Tars Tarkas and Tal Hajus

Tars Tarkas and Tal Hajus are rivals whose struggle joins private grief to the Tharks’ public test of leadership. Tal Hajus’s role in the fate of Gozava, the woman Tars Tarkas loved, lies behind years of hidden vengeance; their conflict ends when John Carter challenges Tal Hajus’s fitness to rule, the Thark council demands combat, and Tars Tarkas kills him and becomes jeddak.

Rivalry rooted in Gozava’s death

The contest between the two warriors is not merely a dispute over rank. Gozava was tortured and killed after Tal Hajus imprisoned her and sought to force her to reveal the identity of her child’s father. Tars Tarkas learned what had happened and, though present when Tal Hajus recounted her fate, gave no visible sign of emotion. He alone withheld the laughter that accompanied Tal Hajus’s account. Sola later describes that moment as the beginning of a change: from then on, Tars Tarkas became one of the cruelest among the Tharks, while waiting for an opportunity to avenge Gozava.

The years of silence do not mean the loss of his attachment. As Sola understands it, Tars Tarkas’s love for Gozava remains as strong as it had been nearly forty years earlier. His vengeance is therefore bound to a grief he cannot openly express within the customs and politics of his society. Tal Hajus, meanwhile, does not know that Sola is his daughter or that she knows who betrayed her mother. The concealed family history makes the rivalry more than a contest between two chiefs: Tal Hajus’s rule rests above a past whose full meaning is known only to a few.

A private conflict made visible

The hidden history surfaces in the present when Tars Tarkas sees Dejah Thoris and Sola left alone before Tal Hajus. He hesitates in the shadows, gripping his sword and watching Tal Hajus with undisguised hatred. The scene recalls Gozava’s earlier exposure to the jeddak’s power, but Tars Tarkas does not intervene. He finally leaves without realizing that Sola, his daughter, remains in danger before the man he loathes.

Later, after Tars Tarkas returns to Thark with John Carter, he seeks out Sarkoja before agreeing to go before Tal Hajus. He tells her that her part in Gozava’s torture and death has come to light and warns that the warrior who loved Gozava may take action against her. Because Thark custom forbids killing a woman, he identifies another possible punishment: being tied to a wild thoat as a test of survival. He presents the warning as an act of justice, then leaves with Carter. Sarkoja is gone the next morning and is never seen again. This episode shows Tars Tarkas pursuing retribution through the limits of custom rather than directly killing Gozava’s betrayer.

The challenge to Tal Hajus’s rule

The decisive confrontation turns on the Tharks’ own understanding of leadership. John Carter points out before the assembled chieftains that Tal Hajus was absent from the day’s fighting, though he rules a people who prize bravery. Carter contrasts the jeddak’s treatment of defenseless prisoners with the warrior record expected of a chief, and names Tars Tarkas as a more worthy candidate. The appeal converts their private antagonism into a public question: whether Tal Hajus has proved himself fit to rule.

Lorquas Ptomel asks the chieftains whether Tal Hajus must prove his fitness against Tars Tarkas. The twenty chieftains around the platform raise their swords in assent. Their decision leaves Tal Hajus no alternative but to draw his long-sword and face his rival. The duel is brief; Tars Tarkas stands over Tal Hajus’s body and becomes jeddak of the Tharks. His succession thus answers both the political challenge to Tal Hajus’s authority and the long personal grievance that had remained unspoken.

Aftermath and significance

Once he is chief, Tars Tarkas makes John Carter a full-fledged chieftain, recognizing the rank Carter earned in combat during his captivity. Carter then uses the warriors’ support to recruit them for a campaign against Zodanga. Within three days the force is marching; as it travels, Tars Tarkas’s leadership brings additional warriors into the alliance, raising the host to 150,000 by the time it reaches the city. The fall of Tal Hajus therefore changes more than the leadership of Thark: it enables Tars Tarkas to direct the previously divided green warriors toward a common military objective.

The resolution is also shaped by the standards that had condemned Tal Hajus. In a society where authority is validated through combat, Carter’s challenge forces the chief to submit to the very test he had failed to meet through his conduct. Tars Tarkas’s victory settles the succession by force, but its emotional ground reaches back to Gozava’s death. The rivalry’s movement—from concealed love and suppressed grief, through warning and accusation, to a council-sanctioned duel—makes private vengeance and public legitimacy inseparable.