Rodan (MonsterVerse)

"Rodan. The Fire Demon."

- Ilene Chen about Rodan

Rodan is the secondary antagonist of the 2019 action movie Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the third film in the MonsterVerse and a sequel to the 2014 Godzilla movie. He is a vicious Pteranodon-like kaiju capable of mass destruction and sometimes being seen as a god of destruction.

He was portrayed by Jason Liles in motion capture.

Biography
Rodan first appears when the ecoterrorist Jonah Alan uses a device known as the Orca to awaken Rodan from a volcano where he has been resting for many years. Once Rodan is out of the volcano, Monarch has pilots distract Rodan so that he will come closer to Ghidorah, planning that they would kill each other. This doesn't really go as planned as Ghidorah completely destroys Rodan. Ghidorah flies to Rodan's volcano in order to absorb energy, in which Rodan flies to Ghidorah and becomes his minion, showing his loyalty by bowing to Ghidorah. Rodan and the rest of Ghidorah's minions go on a lengthy massacre throughout the world on Ghidorah's orders.

In Boston, as Godzilla and Mothra fight Ghidorah, Rodan arrives and attacks Mothra. The two battle each other, and at first Rodan gains the upper hand and is seemingly going to win, but Mothra stabs Rodan with her stinger, supposedly killing him. However, Rodan somehow survived the battle, although he is severely wounded. He returns at the end of the film when Godzilla has been crowned king of the monsters after killing Ghidorah, and decides to become a minion to him now, showing his loyalty by bowing to Godzilla along with the other Titans.

Personality
Out of the monsters in the film, Rodan is probably the least intelligent. He's shown to be more animalistic and savage than the others, an example is him eating a pilot as if it was prey. But Rodan is at the same time opportunistic, most likely not very interested in what the creature he's obeying truly wants, but rather that he's on the safe side, as shown when he switches to Godzilla's side at the end of the film after Ghidorah's death. Another possible reason for Rodan changing sides, other than opportunism, might be that he believes that the one who is the most powerful deserves to win against the one who is less powerful. Both Godzilla and Ghidorah were after all king of the monsters during the time Rodan followed them, and thus the most powerful.