Characters / MCU: Gorr

Main Character Index > Villainous Organizations > Cosmic Threats > Thanos' Forces (Thanos) | Ravagers | Kree (Ronan) > (The High Evolutionary | Ego | Hela Odinsdottir | Gorr)

---

Gorr the God Butcher

"All gods will die."

Species: Enhanced alien of unknown species

Citizenship: Unknown

Affiliation(s): Rapu (formerly)

Portrayed By: Christian Bale

Voiced By: Raúl Anaya (Latin American Spanish), Takehito Koyasu (Japanese)

Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder

"I had a daughter once. I put my faith in a higher power, hoping it would save her. And she... died. Now I understand. My daughter is the lucky one. She does not have to grow up in a world of suffering and pain run by wicked gods."

A former disciple who worshipped his people's gods faithfully, after the death of his daughter, Gorr discovered the Awful Truth that his gods had abandoned and outright despised them. Believing every god in existence was the same as his own, he resolved to slaughter all of them and put an end to their reign over mortals, becoming a cosmic killer known as "The God Butcher", who seeks to render the gods extinct.

---

A-F

• Action Dad: Gorr is a god-slaying warrior and a loving father to his daughter.
• Adaptational Achilles Heel: While both the comic book Gorr and the film's version of Gorr draw their power from the Necrosword, in the comics the Necrosword made Gorr immortal, sleepless, and not needing to eat, drink, or breathe as long as he was bonded to it. In the film, the Necrosword lets him wield shadow magic and makes him powerful enough to fight gods, but is slowly killing him — hence Zeus's plan to just wait it out until Gorr drops dead. Destroying the sword accelerates his death.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed. The comic version of Gorr from Thor: God of Thunder was a hideous alien with a bulbous noseless face, fangs, Twi'lek-like head-tails, and a disheveled look. Here, he looks more human-like, is clad in a white robe, and is played by Mr. Fanservice Christian Bale... though he still has Scary Teeth, and the Necrosword's corruption has given him Supernatural Gold Eyes, Tainted Veins, and turned his gums, teeth, fingertips, and the area around his eyes pitch black.
• Adaptation Deviation: In the comics, Gorr never found his gods, and it is heavily implied that they had already been slain by the very weapon he wields, meaning his blaming them was pointless. In the film, he does find them, which fuels his rage more directly in how they responded to him, with the story showcasing how, especially in the case of Zeus, he has a valid point about the vast majority of the pantheons.
• Adaptational Modesty: The comic version of Gorr is almost always naked save for his symbiote forming a black cloak and what amounts to a thong. Here, he wears a white robe and cape.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Small, but in his backstory, he remained devout in his faith even after his daughter died until he saw how loathsome Rapu really was. Comic Gorr always doubted the existence of gods from childhood and fully lost faith after his last son died until the golden god and Knull crash landed right in front of him while he was exiled to the desert. Gorr also renounced his vengeance in the end, something the comic-book Gorr never did until he was driven completely insane at the end of King Thor.
• Adaptational Sympathy: This version of Gorr is a far more sympathetic than the comics. Rather than someone who blamed the gods (pointlessly so, since he never found those gods in the first place and is continuing to murder with the same exact weapon implied to have been why he did not find them at all) and slaughtered the mostly-good-and-innocent gods out of petty grief, Gorr here is portrayed as a person broken by his daughter's death, becoming the feared God Butcher out of rage at what he sees as the gods' callousness to the people that worshipped them (and, as Zeus has proven, he's not entirely wrong).
• Adaptational Wimp: In the comics, he is implied to be all but immortal, actually gaining power from the gods he kills, and manages to enslave many gods to serve his goals. In the film, he is all but stated to have only begun his assault on divinity rather recently (with species well aware of their gods being dead), implying his immortality is not in play, he only ever wins one on-screen battle on a technicality, and his ultimate gambit actually involves him personally killing no gods.
• Aggressive Categorism: In his eyes, the gods are all naturally evil and deserving of death at his hand. While we see a disturbingly high number of them are like Rapu, even ones adored by their people and said to be kind and noble like Falligar aren't safe from his blade.
• Alas, Poor Villain: His death is portrayed very sympathetically. As he lays dying in the arms of his revived daughter, he pleads with Thor to protect her before looking at his daughter one last time and expiring.
• Ax-Crazy: Gorr revels in butchering every living god he sees. His treatment of the Asgardian children he abducts showcases how psychotic the Necrosword has made him.
• Badass Boast: Lets out several over the course of his campaign.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Played With. Gorr's plan to access Eternity succeeds despite Thor and Jane's best efforts. However, by then he has lost his God Butcher powers because the Necrosword is wrecked, and he witnesses Thor and Jane's love courtesy of Thor staying by a mortally weakened Jane, making him realize that he merely wanted his daughter back instead of killing all of the gods. Therefore, while the God Butcher succeeded in what he set out to do, by that point he's not the God Butcher anymore, he's simply Gorr the grieving father.
• Bald of Evil: Gorr is bald and is the main villain of the movie, though he was already bald before becoming evil.
• Bald Mystic: Suggested by his appearance, with his facial markings, attire, medallion and strong association with religion indicating he was some sort of priest or acolyte of Rapu.
• Batman Gambit: Gorr kidnaps the children of New Asgard to lure Thor to the Shadow Realm so that Gorr can steal Stormbreaker and use its ability to summon the Bifrost to get access to Eternity. Despite Jane deducing the trap, it ends up working, with Gorr snatching the axe just as Thor and company summon the Bifrost to escape.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Gorr started out as a pious believer in his gods, as well as a devoted and loving father. In the present day, he's a hateful and sadistic butcher of all gods, and is willing to kidnap and threaten children to get what he wants. In the end, however, Gorr is convinced to let go of his hate and dies as the loving father he once was.
• Beneath the Mask: Gorr's Faux Affably Evil exterior visibly cracks when he speaks of his late daughter; after bringing her up to Thor, the previously grinning and mocking Gorr has a haunted, pained look on his face, revealing the broken man that lies at the heart of the deicidal God Butcher.
