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1'''WARNING: Headscratchers pages are for post-viewing discussions and thus [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff have unmarked spoilers]]. Tread carefully!'''
2
3[[foldercontrol]]
4
5[[folder: Thanos Expecting Gamora On Knowhere]]
6* Why exactly did Thanos wait for Gamora to attempt to get the stone on Knowhere? The only reason she and the Guardians go there is because they just so happened to encounter Thor, who told them the Reality Stone was there. Without that event happening, Gamora would never have gone. Unless he specifically put Thor on a course to their ship, assuming he'd tell them about the stone, how else would he assume Gamora would arrive on Knowhere?
7** It may not have been something he expected so much as a coincidence he took advantage of. Presumably there is technology on Knowhere to detect incoming ships, and he likely knew at least what the ship Gamora was living on looked like as he no doubt tried to keep tabs on her. He could have simply noticed the ship was coming and conjured up the plan on the fly. He may even have had the illusion already up simply to decrease the chance of his actions being detected too early from anyone who happened to fly by.
8** Related to the above, he could have simply had a tracker on the ship, hell maybe he even implanted one in Gamora herself during her time with him (he did add some modifications to her body and could have done it then with her being none the wiser). Either way he would have noticed the Guardians were on their way and decided to take advantage of it. Course this is all speculations.
9** Didn't he already have Nebula captured at this point? And he had the memory of Gamora saying she knew where the soul stone was. If he can access the rest of Nebula's memories then that also includes the one that says Gamora was on Knowhere trying to sell the power stone to the Collector before she knew what it was. So he had reason to believe that Gamora might go back to Knowhere to see the Collector. He has to go there anyway to get the reality stone. And he needs Gamora to find the soul stone - so why not wait there for a while in case she does show up? Gamora has been to Knowhere before on Infinity Stone related business, so it's not impossible that she'd go there again.
10** And that's why the children of Thanos are on Earth searching for the stones there instead of him - he was waiting for Gamora to potentially show up, so he had his children look for the stones to save time.
11[[/folder]]
12
13[[folder:Why Didn't Bruce Banner Help Shuri?]]
14* One of the main reasons Thanos was eventually able to acquire the Mind Stone was because Shuri wasn't fast enough in removing Vision's neurons from the stone itself. In addition to this, Bruce Banner was shown as being incapable of Hulking out for the entirety of the movie (except for the very beginning). So if Banner was incapable of serving as a usual front-line fighter, and Shuri could've succeeded with additional help, then why didn't they have Bruce right there with her in the lab? It was obvious that he knew instantly what she was talking about when she asked him why he hadn't tried her given alternative. And the neurons were attached to all parts of the Mind Stone's surface, so there was plenty of room for Shuri to work on one side and Bruce on the other. And yes, while the Hulkbuster was an option for Banner, wasn't removing the Mind Stone a bigger priority than helping to fight off Thanos's forces? Was this an oversight on the writers' parts? Or were they just making an effort to [[CharacterShilling stress Shuri's intelligence?]]
15** You don't need two surgeons to cut at the same time. Plus even if Bruce knows how he made Vision doesn't mean he knows how to use Wakandan tech for it.
16** We also have no idea if Shuri's control thingy could even accommodate two people at once.
17** Most likely the time it took was a limit inherent to the job being done, not something that would have been helped by a second person. Not all jobs go faster with two people. Water takes 20 minutes to soak into a grit, no matter how many people helped pour the water into the pot.
18*** [[Film/MyCousinVinny Not if you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans.]]
19[[/folder]]
20
21[[folder:Name of the Mind Stone]]
22* Each Stone has a name and designation. Stuff like "Space Stone" or "Time Stone" are their designations. Their names are the Tesseract, the Aether, the Orb, and the Eye of Agamotto. So... what's the name of the Mind Stone? It's NOT "Loki's Scepter", that's the thing the Mind Stone was encrusted in (you might as well call it "The Vision"). So, what's the actual name of that Stone?
23** None of those names are their actual names but instead labels given to them. Loki’s scepter, Vision's third eye, or just Mind Stone are appropriate.
24** All these things listed are not the stones themselves but their containments. The Tesseract is broken to reveal the Space Stone, as the Scepter was broken in ''Age of Ultron'' to reveal the Mind Stone. None of those are their actual names.
25** The Soul Stone also doesn't get an alternative label. So this leaves all the stones related to physical concepts "named", but the two related to abstract concepts as nothing more than infinity stones.
