#I really love how they treated Kingo's Snake Primary when it came to the final battle

[reds-burrow]

Have you watched Eternals? I'm trying to figure out their sorting

Well, it's been several months since I've seen it. Hold on, lemme do a re-watch. Be back by the time you finish reading this sentence.

Unsurprisingly there's a lot of Loyalists in a Chloe Zhao movie. Also not a surprise: the Eternals' individual powers have a heavy influence on their Secondaries.

Sersi: Badger/Badger

Sersi's love for humanity is what has driven her from the moment she arrived on Earth. She gravitates towards humans, spending time with them as much as with the other Eternals. When deciding what to do about the Emergence, what convinces her to go through with her plan to stop it is when Thena reminds her that Sersi is acting out of love. Saving humanity is less about the right or wrong of it, and more about protecting those she loves. Sersi also questions why Ajak chose her as the next Prime Eternal because she is so used to playing a support role, being one of the team, a common theme among Badger Primaries thrust into a leader role.

After being attacked by a Deviant, Sersi's first instinct is to find help from Ajak. Ikaris's suggestion that they gather everyone to discuss how to proceed is a great relief to Sersi, as she is repeatedly shown that she prefers working with others. Her life in the past showed her engaging in hard work, such as building houses and working in the fields, but she was always a part of a team as she did it. We also see her fumble situations where she's caught off guard, such as when she is interviewed for Kingo's documentary, and she struggles to do what turn out to be instinctual processes for her, like getting in contact with Arishem or transmuting a living being. Badgers tend to rely on their previous experiences to guide them through new ones, so it can be difficult for them to rely on only pure instinct. For Sersi, it was only through the other Eternals' encouragement that she is able to trust these instincts.

Sprite: Snake/Snake

Sprite yearns for a true connection, above all else. She holds a grudge against Kingo because he abandoned her, and only seems to begin forgiving him when he explains how the movies he makes are inspired by her, proving that he continues to love and think about her. Sprite envies Sersi and humans because they are able to experience love and the freedom of choosing their own way of life that having or growing into an adult body grants them. The personal freedoms of being able to chart your own path tend to be motivating factors for Internal Primaries in many stories. Also, while Sprite does mention she doesn't think they should stop the Emergence, as Kingo points out, she decides to go with Ikaris because she loves him.

In battle, she always uses her powers to hide or distract, when she just as easily could use her illusions to intimidate or feign attacks. We also see that the illusions she casts while storytelling are something she easily improvises when she uses her abilities to remind Thena who she is on the fly. She also enjoyed embellishing the stories she would tell her human audiences, such as the legend of Ikaris flying too close to the sun that Dane mentions after Ikaris first shows up.

Ikaris: Badger/Lion

When it is finally revealed what Ikaris thinks about the Emergence, he makes it clear that he is an External Primary, guided by Arishem as his moral beacon. But unlike a Bird, he doesn't try to argue or explain his reasoning to the others. The only reason he gives for his actions is that he believes in Arishem's vision, a sign of his Badger loyalty. There is no changing Ikaris's system. Arishem's work is all that matters, and Ikaris is willing to kill his family to see it completed. And he is a threat because he's such a natural fighter, one of the Eternals who is always charging into each battle, relying on his strength to pull him out of any situation. There are no tricks nor strategies to rely on in his fighting, just pure strength to overwhelm his opponents.

Ajak: Badger/Badger

It's telling that Ajak decided to spend her time waiting for the Emergence on a ranch, a labor intensive environment. She is also shown as a sort of mother figure for the Eternals. She guides them with a steady hand, observing and encouraging. She tells Ikaris to confess his feelings to Sersi and later has Sprite visit Sersi because she knows that that is what her family needs for happiness. This ability to read others comes from the rapport her Courtier Badger has built with them over time. It is also how she knows to trust Sersi as the next Prime Eternal and arguably also what changed her mind about humanity. After the Eternals went their separate ways, Ajak finally took the time to get to know humanity, living amongst them. As a result, her Badger Primary bonded with them, opening Ajak up to counting humans as a community worth protecting. Her loyalty shifted from being solely devoted to the Celestials and Arishem's vision, to prioritizing humanity.

