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artist-issues · 7 months ago

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I like Koba because he’s the perfect photo-opposite of Caesar, and the perfect villain for that franchise.

I like that the movies took their time and characterized him carefully, even in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, before anybody knew that he was going to be the villain in the second movie. The researchers are like, “he knows the drill, he’s been through a lot of labs.” When he’s just a dumb brute animal, with no superhuman intelligence, he causes the virus to be released to humanity. Remember how? By pretending to be calm when they put him in the scanning machine, but then thrashing suddenly and knocking that one lab assistant’s mask off, infecting him. He did that before he was self-aware and super-intelligent. He was a bitter and angry creature, and a cunning and vengeful creature, long before he got super-smart. And they keep that cunning bait-and-savage-switch character trait way later, in the second movie, when he pretends to be a silly monkey and then brutally murders humans when their guards are down.

But then when he is freed, and the humans are supposedly gone at the start of the second movie, I love the nuance that he wasn’t interested in overthrowing Caesar.

He was happy being the second-in-command. He had the opportunity to leave Caesar to get eaten by a bear in the opening scene of that movie—and instead he saves his life and looks horrified when he thinks Caesar is dead. They have a camaraderie. And he genuinely jokes around with Blue Eyes and tries to make him feel better after the younger ape is clawed by the bear.

Basically, it really was as if all he wanted was to wipe out the humans. When he thought they were gone for good, he was not the same bitter brute you see pushing Jacobs to his death or seizing the opportunity to beat up Will. He was happy just being one of Caesar’s advisors, living in the woods with the other apes.

But then humans come. And all this hate is back. And he still trusts Caesar and follows Caesar’s leadership, even if he thinks they should wipe all the humans out and satisfy his bloodlust from the beginning. He still submits to Caesar. But then Caesar pushes it by offering to basically help the humans do their work. Koba hates humans, and Caesar appears to be choosing them over him. And on top of that, you can see that in every confrontation he has with Caesar, Koba is interested in what the other apes think of him. Caesar stands up aggressively when Koba shouts at him, and Koba becomes aware that this is getting confrontational in front of everybody and backs down. Caesar almost chokes him out and Koba looks around at the other apes watching before asking forgiveness and regrouping.

So this means that there’s an element of wounded pride AND feeling like an outcast among the apes already mixed in with Koba’s hatred of humans, after Caesar doesn’t agree with him/punishes him. Then you can see Koba go from being a team player to being self-protective, and he starts using the other apes instead of being interested in them as family.

After realizing Caesar will never hate the humans, Koba basically had a choice to make. He could choose the apes, even though it has been revealed that they don’t share his hate. Or he could choose his hate—but he can’t have both, because the apes don’t want to hate humans if it means war. And we see that he wouldn’t give up his hate.

Koba’s own hate completely swallowed him up, to the point where he saw not only humans, but other apes, as disgusting. He starts killing just to kill. After the bloody war starts, he completely stops trying to manipulate Blue Eyes or gain the other apes’ approval. He just kills apes that disagree with him and humans in his way, alike.

Caesar points that out in their final battle. But that’s what makes Koba such a good opposite to Caesar. Caesar is, like I said in the other post, all about “family.” He’s all about protecting the apes he chooses to regard as his family, and it’s usually “protect them from hate.” But Koba doesn’t really regard the apes as his family. Maybe he was starting to, when he thought all humans were gone forever and was grateful to Caesar for freeing him from the labs, and there were no problems. But the truth is, while Caesar is all about making choices that protect, Koba is all about making choices that hurt.

And that’s what’s interesting. Caesar is defining what an “ape” is, and he knows it. He knows that he has a whole super-intelligent new species as his people, and they’re still deciding, every day, what being an “ape” means. And so Caesar struggles the whole second movie with the fact that apes and humans aren’t actually inherently different. Not when it comes to hate.

But if you think about it, that’s what separates the apes meaningfully from what they used to be: savagery. Just straight-up, plain “I feel mad so I’m going to lash out and rip up anything near me.” They got what from the serum? Advanced intelligence. Reason. Koba gets to the point where he can’t be reasoned with, and won’t show mercy or any of the “higher” sensibilities that come with that “higher being/human” thing the “evolved” apes have.

So when Koba chooses to be that way; when he chooses hate; when Koba chooses to kill his “family,” then Caesar kills Koba. Because Caesar is showing all the apes watching that final showdown: “true apes” do not kill and endanger one another. True apes protect each other. Koba only protects himself. So he doesn’t get to be an “ape” entitled to the same protection Caesar gives all his followers, and expects them to give one another.