26[[/folder]]
27
28[[folder: How to kill a god]]
29* Am I the only one who’s not even remotely convinced that Loki’s dead? This isn’t fangirl hopes talking either. Ignoring he fact that he’s faked it before, supposedly Thanos strangled him. I know Loki isn’t Asgardian but he’s always seemed to have a similar biology as Thor and the very next time Thor is shone he’s floating through space as though air isn’t an issue. And I’m supposed to believe Loki's dead? I’m confused as to why I’m supposed to believe this.
30** Thanos snapped his neck, even if he can drift for eternity like we can pretend Thor did and the damage to the spinal cord didn't kill him he is floating paralyzed from the neck up until someone else shows up.
31** Watch closely. Thanos does not simply strangle Loki. He strangles him, with his eyes going bloodshot and bulging out (clear indication he wasn't getting any air), and THEN snaps his neck. Loki's illusions and magic require a certain amount of concentration, which he would not be able to muster while being killed by cruel despot like Thanos. The brutality of the way he killed Loki was probably to make absolutely sure there was no way he could come back from that. Also Thor wasn't floating around in space very long-- his Asgardian physiology allowed him some time, but the Guardians of the Galaxy were responding to a distress signal and he was lucky he was found. He was unconscious and had to be awakened by Mantis once they brought him on board. He wasn't asphyxiated then had his neck broken like Loki did.
32** But what makes this different to his fake death in Film/ThorTheDarkWorld? He had to fake a physical corpse even more time. He could had easily escape with half of the Asgardians transformed into one.
33** There's a theory on the WMG page that Loki didn't actually fake his death, but rather actually ''did'' die and used some kind of complicated spell to resurrect himself sometime afterwards (a spell he would have to perform before going into battle, perhaps). This would give the appearance of a convincing death ''and'' allow him to live to tell afterwards. Not to mention that this time with Thanos, Loki would have a very good reason to die and come back later. It's likely he knows Thanos's plans, knows that half the universe will be wiped out, and isn't content to leave his survival up to chance - so simply ''removes himself from the equation''. After all, [[FridgeBrilliance you can't disintegrate if you're already dead]].
34** [[{{TheMoreYouKnow}} Fun fact]]: The Norse Gods have always been portrayed as being mortal (i.e., capable of dying) in the [[{{Myth/NorseMythology}} original mythology]]. Apparently, this makes them even more heroic because the stakes are higher when you can die.
35** He also doesn't turn into his blue Jötunn form.
36** Why would he? It's clearly not a conscious illusion on his part considering he had no idea he was one for over a thousand years.
37*** I think the implication is that [[GlamourFailure Loki would revert]] [[ThisWasHisTrueForm to his natural blue Jötunn form on death]]. It's pretty hard to tell in the scene itself, because the lighting is purplish-blue and Loki was already pale before turning bluish as he got strangled. He doesn't seem to have the Jötunn marks on his face, but again, it's hard to tell in the lighting. Ultimately it's a comic book movie--if they wanted to bring him back, they'd find a way.
38[[/folder]]
39
40[[folder: Did Vision get nerfed or worfed?]]
41* I'm not a super comics fan, but my understanding of Vision in the MCU is that he's basically what Ultron would have become if he had gotten his Vibranium body (i.e. almost invincible), on top of having an Infinity Stone empowering him. Ultron, if I remember correctly, took the combined firepower of Vision, Thor, and Iron Man to destroy ''without'' the upgrade. Despite not being as destructive as say, Hulk or Thor, I always figured one could consider him the most powerful Avenger, if not at least some vague level of ''very, very powerful''. Yet in the film he gets stabbed out of nowhere, gets healed by Wanda, starts fighting back only to have his beam reflected back and wounded ''again'', and his biggest contribution to the fight against Thanos is stabbing a member of the Black Order (after he had been stabbed a second time) when they were fighting Captain America. It's almost sad when characters talk about getting to Vision or protecting Vision as if he's some civilian they're forced to keep safe and not a heavyweight character in his own right.
42** He has to be protected because he's been severely weakened by his previous wounds. This is made pretty clear in the movie. Wanda didn't so much "heal" him as close up the wound he had. He was still being damaged and that is taking its toll on him. Thanos and his Children's whole thing is they're much more powerful than things the Avengers have faced up to now.
43** It's more that Corvus has really inconsistent strength, like one second he is locking blades with Wakandian soldiers and two seconds later he can take a full on speed tackle of Vision. Even wounded Vision should have been able to hold him down with super strength alone but suddenly Corvus can wrestle with him like he was Captain's level of strength.
44*** Corvus didn't have any difficulty whatsoever fighting the Wakandans. He got them out of the way pretty quickly before going after Vision.
