Koba

**Koba** is the main antagonist of the *Planet of the Apes* reboot trilogy.

He was a cruel and aggressive evolved bonobo ape who grew extreme hatred and hostility against humanity from their relentless abuse towards him. He's the arch-enemy of Caesar, who later opposed his ideas by showing compassion to and respecting humankind while he himself is belligerent to every human despite their ill involvement against the apes. Even though he would respect his apes, including Caesar, he would eventually injure or kill anyone in his way (even his species) because they opposed him.

In the recent installment, *War for the Planet of the Apes*, he reappeared as Caesar's hallucination who berates the latter of his protection to the rest of the apes, during his torture from accidentally killing Winter.

In *Rise of the Planet of the Apes*, he was portrayed by Christopher Gordon in motion-capture. Further into the trilogy, he is later portrayed by Toby Kebbell also in motion-capture.

## What makes him heroic

* He tried to defend himself from Tommy’s abuse.
* He had to fight his former best friend,Pope.
* He freed his fellow Slaves from Steven Jacobs.
* He kills Steven Jacobs .
* He Saves Caesar from an Bear.
* He felt guilty about betraying and trying to kill Caesar.
* His reason for betraying Ceasar is justified:
	+ It reminded him of the abuse he received from humans.
	+ He was deeply humiliated by the fact that it happened in front of both apes and humans.
	+ It is implied he felt betrayed by the fact that none of the other apes tried to help him, as he was visibly hurt when they looked away from him, and later when he is thinking about his plan to overthrow Caesar, he reflects on the fact that the other apes won't help him, since they didn't help him at the dam.

## What makes him Villainous

* He tries to attack Malcolm and his son Alexander, just because the latter talked back at Koba for pushing him down just for accidentally getting in his way.
* He deceives a couple of human guards, Terry and McVeigh, by feigning friendliness and playing dumb before stealing a gun from them and gleefully murdering them with it while showing no remorse.
	+ While they did pose a threat to him, considered killing him earlier, and also insulted him with insults like that of his past abusers, they eventually spared him and the fact that Koba chose to toy with Terry and McVeigh a second time, took a moment to savor their shock at his deception, and smirked after killing them while being ungrateful that they spared him, is a prime example of his sadism.
* He brutally kills Carver just to get his lighter. While Carver isn't exactly a sympathetic character due to his excessive hatred against apes, shooting Ash, and threatening to kill Cornelius (a newborn ape) and Blue Eyes, Koba did not kill him for those reasons.
* He shoots and critically injures Caesar, while burning the ape colony and blaming it all on the humans to further manipulate the apes into waging war against them, even though this had nothing to do with the humans shooting Caesar because it was Koba himself who shot him.
	+ What makes his betrayal of Caesar even worse is that Caesar is the one who saved him from the Gen-Sys lab where he was experimented on, and gave him a caring and providing life for 10 years.
* During the battle, he displays a great amount of wrath and bloodlust, roaring primally and laughing manically while shooting at the humans. He and the apes killed very many humans, also indirectly as well as many of them being killed in the Battle of San Francisco.
* Koba then takes control of San Francisco in his own power and freedom along with the help of the ape colony, making him the tyrant of both apes and humans. He then orders the apes to imprison the remaining humans in cage and was planning to kill them after he had learned from them how to better work human weapons and machines, as he wanted to rule the city.
* Koba murders Ash for refusing to obey his command to murder an unarmed man because it wasn't what Caesar would want.
	+ This is arguably Koba's most vile act since his reason for killing Ash was rather petty, and because Ash was a young ape (only eight years old). It is mentioned that Koba's need to reinforce his new position as the apes' leader was understandable, but killing Ash for simple defiance was going too far and violated the Ape not kill Ape law. There's also the fact that Ash was his honorary surrogate nephew.
* He imprisons any apes who don't follow his rule, even fellow advisors and Caesar's friends Maurice and Rocket.
* When confronted by Caesar over his betrayal and how he'd trusted Koba like a brother, Koba merely replies that Caesar was only a brother to humans. He also claims that he fights for apes and freed them, despite his actions proving otherwise.
* When fighting Caesar, he finds a gun and begins wildly shooting at Caesar, murdering Furaha and wounding Maurice in the process, demonstrating how Koba no longer cared about his fellow apes and would do anything to exact revenge and keep power.
* When he's about to fall to his death and Caesar has the chance to save him, Koba asks for his life to be spared by reminding him of how Caesar said "ape not kill ape" just moments after Koba himself had killed other apes, further proving his hypocrisy.
* Even after his death, Koba's overall actions would provoke the war against humanity, thus forever ruining any chance of peace between the two species, indirectly causing deaths of Caesar, many other apes and the rest of human survivors.
	+ It is acknowledged by Caesar that Koba was right that war between humans and apes was inevitable, because even without Koba, there would always be apes that would never forgive the atrocities humanity committed against the apes, and there would always be humans that would never tolerate the existence of a civilization of sapient apes. However, this does not change or excuse the fact that Koba initiated the war in the first place.