• Big Bad: Gorr the God Butcher is the primary antagonist of Thor: Love and Thunder. An alien being who despises all the gods for their hubris and apathy towards mortals due to his family's death, and seeks to butcher the lot of them using his pitch-black, deity-slaying blade, the Necrosword. To this end, he captures Asgardian children to force Thor to give up his ax so it can let him reach the godlike Eternity, a being who he can convince to do the task.
• Black-and-White Insanity: He refuses to see gods as anything but a burden to remove from the universe. Appropriately enough, outside of his eyes he's completely black and white.
• Blood Knight: Gorr is positively gleeful at the prospect of fighting and killing gods.
• Book Ends: Gorr's first scene includes him weeping in despair, holding his daughter as she dies. His final scene has his resurrected daughter holding him as he dies, allowing him to die at peace knowing Thor will look after her.
• Bring It: He returns Thor's taunting hand gesture when he tries to take Stormbreaker.
• Broken Pedestal: This trope plays a big role in Gorr's origin: In the beginning of the movie a desperate and suffering Gorr meets his god shortly after his daughter died. He expected help and a reward for his worship, but instead gets mocked by his god as the latter sees mortals as pieces of crap who only exist to worship gods. This leads to Gorr killing him and vowing to kill all the gods.
• Brought Down to Normal: Thor and Jane destroy the Necrosword during the climax, leaving Gorr a normal, mortal man, one who's dying from his injuries and the aftereffect of the Necrosword's corruption. As he's still seconds away from reaching Eternity, however, this does not end the threat he poses, and it all came down to his final decision.
• The Butcher: His title, "God" Butcher to be exact, and it's not much of an exaggeration.
• Casting Gag: This is not the first time Christian Bale plays a comic book character who goes on a crusade after the death of a loved one and uses shadows to his advantage.
• Cessation of Existence: His god telling him that there's no afterlife waiting for him when he died is what starts off his god-killing rampage. Though a post-credits scene for Love and Thunder and other MCU works established that afterlifes do exist, it is not shown whether or not Gorr ends up in one.
• The Chosen One: Chosen by the Necrosword after it feels his hate towards his Gods for betraying him and his daughter, summoning itself to his hand and saving him by allowing him to kill Rapu. After the Necrosword has chosen him to become the God-Butcher, it becomes Gorr's additional modus to impart his subsequent Nay-Theist beliefs to everyone he meets. The antipathy of Zeus and Omnipotence City, unsurprisingly, helps give greater weight to his beliefs. However, this really only lasts until he goes directly against Thor, realizing he's still the kind of god who believes in doing what he believes is good even when everyone else does not.
• Combat Pragmatist: Though Gorr becomes a capable and skilled swordsman when empowered by the Necrosword, he is not above using every trick he can to defeat his opponents, such as restraining them with his Shadow Monsters or teleporting behind them for a Back Stab.
• Composite Character: Gorr bears marks on his forehead that pays homage to the Imperator, a Doctor Strange villain who wished to purge the world like Gorr, but of magic.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Unlike Loki — who wanted to prove his worth to his family, Malekith — who wanted to bring perpetual darkness to the Nine Realms, and Hela — who wanted to conquer the entire galaxy, Gorr simply wants to see every god and god-like being in existence dead. That said, like Loki, he does have a good reason. Contrasts Loki's character in The Avengers (2012) particularly starkly, as Loki wanted to be worshiped and granted (in his view) due respect from earth as a God-King whereas such haughty demands for adulation from Jerkass Gods motivates Gorr's deicidal campaign.
  • Gorr is this to Ikaris in Eternals. Both have a strong association with higher beings (Ikaris the Celestials and Gorr the gods of mythology). However, while Ikaris was an Anti-Villain who did what he did because of his devotion to said higher beings, Gorr rebelled against them and began a crusade to slaughter them so they can never use him again.
  • Gorr also serves as one to Thanos, who are both alien warriors weilding infamous weapons and are the only survivors of their people; in terms of goals, both perform a concentrated killing spree, but whilst Thanos aims to wipe out half of life from each species completely at random, Gorr seeks to eliminate the entire god species. Whilst Thanos is fairly brightly-coloured via his pink skin and golden armour, Gorr is defined by black and white colors. Even their interactions with gods differ, as whilst Thanos seeks them as simply enemies or pawns, it's his burning hatred for them that drives Gorr on. And perhaps most notably, whilst Thanos sacrificed his daughter Gamora for the Soul Stone in spite of his love for her, never bending on his semi-extinction goals, Gorr forsakes his chance for revenge against the gods and remembers his love for his daughter, resurrecting her instead with Eternity's power.
• The Corruptible: The Necrosword is cursed and slowly kills its wielder, constantly whispering in their mind to kill gods. When freed from it, Gorr dies shortly after, but being free from its influence allows him to remember his love for his daughter, rather than his rage at her death.
• Covered in Scars: Gorr has scars on the sides of his face, all over his head and on his arms. Since they specifically erase the tattoos Gorr had when he was still devoted to his god, they are probably self-inflicted to emphasise his rejection of his old faith.
• Cursed with Awesome: Downplayed, but while it is eroding his mind and slowly killing him, the Necrosword gives him incredible power and total dominion over the Shadow Realm.
  Gorr: It doesn't feel like a curse. It feels like a promise.
• Cynicism Catalyst: His own experience with his own god, Rapu, who was cruel and callous to the core, is responsible for his belief that all the gods are evil entities that needs to be vanquished.
• Dark Is Evil: Gorr uses his black Necrosword to butcher gods and god-like beings across the galaxy, and commands a horde of jet-black monsters called Shadow Monsters.
• Dark Messiah: Seeks to free mortals by killing gods.
• Dead Guy on Display: One of the distress calls the Guardians of the Galaxy receives shows a bunch of hanged corpses, and this is explicitly stated to be Gorr's doing.
• Deliberately Monochrome: After gaining the power of the Necrosword, he gains a monochrome palette, with only his eyes retaining any color. Most of Gorr's scenes also show him in dreary lighting.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight:
  • Gorr's daughter dies in his arms in the beginning.