45*** Also, Vision doesn't really have super strength per se. It's more a result of his vibranium durability and density control powers, the former of which is shown to be inferior to the Black Order's weaponry and the latter of which is said to be disabled when he gets impaled in Scotland.
46** Thanos has known that he needs to take Vision out ever since he became aware of Vision's existence. Presumably the Black Order were specifically equipped to weaken and hobble him with their weaponry, while countering every power he's known to possess.
47[[/folder]]
48
49[[folder:Vision using the Mind Stone]]
50
51* What has Vision been doing with the Mind Stone for the last three years? He has literally never been without it, but he's never used it for anything beyond making laser beams. Loki had it for much less time when he started using it to control people's minds. Why couldn't Vision have just taken over Thanos' mind as soon as he appeared and made him give up his apocalyptic plan?
52** At that point Thanos had the other five stones, it may well have not been possible to take over his mind (when he had four stones Mantis could do little more than somewhat incapacitate him). Plus Loki's mind control with the stone wasn't that strong, given all you had to do was knock the victim unconscious to break it. Further, in ''Civil War'', Vision relates to Wanda how little he understands the Mind Stone. He may well have actively avoided testing out if he could use any of its powers beyond utilizing excess energy to make an energy beam, fearful of just what might happen. Lastly, he spends most of the movie (including when Thanos appears before him) injured and pretty weak, he may not have been able to use the stone to affect someone's mind even if he wanted to.
53*** Mantis is a weakling compared to an Infinity Stone, first of all. Second, I don't know what Loki was doing with the Stone, but Strucker was able to use it to give Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch their powers, and Tony was able to use it to create frackin' artificial life. I really don't know why, when the future of the entire world is at stake, everyone is trying their best to destroy their best weapon rather than restore the person who's in the best position to use it. Thanos could still wreak almighty havoc with five Stones. Preserving the Mind Stone was their only chance at defeating him. Destroying it certainly didn't stop him. And as for Jarvis/Vision actively avoiding learning more about it, that's just...stupid. If he was afraid of it, then he should have been looking for a way to get rid of it. If you've got something that powerful just sitting in your forehead, you learn how to use it. You don't ignore it and hope you don't hurt anyone with it.
54*** First off, Tony did not create artificial life, the Mind Stone did. Every single attempt Bruce and Tony made to create Ultron failed, and coincidentally, the moment Ultron was created was the moment they left the room. Furthermore, it was noted that Strucker and HYDRA were working on things way beyond their understanding, once again showing that the Mind Stone itself was responsible for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. As for Vision, he was afraid of it, but he was also trying to understand it. But as it turns out, an Infinity Stone with a mind of its own is not an easy thing to master. Which is also why they wanted to destroy it: in Vision's current state, and given Thanos has greater knowledge of the Stone than they do, their attempt to use the Mind Stone against him would likely be ineffectual at best or it could even make things worse.
55** Considering how a large portion of Vision's personality is derived from the battered remnants of JARVIS, he may have real ethical issues about tearing up somebody else's mind the same way Ultron did to JARVIS.
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder: Heart-Shaped Herb superior to Super Soldier serum?]]
59* This is a minor one but that shot of Black Panther and Cap outrunning everyone else got me thinking: it seems that the HSH is on par if not slightly better than Cap's serum (Black Panther is a little bit ahead). It reminds me of fan theories that the HSH is an ingredient in Cap's super serum, something which seems more plausible after seeing that.
60** T'Challa before the HSH was much more fit than Steve before the SSS, so it makes sense he'd be slightly faster. Also consider that his whole motif is that of a big cat; of course he's going to be a great sprinter.
61** The SSS was a prototype, only the second successful-ish use on a human. It stands to reason all the kinks aren't worked out since the guy before Steve lost his face to it.
62** In the comics, the SSS and HSH work similarly but not completely the same. The SSS makes Cap slightly stronger than Black Panther while the HSH makes BP slightly faster and more agile than Cap. It looks like this is correct for the MCU as well.
63** Steve always saw himself as someone who could stand his ground and take it, so the SSS enhanced his strength, pain tolerance, and endurance the most. The HSH grants humans the enhancements of a real leopard, and although leopards' strength is pretty awesome, it's their agility, speed and stealth that are their best advantages.
64[[/folder]]
65
66[[folder: Why is the Hulk so afraid of Thanos?]]
