Did Ikaris Kill Ajak in The Eternals? (& Why)
The Eternals movie, which is available for streaming on Disney+, has become the newest addition to the MCU’s deep and vast universe that is full of different stories and rich characters. That said, Eternals only serves to add a lot more characters to the MCU with the addition of the Eternals themselves minus a few deaths. One of the first deaths in the Eternals involved their leader, Ajak, who was seemingly killed by another Eternal named Ikaris. So, did Ikaris really kill Ajak, and why?
Ikaris did not directly kill Ajak because it was not his hand that dealt the killing blow. Instead, it was the Deviant named Kro that directly killed Ajak by absorbing her powers. Ikaris was only responsible for betraying Ajak and putting her in a position where Kro could easily kill her.
One of the twists that people didn’t see coming in Eternals was Ikaris’ betrayal. After all, like all of the Eternals, he cared about his family. But the fact that Ikaris cared more about his loyalty towards Arishem, the one who created them and gave them their life purpose, was something that weighed him down heavily throughout the movie, as he was forced to betray his family.
Did Ikaris Kill Ajak?
The introduction of the Eternals to the MCU was something that opened up a lot of possibilities for the entire franchise, especially when you factor in the possibility of cosmic entities such as the Celestials appearing as enemies sometime in the near future. That said, the focus of the film was to introduce the Eternals to us and to allow us to get to know each member.
Ajak was one of the Eternals that was first introduced to us by name as she was the Prime Eternal on Earth. That means that she was the one tasked to lead all of the other Eternals sent to Earth, despite the fact that she doesn’t have any combat-oriented powers. Meanwhile, the one Eternal that was suited for combat far more than the others was Ikaris, who is said to be the strongest of them.
Throughout the movie, we get to know more about Ajak through flashbacks. She was the one Eternal that knew how to hold the entire team together because of the very fact that she truly cared about everyone in the group. However, it was revealed quite early in the movie that Ajak died seemingly at the hands of a Deviant just shortly after Sersi and some of the other Eternals discovered that Deviants were not extinct.
But as the movie went on, the other Eternals, specifically Sersi, learned about the Emergence, which is an event that causes a Celestial to emerge from a host planet after gathering so much energy from intelligent lifeforms. In the process of emerging, the Celestial will destroy the entire planet, which is Earth in this case. Having developed a love and fondness for humanity, Sersi resolved to try to stop the Emergence with the help of the other Eternals.
As Sersi, with the help of Phastos, had seemingly found a way to delay the Emergence, a visibly frustrated Ikaris recalled what happened just days before the events of the film. In the flashback, it was revealed that he betrayed Ajak just before Sersi discovered that the Deviants were still alive. But was Ikaris responsible for killing Ajak?
If you are talking about indirect responsibility, then you could say that it was Ikaris who killed Ajak because, without his participation, Ajak wouldn’t have died. However, it was not Ikaris who dealt the killing blow to the leader of the Eternals.
During the flashback, it was revealed that Ikaris brought Ajak to what looked like a frozen lake with Deviants walking on it. He speculated that these Deviants must have been frozen long ago but were thawed out when the ice started melting.
After revealing to Ajak that he wanted the Emergence to happen, he dropped her to the ice, where she was attacked by the Deviants and was eventually killed by a larger and more powerful Deviant that absorbed her powers. This Deviant turned out to be Kro.
So, while it may have been the Deviant Kro that killed Ajak, it was Ikaris that allowed Ajak to die by dropping her on the frozen lake. Kro was the executioner, but Ikaris was the judge and jury that decided that Ajak needed to die.
Did Ikaris Kill Ajak In The Comics?
The thing you need to know about the Eternals movie is that the events there are entirely exclusive to the MCU. That means that Ikaris was never a traitor among the Eternals and even went on to have a bigger role in the comics, and that wasn’t something he could do in the MCU version of the Eternals because he killed himself at the end of the film.
Why did Ikaris betray Ajak?
If you are wondering why Ikaris had to kill Ajak, it was not out of the possibility that he had evil in his heart. Instead, it was because he just saw things the other way in the sense that he viewed the Emergence as something that was important.
When Arishem revealed to Sersi that they were on Earth to make sure that the Emergence was successful, he also told her that the Emergence was a necessity. The birth of a new Celestial would allow the birth of countless other beings all over the universe because Celestials were responsible for creating stars, which are necessary for the survival of sentient beings.
In other words, Arishem was telling Sersi that it was alright to sacrifice seven billion human lives so that more planets could give life to billions of other lifeforms all over the galaxy. While Sersi eventually did not agree with the Emergence, Ajak also had the same idea before her death.
In Ikaris’ flashback, it was revealed that Ajak visited him in his home and talked about her plans of stopping the Emergence, considering that she already knew about it the entire time. Ajak told him that she had grown to see the potential of humankind, especially after the events surrounding Thanos and the Avengers.
It was also revealed then and there that Ikaris also knew about the Emergence centuries before the events of the film, as Ajak had told him of it before the Eternals went their separate ways hundreds of years ago. But, when Ajak told Ikaris of the Emergence, there was no plan to go against it.
But because Ajak changed her mind about the Emergence just days before it was going to happen, Ikaris realized that she had to die because of the possibility that she might convince the other Eternals to join her in her cause. After all, Ajak was the leader that everyone in the group respected. As such, Ikaris had to let her die.
Ikaris was loyal to Arishem in the sense that he believed in the purpose of the Emergence. It was not like he hated humankind. Instead, it was more of the fact that he believed that allowing Earth to blow up was a necessary sacrifice for the birth of a Celestial, which is responsible for bringing birth to countless other planets all over the universe.
Why Did Ikaris Allow Ajak To Die?
In addition to the fact that Ikaris was loyal to Arishem’s Emergence plan and that he believed that Ajak, being the leader, was capable of convincing the other Eternals to find a way to stop the Emergence from happening, Ikaris also killed Ajak so that he would gain the leadership role.
The leadership role of the Eternals was one of the issues in the film. Officially, it was Sersi who was chosen by Ajak to lead the Eternals after her. However, some of the other Eternals respected Ikaris more because he was the most powerful Eternal.
That said, killing Ajak allowed Ikaris to gain some sort of a leadership position that was enough to convince Kingo to stay out of the affairs and Sprite to follow him with his plans of allowing the Emergence to happen.