  • After Gorr uses his wish to resurrect his daughter, his newly revived daughter holds him in her arms as he passes away.
• Dimension Lord: His control over shadows makes him Master of the Shadow Realm, where he naturally has a Homefield Advantage. Ironically, it's in bright daylight when Team Thor fight him there, the sun itself seeming to move across the sky at his will to reposition the shadows.
• The Dog Bites Back: After his god gives him a thorough kicking while he’s down, Gorr takes up the Necrosword, slays his god, and pledges to kill all the gods in the universe.
• The Dreaded: Everyone in the galaxy, especially the gods themselves, are terrified of him. Even Zeus himself quietly confesses that he's afraid of him because he wields the Necrosword (though he won't admit it out loud). Played with in that the vast majority of those who fear him do not actually fear him, but rather the Necrosword.
• Dying as Yourself: The movie ends with him freed from the corrupting influence of the Necrosword, resurrecting his daughter, and dying with a smile at rediscovering his love for her.
• Establishing Character Moment: Gorr gets two:
  • The opening scene, where Gorr and his daughter trek a seemingly endless desert shows Gorr both praying to Rapu, demonstrating the piety, and him caring for his daughter, whom he holds as she dies of thirst.
  • Gorr's attack on New Asgard demonstrates his control over shadows and his ability to summon the Shadow Monsters, while his fight with Thor shows off his newfound sadism and deadly combat skill; he holds his own against Thor while taunting him over how painful his death by the Necrosword would be.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He had a daughter named Love, whom he cherished deeply. It was her death from starvation and the god's Lack of Empathy towards him about it that convinced him the gods were unworthy of living.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Whilst he's certainly not above kidnapping children to further his plans, or giving them a good scare to teach them a lesson, Gorr never actually harms the children in question up to the point where Thor empowers them to fight back. It's implied this is because he himself was once a father.
  • He found the callousness and cruelty of gods such as Rapu and Zeus disgusting, and it was this that caused him to begin his rampage in the first place. He even gets under Thor's skin by pointing out they could have easily helped him in his time of need but simply chose not to. Thor has a hard time refuting it.
• Evil Brit: Christian Bale gets to use his natural Welsh accent while playing a character for once, which makes Gorr this by extension.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Subverted. When Thor decides to reason with him and refuses to fight him any further at the center of the Universe, Gorr reacts with confused indignance and outrage that he is turning his back on him. However, Thor and Jane's love ends up reminding him of his own love for his daughter and making him perform a Heel–Face Turn.
• Evil Feels Good: As he embraces the corruption of the Necrosword, Gorr dismisses Rapu's claims that the sword is a curse, instead remarking with some satisfaction that it feels more like a "promise" before he beheads his former object of worship.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: His humor is dry, dark, and terrifying to children… especially when he uses the Shadow Monsters as props.
• Evil Is Hammy: Gorr has some hammy moments after he acquired the Necrosword and becomes the God Butcher, especially when he is conversing with his prisoners. It is clear that Christian Bale is having a blast playing the character.
• Evil Laugh: Has a particularly chilling one, though he's not a Giggling Villain.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: Before he took up the Necrosword he was rather handsome, but his lips, gums, and teeth have been stained black by his use of the god-slaying weapon, and his skin has become colorless and corpse-like.
• Evil Overlooker: In the poster for Thor: Love and Thunder, Gorr is shown looking down at Thor and Jane with an evil grin on his face.
• Evil Plan: The plot of Love and Thunder is largely Thor trying to stop his crusade to exterminate the MCU's gods. Putting aside whether or not Gor is right to do so, he kidnaps New Asgard's children (Asgardian blood or otherwise) to force Thor into coming to him.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Gorr speaks in a low, raspy tone that emphasises how unnerving and menacing he is.
• Evil Teacher: Has some shades of this in regards to how he speaks to the kidnapped Asgardian children. Although he mostly just scares them for his own amusement, he also does seem to want them to internalise why all the gods are bad.
• Facial Markings: Gorr had grey tattoo-like markings running across his eyes before he took up the Necrosword, though these have been covered in a mess of scars. Whether the scars were inflicted in battle or by Gorr himself is unclear.
• Faith–Heel Turn: He was a devout follower of his religion until he realized exactly what his god thought of him. His anger made him an ideal recipient of the Necrosword and so he turned his righteous indignation toward his own god and to all of the gods.
• Fantastic Racism: He hates gods. All gods, everywhere, regardless of their individual disposition. He assumes out of hand that they are all evil and selfish and so resolves to murder them all. Even children.
• Faux Affably Evil: He maintains an engaging and soft-spoken tone, but not a shred of it is genuine and he often uses it to frighten the children he's kidnapped or mock the heroes for their failures, especially Thor.
• Final Solution: Gorr is on a rampage across the cosmos to kill every single god, and wants to reach Eternity so he can end them all at once instead of slaying them one by one. He even tries to justify his actions by saying that his actions will bring peace to the universe. Subverted at the very end, where he chooses to resurrect his daughter instead.
• Foil:
  • To Thor. Both of them are powerful warriors who have gone through painful emotional traumas after losing their loved ones. However, Thor continues his best to staying positive, while Gorr dwells in his grief and anger until moments before his death.
  • To Jane Foster. Both of them were once mortal beings that gained god-like powers from divine weapons that are slowly killing them. The difference is that Jane Foster wishes to use her powers to save the people she loved, while Gorr wants to use his powers to kill all the gods for abandoning him and his people.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Before, Gorr was just a peaceful priest, a father whose daughter died during a famine. Then he meets his god and is heartbroken to learn just how much of a jerk said god is. Then he gets chosen by the Necrosword and begins rampaging across the cosmos, slaying every god he can find and unleashing chaos when he does so.