67* This was puzzling in the movie, and gets even more so when you re-watch the scene of Thanos and Hulk fighting. Sure, Thanos is a better fighter, but if you look at his attacks, he isn't hitting the Hulk particularly hard. Thor hit him harder and fought him longer in the first Avengers movie, and hit him a ''lot'' harder and a ''lot'' longer in ''Thor: Ragnarok'', and Tony pounded on him equally as much in Age of Ultron, and all either of them did was piss him off. At no point was the Hulk either afraid or about to give up. Hell, he and Thanos can't even use their full strength on each other in the fight, because they're on a space ship and doing so would destroy the ship. When Thanos picks Hulk up and slams him down, he doesn't even ''go through the deck to a lower level,'' so Thanos must have known not to use all this strength. An impact like that wouldn't even have knocked the wind out of the Hulk. The Hulk has taken direct hits from Thor's hammer, and the fight with Thanos simply doesn't measure up to his fights with Thor and Iron Man.
68** He isn't. Word of God and other tropes have outright said it.
69** Additionally, against every other opponent, Hulk gave as good as he got. He pretty much trashed Hulkbuster, and he and Thor were fighting on fairly even ground. Thanos, on the other hand, wiped the floor with him, barely even getting touched. It's not necessarily fear, but instinctual unwillingness to face someone who made him look like a chump.
70** I interpret it more as Hulk being sick of fighting Banner's battles for him. As Banner admits in ''[[Film/AvengersEndgame Endgame]]'', he'd been treating Hulk like a "disease", usually trying to keep him from emerging, always being afraid of what happens if he does emerge. The animosity between Hulk and Banner really gets explored in Thor Ragnarok. After Thanos curb-stomped Hulk, Hulk reached his limit. For years he'd been coming at Banner's beck and call while being feared and despised at the same time, but at least he'd always gotten the satisfaction of being strongest. But to come at Banner's beck and call, being feared and despised, and then get curb-stomped by this Thanos guy - that was the last straw for Hulk. He wasn't going to come out again until he gets treated with more respect.
71[[/folder]]
72
73[[folder: Evacuate to where?]]
74* Wakanda is essentially a city-state with a vast underground mining complex. The city is what they're evacuating, and while the caverns they extract Vibranium from are spacious they're pretty much just a gigantic pit with automated trains; this isn't a cave you can just walk an entire city worth of people into.
75** Thanos's forces are specifically targeting Wakanda, which is now open to the rest of the world. While normally crossing the border requires some paperwork, it seems that alien invasion is a good enough reason to give up on it for a moment. Also, while it seems that there is only one actual city, there are also many smaller villages built back when Wakanda was still upholding the {{Masquerade}}. Maybe not enough space to accommodate so many people (maybe - we don't know much about the population of Wakanda or size and population of said villages), but remember: T'Challa wasn't planning to fight for more than few hours.
76** The country is small, but there are places other than the city. For example, they could have gone to the Jabari Tribe mountains and hide there.
77** We are talking about a country that was concealed for centuries, and whose lifestyle relies on a rare metal that, they fully know it, would be invaluable out there in the rest of the world. They must have surely considered the chance that some day they would be discovered and some other nations may wage war to them to get that metal. If such a thing ever happened, having a way to evacuate the population was a good precaution. Even more, they know that some years ago there was an alien attack in New York. Who says that the next alien attack couldn't come to ''their'' doorstep, as it did?
78** T'Challa orders the city evacuated, but the mountains could be refuge enough. Essentially he just wants civilians out of the way of what's sure to be a brutal battle. It doesn't matter ''where'' they go, as long as they're not in the city that's going to be the main target of their enemies.
79[[/folder]]
80[[folder: Wakandan Hologram]]
81* Why is Wakanda still using a hologram if they decided to tell the world about their technology.
82** The Wakandans are simply being careful. Revealing the truth to the world is a huge risk. Allowing the public to actually see Wakanda at this point is probably a bad idea. They are likely very selective on who is allowed into Wakanda as well. So while they are willing to tell the world about their technology and share some of it. It’s probably best they still do so behind a veil of secrecy.
83[[/folder]]
84
85[[folder: Wakandan shield strength]]
86* The Wakandan city shield seems inconsistent. A couple troopships the size of skyscrapers are effortlessly reduced to fireballs and disintegrate upon contact, but a few hundred Mooks throwing themselves against the shield are able to just force themselves through by...chance? Sheer weight of numbers? Apparently the shield seems to fail under constant pressure; a gap in the shield seemingly can't close if there's something in it, but then again shield suddenly closing on them is exactly what's killing the Mooks in the first place.
87** The troop ships hit the shield as one large object evenly distributed over a large area. The Outriders were hundreds of small objects each trying to get through individually, and only a handful survived.
88** And even with hundreds of thousands throwing themselves against the shield, only a small number got through. It seems that consistent bashing got the shield to weaken just for a moment, but it always started working again.
