxy. Kree warriors aren’t supposed to be affected by the horrors they commit, so when the war was over there was no system in place to help people like Ronan who had killed millions of people. Instead he turns to the old religion that existed before the SI where he can freely express his emotions.

Also, Yon-Rogg teaches a primary school class of some sort (the children aren’t called “students” but “recruits” which tells you everything you need to know about the Kree Empire) where he teach them to fight (they’re wearing the same style of clothes that he and Carol wore during their sparring scene) and Kree propaganda (“Skrulls are terrorists and it’s our duty to defend not just Kree but all other races who can’t fight for themselves”) and it’s implied that he and Ronan used to sit through the same classes as children. This tells us that the Kree aren’t naturally cruel. The SI has to tell them the lie that Skrulls are terrorist and speak to Kree compassion by telling them that Kree warriors have to protect others from the merciless Skrulls.

The Kree are a race of scarred and abused people who then inflict that abuse on everyone else because they think they’re doing good. It’s fantastically messed up.

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