G-M

• Glowing Eyes of Doom: On the posters, Gorr's yellow irises glow ominously, in stark contrast to his otherwise monochrome palette. Interestingly, that glow fades when Gorr talks about his daughter and, even if only for a moment, becomes just a grieving father instead of a hate-fueled killer.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: After taking up the Necrosword, he Xes out the tattoos across his scalp, under his eyes, and along his arms, the religious markings that match those of his now deceased god.
• Grayscale of Evil: In an otherwise vibrant film, he stands out for being practically devoid of any colour besides black and white. The Shadow Realm itself mirrors this.
• The Grim Reaper: Gorr's attire makes him look like a photo negative of the Grim Reaper, a fitting resemblance given how deadly he is. The lighting in a few shots makes his face resemble a skull as well, deepening the resemblance and making Gorr look even more intimidating.
• Have You Seen My God?: The driving force of Gorr's angst: when he and his daughter were the only ones of his faith left behind, they were forced to survive in the elements until she dies. This trope further gets twisted on when he realizes his god has not only abandoned his people, but seems perfectly satisfied in indulging himself at the expense of everyone else.
• He Who Fights Monsters: While going on a deicidal campaign isn't really the most heroic thing to do, Gorr was motivated by a belief that all the Gods were responsible for the death and suffering of many, including his daughter, he was still motivated by a belief that he was freeing the universe from uncaring Gods. Somewhere along the way, the corruption of the Necrosword twisted his mind so that anything was justified in his quest to kill all the Gods, including kidnapping innocent children just as bait to lure Thor to him.
• Heel–Face Turn: After being freed from the Necrosword and seeing Thor being the antithesis of his perception of the gods, Gorr decides to use his wish to bring his daughter back to life and entrust her to Thor as her new guardian to make a better world.
• Hero Killer: Gorr's might is made clear in his offscreen rampage on Falligar the Behemoth's homeworld; not only did he slay the massive god, but he also defeated and maimed Lady Sif, a very capable warrior in her own right. It also takes the sacrifice of Jane Foster, the Mighty Thor, to put an end to Gorr's plans.
• Home Field Advantage: The Necrosword granted him mastery of the Shadow Realm, and he lures the heroes into fighting him there so he would be at his strongest. In fact, Valkyrie warns that battling him at the Realm could be a trap since he would be at the height of his power.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: Pulls this in the Shadow Realm after having lured the heroes there. He restrains Jane and Valkyrie with the Shadow Monsters, using their strength to slowly strangle them to death, and goads Thor to "choose love" and hand him the Stormbreaker. The sight of Jane almost being killed is what makes him relent and summon the axe.
• Hypocrite: Hates gods, yet his end goal is to reach the omnipotent Eternity, who is to gods what gods are to mortals, and ask for him to use his power to erase all deities from existence, complete with kneeling. Apparently, Eternity is the only higher being he trusts.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: For all the hatred that drives him, in his heart of hearts, Gorr is still a grieving father who would do anything to have his beloved daughter back. Thor realizing this allows him to convince Gorr to wish for Eternity to resurrect his daughter, rather than wiping out all of the gods as he'd originally planned.
• In the Back: Valkyrie uses Zeus's Thunderbolt to non-fatally stab Gorr in the back before he returns the favor.
• In the Hood: Wears a white hood as part of his outfit, and removes it before a battle.
• Informed Attribute: His prowess as a dreaded slayer of gods. Though there are images of gods he had slain, the only one we actually see him kill is one of his own, who was a) caught off guard and b) unaware he even had the sword until he had been stabbed. In every battle on screen, he is never seen actually killing any gods at all in combat, let alone "butchering" them.
• Insignia Rip-Off Ritual: Not only does he renounce Rapu to his face, but he also does so by tearing away his necklace (presumably a symbol of worship) right in front of his former deity. And indeed the god takes it as a major offense and tries to kill him in response.
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: Gorr kidnaps the children of New Asgard to use as bait to get Thor to bring Stormbreaker to the Shadow Realm.
• Irony: Gorr despises all of the gods, yet his master plan involves seeking out the omnipotent Eternity, and upon reaching the all-powerful being, he kneels before it as one would before a god. Doubly so as his last moments were spent in love for his resurrected daughter, who herself has become a God.
  • Its noted that the Gods who actually deserve to face his wrath hole up in Omnipotent City where he can't reach them, whereas those who dare remain at large are probably the genuinely dutiful ones who don't.
• Jerkass God: Believes this to be the case for roughly every deity. Because almost all of the gods are jackasses, Gorr decides to enact a Final Solution on them.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He believes gods are selfish scumbags who care nothing for mortals. He's not entirely wrong as many gods shown are indeed jerkasses, including the god that he once worshipped.
