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Ronan [Source]

Ronan the Accuser is the main villain in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Even though the Kree and the Xandarians have signed a peace treaty, Ronan (who is a Kree) seems hellbent on destroying Xandar.

My Question(s):

  • Why does Ronan hate the Xandarians so much that he doesn't abide by the peace treaty?
    Is it simply because he is an extremist, or does he have a more personal reason?
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  • 1
    Best I can find is that Ronan and his Kree battalion were simply outraged over the peace treaty, and felt the Xandarians should pay for their transgressions against the Kree. However, I can't seem to find any solid evidence of this. It would appear that this version of Ronan has motivations that only exist with in the MCU. The source is the Marvel database on Wikia, but it cites no sources for this statement.
    – MattD
    Commented Sep 5, 2014 at 21:12
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    He's the ISIS of the Galaxy
    – pt18cher
    Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 12:58

2 Answers 2

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In the introduction scene of Ronan, he said to a Xandarian

Because I do not forgive your people for taking the life of my father, and his father and his father before him. A thousand years of war between us will not be forgotten.

Clearly this looks a solid motive to me. Revenge for his family. I don't know about the actual comics but in the movie context I think this is the reason why Ronan hated Xandirians so much that he denied the peace treaty.

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Ronan is the military commandar of the Kree's sectarian arm.

The Kree, as a species, are made up of separate and autonomous divisions that function without accountability to each other. This is a deliberate and seemingly harmonious relationship, as the right hand cannot be held accountable for the actions of the left.

The Kree's political/diplomatic wing are represented by the ambassador who speaks to Nova Prime on the console screen. He is unwilling to denounce Ronan to the Kree because Ronan serves a function within the Kree social Hierarchy: he is an extremist and a fundamentalist, and as such exists as a walking representation of the more ideologically minded sect of Kree society, which is in itself embraced.

The Kree have been problematically been compared to extremist Muslim Militants,and the evisceration attack on Xandar (wherein the pilots martyr themselves in suicide attacks) has done little to downplay these connections.

Ronan wishes to destroy Xandar because his purpose, his very occupation, is to exercise the fundamentalist military aspects of the Kree. In turn, the Kree who are by nature colonialists who and believe they are the master race, but are unwilling (at this point) to risk open intergalactic War are able to see their military might and dominance exercised by a partially sanctioned member of their society.

Many sources cite Ronan as a 'rogue-general', an over simplification that totally misses the point of his function.

Ronan began as a member of the Accuser Corps, who are a religious-inflected version of The Judge System in 2000AD. He is an ayatollah, a judge and an executioner rolled into one, and in a society predicated in religious zealotry his fundamentalist and pitiless nature saw him rise quickly amongst its ranks. He 'outgrew' the Accuser corps somewhat (hence him frequently being described as rogue), but truly realized that he was of more use/potency outside the remit of the official system.

Ronan is a sanctioned fundamentalist, and he is a hero within Kree culture that is able to both carry out the wishes of his race and evade accountability for them.

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  • "Many sources cite Ronan as a 'rogue-general', an over simplification that totally misses the point of his function." - Can you in turn briefly provide some sources (or at least hints) that strengthen your (nevertheless interesting) point, though? Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 11:39
  • Man, just google him! Even the Marvel Website employs this over-simplification... its not factually incorrect, it just glosses over the intricacies of the Kree Hierarchy somewhat... GotG would have been a boring film if it was just a documentary about the Kree, so its understandable. He's one of the most interesting characters in the cosmics, they just don't have space to elaborate in a movie... Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 11:48
  • "Man, just google him! Even the Marvel Website employs this over-simplification." - It wasn't the claims of the others that I thought might deserve backing. But nevermind, I'll just assume you know what you're talking about and I might agree listing any relevant comic source or providing an essay of Kree history is beyond the scope of this answer. Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 13:14
  • @JohnSmithOptional - Can you explain what sources you used? AFAIK there never was a Kree-Xandar war in the comics, so it's possible the cinematic version of the Kree might differ from the comic version (e.g. was Ronan ever portrait as a genocidal maniac in the comics?). - And are you saying the Ronan didn't actually go 'rogue', but that his actions were sanctioned by the Kree empire?
    – Oliver_C
    Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 21:21
  • It's a misnomer to use comic sources for the MCU, as they're carving out different histories: they do employ a technique called 'tactical overlap' though, where the characteristics of an 'element' are inferred but not confirmed through remediation (but that's a very technical concept, which we don't have room for here): in this example, transplanting his attitude from Skrulls to Xandarians... Ronan operates in a 'state sponsored' position, and whilst his activities are not officially 'endorsed' the Kree empire are complicit in supporting him through non-intervention. Commented Sep 7, 2014 at 8:32

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