Since their introduction, the Predator’s Yautja have had a reputation for only killing worthy prey, i.e. prey that can fight back. However, in the latest installment in the Predator franchise, the Yautja’s reputation for ‘honor’ has been completely undermined.
The Yautja made its first appearance in the 1987 film Predator, and in this very first film, it was established that Predators would only kill one of the humans if they were holding a weapon–and as the franchise continued, that fact became even more constant in every one of their hunts. Any sentient life form that are either biologically deadly (like Xenomorphs) or wield deadly-enough weapons (like humans) are worthy of being killed by a Predator. The reason for this is that Yautja hold their honor as hunters in the highest regard, so killing something that isn’t able to put up a fight or give them a challenging hunt is dishonorable. A perfect example of this is in 2004 film Alien vs Predator when Weyland attempts to fight one of the Predators and the Yautja doesn’t immediately kill him because it sees he’s already dying from a terminal illness, so there would be no honor in taking his life. However, despite this previously established evidence, the newest Predator comic series flips it all on its head.
In Predator #5 by Ed Brisson and Kev Walker, Theta–who has been hunting Predators across the cosmos for more than a decade–has been captured by representatives of the company, Astar, as she had been flying around in a stolen Astar ship for years. When Theta was a child, a Predator wiped out her entire colony and only left her alive because (as previously stated) she was not worthy prey. This gave Predator‘s Theta a thirst for vengeance that could only be quenched with Yautja corpses. With every kill, she proves how big a mistake it was to let her live–and all because of their code of honor. Although, when taking a closer look at the traumatic event Theta endured that left her orphaned and murderous, it becomes clear that no one in her colony should have been murdered by a Predator at all–at least, not a Predator who abided by their culture’s code of honor.
Theta was from a Peaceful Botanist Colony, Meaning No One was Worthy Prey
In previous installments of the Predator mythos, Yautja consistently hunt those who are obviously deadly. In the first Predator, the Yautja hunts guerilla soldiers and hired guns–and in Predator 2, the Yautja hunt violent gang members and police officers. Not only that, but the 2010 film Predators highlights the fact that Predators know exactly what kind of prey they want to hunt as the film explicitly shows the Yautja choosing their prey deliberately. In this comic series, however, this Predator attacks a small colony of peaceful botanists, none of whom would put up a worthy fight (and none of whom did). Sure, the scientists defended themselves with weapons they kept for emergencies, but there was no indication before then that these people were violent in any way–and certainly not up to the standards of an honorable hunt.
Predators stalk their prey, judge their worth, and then hunt them if their prey meet the criteria of being an honorable kill. Based on what was shown in this comic, however, it seems as though the Predators’ ‘hunting rules’ are just a pretense that comes off more as a disdain for the weak rather than an actual system of morality. Plus, based on what fans have seen in the past, there simply isn’t any evidence to suggest that a Predator would look at a group of botanists and consider them worthy prey–weak and detestable maybe, but definitely not worth killing–which proves that the reputation for honor held by the Predator’s Yautja has been utterly undermined.