• Jump Scare: During Gorr's first attack on New Asgard, he pulls this on Thor. First Thor spots the God Killer peering at him from afar. As he slowly approaches Thor, he disappears into the chaos à la Vehicle Vanish... then suddenly reappears right in front of the camera. There's even a Scare Chord.
• Kick the Dog:
  • An act of this is Gorr’s Start of Darkness: Gorr's deity, Rapu, sneers at his devotion, cruelly dismisses the deaths of Gorr’s family and friends as meaning nothing to him, and tells Gorr that there is no afterlife waiting for him. Unfortunately for him, he does all of this while the Necrosword is lying nearby...
  • Gorr kidnaps a bunch of Asgardian children, then jovially terrifies them before telling them that the gods don't care about them and will do nothing to save them.
• Kill the God: As his sobriquet suggests, Gorr aims to kill all of the gods regardless of whether they're good or evil. He has racked up quite a hefty divine body count, with Thor and Korg discovering the corpse of Falligar the Behemoth, one of Gorr's victims, and Gorr's Shadow Monsters are shown launching an attack on New Asgard to slaughter the Asgardians.
  Gorr: This is my vow. All gods will die.
• Knight of Cerebus: With his tragic backstory, genocidal ambitions, and overall disposition, it’s no wonder Love and Thunder's comedic tone comes to a screeching halt whenever he shows up.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: As he attacks New Asgard and battles Thor, he realizes the odds are against him when Jane and Valkyrie join the fight. So, he decides to disappear and kidnap the children to lure the heroes into fighting at him at the Shadow Realm, where he is stronger.
• Last of His Kind: Heavily implied to be the sole survivor of his people after the great famine in his homeland. It's most likely true, as there's no other member of his race aside from his daughter Love after her resurrection, making her the last one after Gorr's death shown or mentioned in the movie.
• Last Request: With his last breath Gorr implores Thor to protect Love, his resurected daughter. He honors that wish, and raises her to be a kinder, gentler God than the ones that failed her father.
• Lean and Mean: In contrast to the heroes' physiques, Gorr looks noticeably emaciated, which is no doubt a result of the harsh conditions his homeworld has been enduring. His first scene shows that he has been starving and dehydrated for quite some time.
• Legacy Character: The latest wielder of the Necrosword, with a dying Rapu, who had just killed the previous holder, noting that it chose Gorr. Gorr would end up being the last wielder, as the Necrosword ends up destroyed for good near the end of Thor: Love and Thunder.
• Light Is Not Good: Despite his white clothing and pale skin, Gorr is a deicidal maniac. Though he was once an example of Light Is Good when he wasn't evil and worshipped a light-affiliated god Rapu.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Necrosword has greatly augmented Gorr's strength, speed, and durability.
• Looks Like Orlok: With his bald face, emaciated body and sharp teeth, Gorr looks somewhat vampiric. And Christian Bale has stated that Orlok was one of his influences in playing the character, along with the similarly pale and creepy-looking creature from the music video to "Come to Daddy" by Aphex Twin .
• Love Redeems: When Gorr claims his wish from Eternity and is relishing his victory. Thor, with the choice of comforting Jane or fighting Gorr, chooses love and advises Gorr to do the same. Gorr is shocked to realize his wish could be used to revive his lost daughter, and ultimately forsakes his vengeance for her sake. Bonus points for his his daughter literally being named Love.
• Make a Wish: Gorr's plan is to reach the center of the universe, where it is rumored Eternity lies, and will grant a wish to the first person who reaches him. Gorr wants to use this wish to wish all the gods out of existence. He ends up wishing his daughter back to life.
• Magical Barefooter: Gorr lacks any form of footwear, which, coupled with elements of his design such as sleeveless attire and facial markings suggest an association with mysticism and spiritualism.
• Master Swordsman: Gorr was a peaceful mortal priest who has not even held a weapon in his life, is able to through sheer hatred alone attain enough skill and might in swordsmanship to defeat and literally disarm Lady Sif, a warrior who is at least Thor's equal in age and skill of fifteen centuries, and then proceed to carve a bloody swathe through 1499 more planets of their Gods and people. And later on, he manages to hold off Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie at once, even inflicting a stab wound on Valkyrie that forces her to stay out of the final fight.
• Mirror Character: To Malekith. Both of them are pale beings that are affiliated with shadows and darkness who desire to kill a very specific group of people (light-worlders and gods themselves respectively) out of revenge for what they've lost in the past.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: He's no Hulk or Thanos, but he's superhumanly strong. Early in the movie, he overpowers Thor, but later Thor overpowers him and near the end, they lock weapons for a long time - indicating that Gorr is on par with Thor in strength. And here he's played by Christian Bale at some of his thinnest looks.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When freed from the corruption of the Necrosword, he takes time to internalize Thor's words and realizes that all he wanted was his daughter back. Then he breaks down in clear regret of all that he's done, ultimately rejecting his vengeance against the gods.

