Krodhi Had No Interest in Keeping the Peace

Krodhi Had No Interest in Keeping the Peace Krodhi looks at the other animals on Kipling and sees food. That is about as direct as I can put it. While Mowglii is trying to get the tribes to stop destroying each other, Baloo's son is wondering why the bears have been holding back in the first place. And the frustrating thing is that he has a real grievance underneath all of that. The Bada Dar have been confined to the caves. Krodhi questions his father about the bears they've lost and wants to know why they can't live in the jungle above. To him, Baloo is keeping his own family away from something they should have been able to enjoy all along. The problem is what he thinks enjoying it should mean. Once the bears reach the surface, Krodhi gets excited about how easily the other animals fall beneath their claws. He wants a culling. If the island's disasters don't kill the other tribes, the bears can finish the job. He isn't asking for a place where his family can live safely anymore. He wants the freedom to take whatever they can overpower. Baloo knows exactly how dangerous that is. He has been trying to contain the Bada Dar's appetite, and he understands that a jungle stripped of everything else isn't a paradise. Krodhi hears that warning as another excuse. Why should the bears hide in caves eating bats and rats while his father protects the rest of the island, especially the human children? That accusation actually gets somewhere. Baloo briefly gives ground and allows his tribe to take the jungle's spoils. He still warns Krodhi not to forget who leads them, but you can see how difficult it has become for him to keep saying no to his own son. Then the pirates attack. The tribes finally fight together, survive, and get a moment to believe the worst is over. That is when Krodhi brings the bears in to feed on them. I think that timing tells you more about him than another speech would. Everybody else has just paid for that victory. He sees an opportunity. Baloo physically stops him from attacking Mowglii, and Krodhi challenges his father for leadership. He even wants the other bears to keep challenging if he loses. He is planning for the violence to continue until the obstacle is gone. Baloo gets around that by recognizing Mowglii as his challenger first. What follows is devastating: he pushes his former pupil to kill him so that her victory will give her the authority to stop the tribe. Krodhi doesn't understand how such a small opponent could have defeated his father. He doesn't understand what his father just chose, either. But he obeys the result. Mowglii orders the bears to find their own territory and stay there, and they leave. Krodhi survives. He doesn't apologize or suddenly learn to value the other tribes. That's where this story leaves him, and I like that it doesn't clean him up. His father gives everything to stop a slaughter that his own son still thinks the bears deserve to carry out.