I like that. Because Koba will kill anything that threatens or hurts him. But Caesar will only kill those who won’t let go of their hate—whether they’re human or primate.

I also just love the acting of the guy who plays Koba. And I love that he looks and moves more savagely than the other apes, even though he’s supposedly got the same level of intelligence and comparable experience to Caesar, the most “refined” ape. I love the way he talks, and I love, like I said, how careful and well-thought-out his characterization was.

#Koba #planet of the apes #rise of the planet of the apes #dawn of the planet of the apes #apes together strong #war for the planet of the apes #Caesar #Andy serkis #apes #I like the monkey movies #monkey movies

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blastoqueen · 6 months ago

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Sunrise.

Chapter 1

Rating: Teen and Up

Relationships: Noa x Mae (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes)

Content warnings: None

Comments: English is not my first language. Sorry if something is wrong.

Mae arrived at the village only two months after leaving Noa unsatisfied with her answer.

“Can apes and humans live together?” he had asked.

“I don’t know”

Even so, Noa accepted her in his clan and respected her silence. He knew that trying to get information out of the girl would be useless. She didn’t tell the ape why she was there; she just came one day looking sad, defeated and really thin. It would have been almost impossible for Noa to recognize Mae from afar only by seeing the state she was in.

The human walked to the village tumbling and being skin and bones. The ape had always been shocked at how skinny Echoes were, but even he knew that Mae´s body was not normal. He could see how bony her knees were and it was honestly scary. Maybe that’s why he let her stay without even thinking about what the elders would say.

As soon as Mae stepped into their territory, the apes came running with spears incase she represented a thread. By their surprise, the human only said one word before hitting the ground. “Noa”.

The leader approached as fast as he could, making his way through the crowd. When he saw her, he signed the other apes to carry her.

“To the tower”

------

Mae was resting in a litter inside the main tower, when Noa approached her, holding a bowl with different fruits in it.

“You are hungry” the ape said. It wasn’t a question, so the girl didn’t answer.

Noa gave her a peach and the human took it with weakness in her hands, she took a careful bite before almost devouring the entire fruit. The male sat beside her, watching her eat. When Mae reached out for another, he passed her an apple this time.

“You look bad” Noa said.

She just huffed.

“I need meat” the Echo said when she finished the apple.

“Meat?” Noa asked “We have fish”

“Yes, fish, please”

Noa looked at her for a few seconds before leaving the tower. When he came back, he carried in his hands a cloth with a cooked fish in it.

“I didn’t know Echoes ate meat” Noa murmured.

“I didn’t know apes cooked their meat”

The male growled in response. When the girl finished the whole fish, Noa tried to ask her what had happened. Why was she in this state? Why would she come for help? Was she staying? “Please stay” he thought for a moment.

“What?” Mae asked. She could see the doubt in his face.

“What… happened?”

The Echo stayed silent for a moment. Couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth, to show herself vulnerable in front of an ape, their enemy.

“A lot” she whispered.

Noa nodded.

“I will let you sleep”

The male started to leave when the voice of the human stopped him.

“Wait, Noa” she said, he could hear something different, was she scared? “You are not going to leave me alone with the other apes, right?”

Noa turned around to see her in the eyes, he was annoyed. She hasn’t changed.

“We are not savages, Mae”

He left the tower.

-------

Three days had passed since Mae returned to the village and Noa had only seen her once. The other apes were responsible for bringing her food and water while she rested and slept for most of the days. One afternoon, Soona enter the tower. Carefully, she handed the human a bowl with berries. Mae looked at the female for a few seconds, then took the food with a smile.

“Thank you”

Soona stayed still, watching the girl. She inspected her thin arms and legs, noticing an almost invisible coat of fur covering her skin. Mae took a handful of berries trying to ignore the intense look of Noa´s friend.

“Do you know were Noa is?” the human asked.

“He has been sleeping with me” Soona said “Because you are in his tower”

The girl nodded in understanding and continued eating.

“You make him… anxious” said the ape.

“Anxious?” Mae asked. How did they know that word?

“He does not know what to do… with you”

“Oh…” Mae looked down to her lap “I´ll leave tomorrow. I don’t want to cause him any problems”

“He does not want you to leave” Soona murmured.

The human thought about her answer carefully, not knowing what to say.