N-Y

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Gorr ^note pronounced very closely to "gore" the God Butcher, while probably one of the coolest and scariest names Marvel’s ever produced, definitely isn't someone who wants to be your friend.
• Nay-Theist: He used to be devoted in prayer to Rapu, but when he realized kneeling at the god's feet just how apathetic and cruel he was, he tore away the necklace he used to worship him and renounced his faith. Rapu did not take this kindly, but he finds himself stabbed by his former worshipper.
• Near-Villain Victory: Played with; Gorr's efforts to reach Eternity succeed, and Thor even acknowledges that he's won, but Gorr, freed from the Necrosword's corruption and moved by Thor's argument that what Gorr really wants is love, decides to, rather than ask Eternity to wipe out all of the gods, ask the omnipotent being to resurrect his daughter instead. In the end, Gorr did win, but in victory, he was no longer a villain.
• Neck Lift: Is on the receiving end of this twice.
  • Rapu lifts up Gorr by the neck after he renounces him.
  • Thor briefly lifts up Gorr by the neck when Gorr tries to take Stormbreaker during the attack on New Asgard.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Gorr draws parallels between himself and the trio of Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie: like Thor, he couldn't save those dearest to him, like Jane, Gorr is dying from the very thing giving him his power, and like Valkyrie, he lost everything he loved in service to gods who couldn't or wouldn't do anything to help him. Thor turns it back on Gorr in the finale; recognising that, like his experience with Thanos, Gorr's vengeance against the gods isn't bringing him anything but misery, empathises with him, saying that what Gorr truly wants is love, which convinces Gorr to ask Eternity to resurrect his daughter rather than destroying all the gods.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Most of Gorr's deicidal rampage is left to the imagination; in particular, the audience only sees the aftermath of him slaying Falligar the Behemoth and maiming Lady Sif. There's a story behind every god that's found slaughtered across the Cosmos, and while we'll never know any of them, we can safely assume it was epic.
• Off with His Head!:
  • Gorr cuts off Rapu's head with the Necrosword.
  • When Axl tells the other children the story of how Thor cut off Thanos's head with his axe, Gorr enters the scene with a small serpentine creature and snaps off its head in front of the children, sneering that they were all happy for a decapitation story moments earlier but not so much when he does it.
• Ominous Obsidian Ooze: Gorr occasionally oozes a vile black liquid from his mouth.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Gorr's journey in becoming the God Butcher begins with the death of his daughter. Inverted by the end of the movie, where he has Love resurrected but dies soon after.
• Outside-Genre Foe: In one of the Lighter and Softer and most comedic entries under the MCU banner, Gorr is a straight-up horror villain, and the scenes where he's in tend to be remarkably darker (both literally and figuratively). Special mention to the New Asgard invasion and the Shadow Realm scenes.
• Papa Wolf: A major part of Gorr's motivation is vengeance against the gods for allowing his beloved daughter to die when they could have easily saved her (and his people for that matter). In the end, Thor manages to convince Gorr to resurrect his deceased and beloved daughter instead of continuing his deicide.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The first god he killed, Rapu, cruelly mocked and dismissed his existence.
• Pet the Dog: When he senses that Jane is ill and dying, Gorr offers his sincere condolences and even empathizes with her, saying that they're on the same path. That said, he segues into a Kick the Dog moment towards Thor, telling him that Jane will soon be gone and that no god can help her.
• The Power of Hate: When a peaceful priest who has never even held a weapon is able to become a Master Swordsman who can smite warriors like Lady Sif with centuries more of experience, you know he runs on this.
• The Power of Love: At the end of Thor: Love and Thunder, Gorr realizes that Thor and Jane's love for each other reflects his own love for his daughter, and he uses his dying wish not to exact revenge on the gods, but to reunite with his daughter and give her a second chance at life.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Gorr's entire motivation is to kill every god in existence as retribution for their hubris, entitlement, and the suffering they tend to inflict on mortals. His quest began when his own god, to whom he'd been a pious devotee, was cruelly apathetic to the abject suffering Gorr and his people had endured in the deity's name, including the death of Gorr's beloved daughter. Renouncing his god and taking up the Necrosword, Gorr slew his own god and began his deicidal rampage, setting out to punish every god in the cosmos in revenge for what he'd lost.
• Redemption Equals Death: The film ends with the Necrosword destroyed and, freed from its corruption, Gorr decides to resurrect his daughter rather than kill all the gods, and meets her return with a joyful smile, then dies.
• Sadist: Gorr truly enjoys the torture he inflicts on his prisoners, and is downright gleeful in telling Thor how much it would hurt to be killed with the Necrosword.
• Sadistic Choice: Gorr presents Thor with one: either summon Stormbreaker, putting the key to Eternity within Gorr's grasp, or watch as Gorr slowly kills Jane and Valkyrie. Thor opts for the former.
• Scary Teeth: He has shark-like fangs for teeth, stained dark grey by his use of the Necrosword.
  Gorr: Call the axe.
  Thor: I'll call the axe when you call the dentist!
• Serial Killer: With a focus on all divine beings. The distress calls the Guardians of the Galaxy receive show, among other things, footage of hanged corpses Gorr left behind as an example of the destruction he vows to carry out.
• Shadow Archetype: He compares himself as a shadowy reflection of Thor, Jane Foster, and Valkyrie, noting the similarities they share with him (Thor and Valkyrie for losing the people they love and being forsaken by the gods; Jane for using a weapon that is slowly killing her just like the Necrosword).
• Shadow Walker: He can disappear into shadows at will, which he uses to his advantage during combat, frequently using it to dodge attacks or reposition himself behind his enemies.
• Slasher Smile: Gorr can effortlessly pull eerie and deranged grins throughout Thor: Love and Thunder.
• Straw Nihilist: Taking Rapu's dismissive words to heart, Gorr abandons any belief in a life after death, telling Jane that there will be no "eternal reward" for either of them. Gorr goes so far as to say that his dead daughter is lucky, because she doesn't have to live in "a world of suffering and pain run by wicked gods".
• Summon to Hand: Gorr can summon the Necrosword and it seems to be how he got it in the first place. A remark from Rapu that the Necrosword chose him suggests that's why he has that ability.
