Godzilla vs. Kong’s Jia (Kaylee Hottle) is one of the film’s most important characters, but her connection with Kong goes beyond what’s shown on screen. As the only human Kong trusts and is willing to communicate with, Jia is central to the movie's story. Kong travels to the Hollow Earth and even agrees to team up with Godzilla at Jia’s urging, and there’s good reason for why the two share such a powerful bond.
Jia is the last known Iwi, a group of humans who migrated to Skull Island thousands of years ago and lived peacefully within the prehistoric ecosystem. Though the Iwi were understandably wary of the vicious Skull Crawlers that roamed the island, they seemed to have an understanding with Kong’s ancestors, and the two species coexisted harmoniously. After the alpha Skull Crawler Ramarak killed Kong’s parents, he became the last of his kind but continued to live alongside the Iwi.
According to Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), most of the Iwi were killed since the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and the ensuing havoc wreaked by the other Titans. Whether Ghidorah personally visited Skull Island during his rampage, or the island was ravaged just by the storm itself, isn’t entirely clear, but what is clear is that Jia was the only Iwi to survive.
That sequence of events would have only deepened the inherent connection between Jia and Kong. Both are the last of their people, and both suffered great losses at the hands of aggressive Titan attacks. In a way, Jia and Kong represent to each other the world they lost. While neither of them have the home they once shared, they keep a piece of it by holding onto each other. It makes sense, then, why Kong trusts Jia so implicitly, even when she's allied with Monarch. Simply put, they are the last two survivors of a bygone place.
Fortunately, both Jia and Kong get something of a happy ending. After yielding to Godzilla at the end of the film, Kong returns to the Hollow Earth to reign as its alpha, while Godzilla continues to rule the surface. Jia is able to visit with Kong through Monarch’s Hollow Earth outpost, and in this way, the two manage to build a new kind of home in the wake of their shared tragedy. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s just enough to give the film a bit of emotional depth beyond the Titan slugfest. Kong and Jia may be the two most compelling characters in all of Godzilla vs. Kong, and their relationship is at the heart of its story.