Kingo: Snake/Badger

Kingo's concerns are always first and foremost for the people close to him. When we first see him on his movie set, he worries about abandoning everyone depending on him for a job even though he just learned that the Deviants are back to threaten the entirety of humankind. Karun convinces him to go help by quoting one of Kingo's favorite movie lines, "Life affords no greater duty than to protect one’s family!" Later, he is ready to give his loyalty to Ikaris until it comes out that Ikaris has crossed the line that Kingo cannot accept: hurting a member of his family. Kingo then refuses to take part in the final battle because he can't stand the possibility of crossing that line too, even though he makes it clear he believes one side is right. That belief is not enough to overcome his Snake Primary instincts.

As showy as Kingo is, he is earnest in his interactions. He acts the same with the Eternals as he does with Karun or with workers on his movie set. His movies are all based on what he knows, his previous experiences with the Eternals. He also shows a keen ability to read and understand the people he's invested in, such as when he is able to understand what's motivating Sprite.

Gilgamesh: Badger/Badger

He spends his time cooking, baking, and fermenting his own beer through long processes that require steady work. While any Secondary can be a good caretaker, Badgers commonly take up this role, for they have the patience and penchant for hard work that being a caretaker often entails. Gilgamesh displays these traits while looking after Thena.

His first response to learning the truth of the Eternals' mission is that they are actually the bad guys, killing innocent people, and he is the one to suggest putting Tiamut to sleep in an attempt to save everyone, including Tiamut. It's an idea focused on saving as many lives as possible.

Thena: (Burnt) Lion/Lion

In the past, Thena is shown fully enjoying the glory and thrill of battle. Her Lion Secondary makes her a natural fighter, and she is shown rushing in, almost gleefully, to attack Deviants. Going through Mahd Wy'ry, however, burned her Primary. She questions herself and if she still is the person the others remember her as. She is shown to be dependent on Gilgamesh to tell her what to do in stressful situations like the Deviant attack on Druig's village. At the same time, the Mahd Wy'ry gives us a glimpse into how she reacted to the Eternals' true mission in the past, with her rebelling and even attacking the other Eternals in an effort to save the people of Centuri-Six. Though it's unclear how much she has recovered, her victory over Kro was also a victory over her condition, and Thena seems much more comfortable with herself at the end of the movie.

Druig: Lion/Bird

When we first meet him in the present day, he is more concerned about dealing with what he is feeling, having just found out he's an artificial lifeform, than the fact that the world is ending or that Ajak is dead. His focus on his inner turmoil points to his Lion Primary, which we also see in how he interacts with humans. When he breaks away from the other Eternals he explains that it's painful for him to have to follow the rules set forth by Arishem because he knows them to be wrong. He balks at the idea of blind loyalty and hates the thought of leaders using their soldiers as pawns, though there is irony in that hate, for his powers can force that same sort of relationship on others. And we see him using people as living tools and weapons, speaking through someone when the Eternals first arrive in his village and having a group shoot at a Deviant when it attacks. The fact that he decided to put down roots suggests a Built Secondary when, with his powers, he could have roamed the world seeking to end conflicts as they arose. Druig is also the one to suggest they have a back-up plan if they fail to put Tiamut to sleep and is the one to come up with the idea of Sersi using her powers to kill the Celestial.

Phastos: (Burnt) Badger/Bird

After Hiroshima, Phastos burned and gave up on most of humanity. His focus in the present day is only upon his family, the one thing he believes he has a chance of protecting. It's through them, that he says, he still connects to humanity as a whole. As burned as he is, that desire to protect all humans is still there.

His powers make him a natural builder and inventor, and in the final battle, we see him get the upper hand by using devices and traps he'd set up in advance.

Makkari: Bird?/Lion?

Unfortunately, Makkari suffers from lack of screen time, making her difficult to sort at this point. She does show a penchant for collecting different artifacts, though this isn't about collecting tools or information for problem-solving. As she tells Sprite in a deleted scene, she collects these artifacts because she hated seeing humans destroy their culture and knowledge. She places great value in knowledge, which could point to a Bird Primary, and reiterates this at the end of the movie, when Thena asks whether or not the other Eternals will accept the truth. Makkari answers affirmatively because she believes the truth will set them free, just as Makkari seems to feel it did for her. When first told about the truth of who the Eternals are and that the world is ending, although troubled, Makkari also shows relief because her boredom was finally ending. Her powers do make her appear like a Lion Secondary, with her superspeed not only making charging the natural thing to do in battle, but also increasing her thinking speed, making her quick to make decisions and jump into situations. But for all we know, she is going through another Secondary's thought process, just too quickly for us to tell.