• Superhero Movie Villains Die: Gorr the God Butcher dies after having a Redemption Equals Death moment after being freed from the Necrosword's influence and choosing to resurrect his daughter.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Gorr's yellow irises stand out as the only trace of color on his person, highlighting that he's a dangerous alien warrior corrupted by his divine god-slaying sword.
• Sword Plant: Gorr summons his Shadow Monsters by stabbing the ground with the Necrosword and spreading shadows across the area he's in.
• Tainted Veins: Gorr's veins turn black when the Necrosword claims him and starts to curse him.
• Take Care of the Kids: In his final moments he requests that Thor protect his newly resurrected daughter Love, which he accepts.
• Take Up My Sword: Takes up the Necrosword, and the quest of killing all of the Gods along with it.
• Tragic Villain: He was once a disciple who worshipped his people's gods faithfully, but neither he nor his people knew their gods abandoned and outright despised them. After his beloved daughter died of hunger when his homeland was reduced to famine-riddled ruin, he stumbled upon an oasis where he finally met the gods, only to be met with the Awful Truth that there was no paradise that awaited him after death (as his religion spoke of) and the gods he revered never cared about or even noticed him, mocking him as a pawn. Believing every god in existence was the same as his own, he resolved to slaughter all of them and put an end to their reign over mortals. By the end, he acknowledges all he wants is his daughter back and uses his final wish at the Well of Eternity to revive her, and dies shortly after in her arms, comforted by Thor's promise that he will look after her. Behind the God Butcher moniker, Gorr is a grieving father who was driven to what he has become by what he sees as the gods' callousness.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Before obtaining the Necrosword, Gorr was a normal priest who had no apparent training as a fighter as he visibly struggles against Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie whenever they manage to go on the offensive and often relies on his shadow powers to give him an edge. But the Necrosword is so ludicrously powerful and has such a large bag of tricks that he still manages to be a massive threat to them, and he is fairly good at regaining control of a fight whenever he is put on the defensive.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: After Thor deduces that what he truly wanted was love and states that his rage would never bring him true happiness, Gorr takes time to ponder his words... and agrees with them. It then motivates him to replace his original wish of killing all the gods with resurrecting his daughter.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Thor: Love and Thunder tends towards the lighter end of MCU movies, but Gorr appearing shifts it to the darker end rather dramatically. Bonus points for him having a Grayscale of Evil.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • What makes Gorr such a compelling villain is that he's not entirely wrong about the gods (as a few previous movies and shows have established). In fact, the movie itself highlights that his views on the gods is actually quite close, as not only did Gorr's pantheon abandon him and his world (they seemed fine with letting them all die slowly and painfully too), many of the gods in Omnipotent City are aware of Gorr and the Necrosword, but not only do they do nothing about it and consider the ones he did kill unworthy in the first place, but when Thor pleads for their aid in any way possible to save the Asgardians, they simply claim "it's your problem" and mock him, simply content with indulging themselves in orgies and passing out prizes for most sacrifices in their name. Special mention must go to Zeus, who's shown to be a complete asshole.
    Gorr: You asked the gods for help and they did nothing.
  • Gorr taunts Thor by saying that Jane will soon be dead and that no god can or will help her. The film proves him right on this point; Jane's cancer is terminal, and for all his godly power, Thor can't save her (in fact, his power, via Mjolnir, is negatively affecting her health by preventing chemotherapy from having any effect on Jane's cancer). All Thor can do is make sure she dies peacefully and on her own terms.
• Villain Opening Scene: Thor: Love and Thunder opens with Gorr and how he came to become the God Butcher.
• Villain's Dying Grace: Gorr spends his final moments in his daughter's arms, asking Thor, whom he came to respect, to care for her as his own after his passing.
• Villain Teleportation: With the shadow magic of the Necrosword, he is able to teleport through the ground and even quickly vanish from frame and reappear with a Jump Scare. Unlike the heroes and their abilities, Gorr is better at implementing his powers to dangerous effect in combat.
• Villainous Valour: Although empowered by the Necrosword, Gorr is still a mortal man, but he's willing and eager to battle any god in the cosmos, as well as facing Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie in combat all at the same time.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Downplayed; Gorr's mission is clearly mostly about personal revenge, though he does genuinely believe that the universe is better off without gods and is convinced that he's bringing peace by slaughtering them. To his credit, many of the gods are callous enough that it was only a matter of time before a god-butcher would come after them.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Just look at his Tragic Villain backstory. Is it really any surprise he possesses such a burning hatred towards gods?
• Worthy Opponent:
  • He views Jane Foster as a kindred spirit because they've both been treated like afterthoughts by higher beings and have suffered because of it (Gorr losing his daughter and home, Jane getting stage four cancer).
  • He eventually sees Thor as a truly noble god and fierce warrior, to the point he entrusts the safety of his newly resurrected daughter to him upon his death.
• Would Hit a Girl: He pulls no punches fighting Jane and Valkyrie and even stabs the latter In the Back with Zeus' Thunderbolt. Beforehand, he also fought Lady Sif and hacked her left arm off and most definitely fought and killed other goddesses offscreen.
• Would Hurt a Child: He kidnaps the children of New Asgard to use as bait for Thor, and he proves to be both apathetic to their fates and willing to sic a horde of Shadow Monsters on them when Thor empowers them to fight back.
• You Are What You Hate: Gorr develops a hatred towards gods because his own god betrayed and scoffed at him, seeing them all as selfish and uncaring, but the power he had through the Necrosword gave him godlike power, and he himself becomes just as uncaring towards innocents as the gods he hates thanks to the corruption.
• You Don't Look Like You: Comics Gorr has a distinctly alien appearance, while movie Gorr resembles a bald, pale-skinned version of his actor, due to Bale's insistence on using only practical effects for his make-up.
• You Remind Me of X: When scaring the Asgardian children with his decapitation of Ockty, he takes time to mention that one terrified girl reminds him of his lost daughter. Gorr states it with visible sincerity and uses the opportunity to teach them that the gods are useless.

