More spoilers for The Eternals follow.
I think of the Eternals, Kingo is the most easily understandable for me personally, and perhaps for others too. His primary motivation is family; this gifset by @eternalssource points out a few major decisions Kingo makes in this narrative, both specifically driven by family. They’ve gif’ed two; Kingo makes three major choices in this movie.
The first is when he’s presented with the need to drop everything and figure out what’s going on with the Deviants. Even though he’s just started shooting on his movie, the first of a trilogy, he goes. Not happily, but as soon as this line is dropped, he’s in. He leaves his successful career, potentially to some significant consequence (loss of funding, loss of his reputation), and he goes.
When he’s presented with the Emergence, he at first agrees to help because his family has decided to take this course of action. He has faith in Arishem, which is…not great when he knows what’s going on, but fine, we won’t open that can of worms at the moment. When his family asks, he chooses to stand against Arishem’s plan.
Then Ikaris shows his colors. Kingo, here, makes choice number two.
He turns against Ikaris. Kingo’s made it clear up to this point that he believes Ikaris should be in charge (he calls Ikaris boss on multiple occasions), but when Ikaris moves to harm one of their own, with no hesitation or remorse Kingo uses force to defend.
And finally, choice number three: Kingo leaves. He leaves because he can’t stand against Sprite and Ikaris, isn’t willing to fight them. He lived with Sprite for a long time before he left her in Macedonia. He considers Ikaris his leader; he won’t stand against them. The next time we see Kingo is after the fight is over.
There are other things; he’s one of the ones we see most frequently signing to Makkari.
He was sensitive enough to Sprite to know when she was in love and expressed his sympathy. Sprite inspired him to tell stories for dozens of years. Kingo is still eligible to babysit Josh (Phastos’ son). Kingo values his family in a very human way.
He’s interesting for other reasons too; he genuinely believes in Arishem’s reasoning. He’s not thrilled about it, but he’ll watch the Earth burn - including his valet of fifty years - and do nothing. Clearly, fifty years was not enough to make Patel important enough to Kingo for Kingo to even try and justify his actions to the man. He cared about his movie crew’s livelihoods (it’s one of his concerns before he leaves to help them hunt down Gil and Thena), but not about their fiery deaths beyond what seems to be an abstract way.
He’s selfish, he values his family, he knows that sitting out the decision is its own decision and does it, and he’s torn up when his family is torn up. He likes attention (he’s a movie star; the man likes talking about himself. He wants to make a documentary. About himself). He doesn’t care about those outside of his sphere. He seems to view humans as disposable, or at least acceptable sacrifices.
As long as his family is well, he finds the outcome acceptable. Many of us feel the same, even if it turns us into people who’d let the world burn if we had to pick between others and the people we love.
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