“You said I make him anxious”

“He is anxious because… he wants you to stay. But he knows apes do not want that”

Without waiting for an answer, Soona left.

Anxious, anxious, anxious... Was there even a time when Mae wasn’t feeling anxiety? Thinking about the whole situation made her nervous. She remembered her times at the bunker, before turning eight years old life was boring, monotonous, but safe. The moment she started to really understand why her life was the way it was it felt like she was trapped underground, unable to breathe. Growing up, she went to school, took classes with other kids and learned the basics of life. She learned math, English, history and geography. Those last two were kind of strange for her, all she knew was the bunker, was there really a different world out there? She read about countries, wars, nature, technology and cultures from hundred of years before. Mae only saw pictures but couldn’t even grasp the concept of a blue sky. She tried to ask her parents, were they outside when they were kids? The answer of course was no. “We know about the outside world as much as you do”. Since the moment she learned to speak, all the adults in her life made sure to let her know that the apes were the enemy. By twelve, she and the other two kids her age knew all the story of why things were like that. The laboratory, the virus, the wars, how the ALZ-113 made apes smart and took away the intelligence of humans. She started to feel something in her chest and her heart was beating very fast. Was she going to die? She was only a kid.

By thirteen, they started to teach her basic human skills to survive in the wild, technology, engineering, agriculture and so. Her mother wanted her to become part of the medical team when she turned seventeen, just like she did, but Mae said she needed to help in other ways, she wanted to get her hands dirty.

When the girl turned twenty-two, she became part of a mission to get a key from one of the safest bunkers in what used to be U.S.A, it was said that only politicians and important people got in that bunker hundreds of years ago, and that place held the most important technology and weapons to free humans from the dominium of apes. That night, after agreeing to the plan, Mae felt her chest tight and tears rolling down her cheeks. She couldn’t breathe. Her mom found her in her room, having a panic attack. “It´s called anxiety”

--------

Mae woke up in the middle of the night, she opened her eyes and felt a tear rolling down her cheek. The girl didn’t remember exactly what she was dreaming, but she knew it was related to the events of the last weeks. Slowly, she sat in the litter and a movement caught her eye; under the faint light of a torch, she could see Noa resting in the ground, chin on his knees, thinking.

“I haven’t seen you in a couple of days” Mae said. She wasn’t sure if the ape was mad at her or if Soona was right and the male was just anxious.

The girl asked herself if the ape had been a accompanying her all these nights, but that though vanish almost immediately when she remembered what Soona said about Noa sleeping with her.

“Needed to come up with a plan” the ape said without even looking in her direction.

“You don’t need to” Mae whispered “I´m leaving in the morning”

Noa stayed in silence and looked at her blue eyes for a moment. Why was she so difficult?

“Why?” he asked “Here you have food and protection”

“I can protect myself”

Noa scoffed.

“What? You think I am weak?” now she was getting angry. She survived a lot, she was not some princess who needed to be saved, much less by an ape.

“I think you need to recover” he said.

“I just needed food”

“There is plenty of food out there… Mae. You are not capable of getting food”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Noa could see the anger in her eyes. He then knew he shouldn’t have said that, but he was getting kind of desperate to make her stay so he was just saying stupid things, which happened to do the opposite of what he intended. Even so, the apes ego made it difficult to apologize.

He didn’t even know what “fuck” meant.

“Look at you” Noa said “Even the wild Echoes look better... than you”

“They are humans!”

“Whatever!”

The leader knew they had to be quiet, or they would wake up the village. Noa didn’t want any more problems, he just wished for the girl to make sense and stay with his clan.

“Your people don’t want me here” Mae said in a whisper. He could see in her eyes a little bit of sadness.

So, it was about the other apes? The Echo wanted to run away again, because his people may not accept her in the village? Noa got a little hope, all this time he thought that Mae hated the idea to stay because she refuses to live near other apes.

“I am the leader”

“So what? You don’t think they could turn their backs at you for helping me? They could take away your title or whatever and kill you!”

The girl started to silently cry. Was she sad because she imagined Noa dying? No, but it was nice thinking she was.

“Why would they… kill me? We are not like humans. In the clan we do not kill each other”.

Mae stayed quiet.

“There is a lake not far from here” Noa started to walk to the exit “Tomorrow you shower. You stink”.

#noa x mae #planet of the apes #mae #kingdom of the planet of the apes #noa and mae #soona #fanfic #kotpota #apes together strong #noa x soona

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