Weapons

The Necrosword

The Necrosword

Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder

"If it is revenge you seek, kill all the gods!"

A strange and terrifying dark weapon with the power to slay gods, wielded by Gorr the God Butcher.

---

• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the comics, All-Black was the progenitor of the symbiotes, a species that doesn't exist in the MCU not counting the offspring left by Eddie Brock and Venom. The MCU version does away with the symbiote connection while referencing its vague shrouded-in-myth backstory from Thor: God of Thunder. It still possesses a malicious will of its own, and unlike its comic book counterpart speaks to Gorr when it chooses him as its wielder.
• Adapted Out: Knull and his connections to the Necrosword are completely removed due to Venom's film rights being tied up with Sony. That being said, the underlying concept of the weapon being an Artifact of Doom wielded by a dark god at least remains unchanged.
• Ambiguously Related: The blades conjured by Hela in Thor: Ragnarok were called Necroswords in the official art-book, and her helmet itself was called a Necrosword in What If...?, though their relation to Gorr's weapon — the Necrosword — is unknown, as Thor: Love and Thunder doesn't give much detail about its origins. This is lampshaded in a video for MCU Gorr's debut in Marvel: Contest of Champions, where MCU Hela briefly controls Gorr's Necrosword alongside her own, to his annoyance.
• Artifact of Death: Not only does it corrupt its wielder, its dark power kills them slowly. It's because of this reason that the gods in Omnipotent City are in no hurry to do anything about Gorr; he'll just burn himself out in time, and any god he kills on the way had it coming for being weaklings too dumb to get caught by the God-Butcher.
• Artifact of Doom: The Necrosword is a cursed divine weapon said to have been forged at the dawn of time and passed down from wielder to wielder, corrupting them into deicidal dark gods. Even a mere mortal like Gorr is granted power to rival — if not surpass — that of Thor. It also appears to have a will of its own, having "chosen" Gorr. It also physically corrupts and destroys him, such that he dies once it's destroyed, and mentally corrupts him as well, driving him to kill all of the gods, regardless, not just the Jerkass Gods that mocked his daughter's pointless, drawn-out death.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: Enforced. Due to corrupting nature of the sword, its wielders have no choice to become anything but twisted and evil individuals as they wield its powers over shadows and darkness.
• Black Swords Are Better: The Necrosword is an ancient divine weapon in the form of a black longsword, and is capable of slaying gods.
• Casting a Shadow: The power of the Necrosword grants Gorr a host of darkness related abilities, such as becoming intangible, travelling using shadows, sinking beneath the earth and appearing again anywhere else, and spawn monsters made out of living darkness. All of this adds to his creep factor.
• Cool Sword: The Necrosword is a divine weapon capable of slaying gods in the form of a black longsword.
• The Corrupter: The Necrosword picks up on Gorr's fury at his own god and calls out to him, driving him to kill even more gods than just the arrogant Jerkass God who mocked him and the death of his daughter until he expires from its influence. The Necrosword is also physically killing Gorr, as well as giving him a monstrous appearance, with much paler skin, shark-like teeth, and blackened fingers.
• Dark Is Evil: Is pitch black and all of its wielders have used it for evil.
• Deal with the Devil: The Necrosword calls to Gorr to use it for the vengeance he seeks, but accepting means pledging his life to it—literally, as the sword will slowly kill the user.
• Decomposite Character: The sword Hela wields in Ragnarok has the Necrosword's comic book appearance, and the official art book for the film called it the Necrosword, whereas What if...? called her helmet the Necrosword, but it's never called that in the film and Hela's abilities seem entirely different from those normally associated with the sword. Meanwhile Gorr's sword does have those abilities and some MCU-original ones, but looks like a basic longsword.
• The Dreaded: The gods who believe in its existence fear it, and with good reason — as it is capable of killing them.
• Empathic Weapon: The Necrosword has a will of its own and whispers to Gorr when it chooses him as its wielder, telling him that if he desires revenge he should kill all the gods, and to seek out Eternity by gaining access to the Bifrost.
• Evil Counterpart: Notably a dark mirror to Thor's weapons, Mjolnir and Stormbreaker. In contrast to their arcing lightning, it unleashes flowing shadows. It empowers wielders it chooses, including mortals, to standing equal to gods, though like Mjolnir is doing to Jane, it's inevitably fatal. Like Stormbreaker, it can be used to teleport anywhere in the universe, but it's very stealthily done through the monochrome Shadow Realm as opposed to the very conspicuous rainbow-colored Bifrost. Also it's a slashing weapon as opposed to their primarily blunt force.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: The Necrosword is a dangerous weapon that gives one untold power, but it corrupts the user's mind and binds their life force to it upon being accepted, with the effect being the user's eventual death. When the sword is destroyed, he is free of its influence, but he dies much sooner than if he continued to wield it.
• Grayscale of Evil: The first sign of its corrupting influence on the wielder is when it sucks the color from them, leaving Gorr colorless beyond his Supernatural Gold Eyes. This is inherent to the Shadow Realm too, Thor, Jane and Valkyrie losing their color when they traverse it.
• Immortal Breaker: The Necrosword is capable of slaying gods with ease, and with its power Gorr is able to take down deities as large as Falligar the Behemoth. It's implied that it was made specifically to hunt gods, the sword itself feared specifically by the gods of the universe and the sword choosing Gorr because of how Rapu destroyed his faith in them.
• Mysterious Past: Its origins and relation to Hela's Necrosword — if any — are left largely unexplained in Thor: Love and Thunder.
• Mythology Gag: The Necrosword draws its power from the Shadow Realm, which in the comics was first introduced in Marvel Spotlight as the home dimension of Mister E and other shadow-men; with King in Black retconning it to be the primordial void that existed before the universe, and from which Knull created the symbiotes — including All-Black the Necrosword and Mister E.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Necrosword doesn't really convey a reasurring sense of safety, being named after the Greek prefix for death.
• Power at a Price: The Necrosword called to Gorr, giving him the power to slay gods. But, it twists him into becoming evil, and its wielder will eventually die from the power. Gorr doesn't seem to care as long as he achieves his vengeance.
• Power of the Void: It is connected to the Shadow Realm, a dimension of darkness, and gives its wielder the power to weaponize shadows and dark energy.
• Soul Jar: Once the sword is used, it binds the user's life force to it, though the user will die from the corruption eventually. If destroyed, the previous user dies within minutes.
• Summon to Hand: Can be summoned by its owner from anywhere just by thinking about it.
• Super-Empowering: It turned Gorr from a mortal alien into a dark god capable of fighting on-par with the likes of Thor Odinson and Valkyrie, warrior deities with centuries of combat experience.
• Tainted Veins: Gives this to its owners, turning their veins black when claiming them.
• Time Abyss: It is said to have been forged at the dawn of the universe, though by whom and for what purpose is unknown.
• Wrecked Weapon: Jane Foster uses the repaired Mjölnir to shatter the Necrosword, but when Gorr performs a Summon to Hand, the weapon starts to repair itself. Undaunted, Jane unleashes a lightning blast that destroys the sword fragments she captured and reduces the Necrosword to dust, truly destroying it, depriving Gorr of its power, and leaving him mortally-wounded.

Gorr's Forces

Shadow Monsters

Shadow Monsters

Species: Shadow Monsters

Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder

Monsters from the Shadow Realm that serve Gorr in his deicidal campaign.

---

• Adaptation Name Change: They are called "Shadow Monsters" in the MCU instead of "Black Berserkers" like in the comics.
• Adaptation Species Change: In the comics, the Black Berserkers were offshoots of the All-Black symbiote, and implied to be based on the sand tigers that ate Gorr's mother when he was a child. While the MCU's Shadow Monsters are still monsters made of living darkness and connected to the Necrosword, they are unrelated to the symbiotes — which film-wise are property of Sony — and their appearance is based on drawings made by Gorr's deceased daughter.
• Combat Tentacles: Many of the Shadow Monsters sport numerous bladed tendrils they use in combat.
• Eldritch Abomination: They are nightmarish monsters made of living darkness manifested by Gorr to serve as his foot soldiers, and are capable of overpowering and eating gods.
• God-Eating: In Thor: Love and Thunder, one of the Shadow Monsters is shown grabbing an Asgardian and taking a bite out of them during their attack on New Asgard.
• Mooks: Thor: Love and Thunder shows that the Shadow Monsters are Gorr's foot soldiers. Unlike typical mooks, however, they are not pushovers, and keep the attention of the warriors of New Asgard while Gorr kidnaps their children.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The Shadow Monsters possess gaping fanged maws, with one shown taking a bite out of its opponent in Thor: Love and Thunder.
• Spider Limbs: At least some of the Shadow Monsters have bladed arachnoid legs sticking out of their backs, which they use to slash and stab at their opponents.
• Xenomorph Xerox: Thor: Love and Thunder reveals that the Shadow Monsters are jet-black extraterrestrial monsters that attack in a horde, seeking to rip their foes apart with their fanged jaws, claws, bladed tentacles, and serrated Spider Limbs.
• You Don't Look Like You: Most of the Shadow Monsters look very different from their Xenomorph Xerox comic book counterparts, as opposed to them looking largely identical in the comics. At least one of them is an enormous draconic beast.
• Zerg Rush: The Shadow Monsters tend to rely on numbers to overwhelm their enemies, charging headlong and trying to maul and devour their opponents.

---

"Protect her... protect my love..."