89** The troop ships impacted with the force not far from a ColonyDrop, it's certainly possible it weakened the shield enough to enable any mooks to get through at all.
90[[/folder]]
91
92[[folder:Wakanda lowering the shield]]
93
94* Was there really no way to respond to a flanking attack than to lower the shield? I suppose the idea was to let in a controlled amount of enemies to siphon them away from the flanking maneuver, but the shield was already their primary route of attack and acting as a choke point as well. And the flanking maneuver didn't seem that large anyway; surely some of the more mobile heroes like Falcon or War Machine could have addressed the maneuver before returning to the main fight.
95** The point of opening the shield was to create a gap and hope the enemy stops the flanking attack in order to focus everything on rushing through the gap. The Wakandan Army was too small to defend everywhere so they had to keep the Outriders in one location.
96** But lowering the shield is a risky move that is borderline incompetent. If the enemy decided to keep flanking and also attacked the opening in the shield their position would have been desperate.
97** Their position was already desperate. At no point did the defenders harbour the illusion that they could hold out indefinitely, it was always portrayed as them trying to buy as much time as they could and if the enemies breached the shield on the other side then they could not stop them from getting to Vision.
98** Did you ever see that really old movie, Film/SevenSamurai?
99** The battle is meant to be a way of giving Shuri enough time to take out the Mind Stone - something she can't do safely if she knows there are enemies nearly breaking in. And if Falcon and War Machine start trying to ward the Outriders away from where she was, they'd probably notice and concentrate their attacks there. Letting them in through the front was a diversion that had a chance of working.
100** The shield wasn't lowered, a section was opened to create a choke point. They were worried about being outflanked because for every outrider that the shield killed 2-4 more were able to tear through it. Dozens of the things were able to breach it and those were the ones in front of them. Besides as Corvus proved they had a way to penetrate the force field anyway.
101[[/folder]]
102
103[[folder:Wakandan military composition]]
104
105* The Wakandan military is apparently a thousand or so infantry with few aerial and no armored or artillery support. Granted, Wakandan infantry weapons are apparently so powerful that fighting vehicles are unnecessary (a line from Black Panther mentioned that each of their spears can OHKO a main battle tank and we see this power later on in the film) but the presence of artillery would have actually justified the close-up melee at the end; the Wakandan batteries open fire, counter-battery fire destroys them, Black Panther orders a charge at the enemy in order to force them to stop firing lest they risk hitting their own army. It's not perfect since we'd have the question of why Thanos' artillery wouldn't accept friendly fire anyway considering the WeHaveReserves mindset, but at least we'd get to see more Wakandan military technology and have the cool melee actually justified by actual tactics: "hugging" the enemy so they risk friendly fire has been a method to deal with enemy superiority in artillery or airpower for decades.
106** Wakanda probably never felt the need for armor or artillery since they have such a technological advantage over the rest of the Earth. And artillery in general would be pointless in this fight due to the shield.
107** Wakanda's whole deal is that they've never been conquered and never conquered. Any movable artillery would be pointless, because they don't plan on waging war against anyone. They couldn't use their defensive systems, because the field looked to be pretty far from the city and they wouldn't want to hit their own forces in the inevitable melee fight. I'm also pretty sure I saw a few airships in one of the distance shots.
108[[/folder]]
109
110[[folder:Wakanda opening shield timing]]
111
112* Why did T'Challa open the shield ''before'' his troops were actually in a position to bottleneck the monsters?
113** Not enough time really. The Outriders move quite quickly, and trying to take the time to maneuver all those troops into a proper position would've taken a bit too long.
114** If they had waited to get into position, the Outriders would already have flanked them. They needed to draw the enemy in ''now'', to prevent them from going anywhere else.
115** In addition to the above, these were just the infantry flanking. If the slower transports flanked Wakanda, too, they'd pretty much kill the entire nation.
116
117[[/folder]]
118
119[[folder:Wakanda maintaining the shield wall]]
120
121* Why not just keep everyone on their shield wall and lay down fire on the chokepoint, instead of rushing forward into a disorganised melee? The Wakandans just end up squashing up their mass against the energy barrier, limiting their combat effectiveness and reducing their situational awareness of flanking maneuvers and reinforcements - a problem amply demonstrated by Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian's infiltration and the arrival of the giant death wheels.
122** Because it's not a tactical simulation, it's an action movie. A Watsonian answer would be that they charged to draw away the Outriders who were going to perform the flanking attack. If the shield opened and the Wakandans were blasting everything that crossed over they may not abandon the flanking maneuver.
123** The Outriders' numbers seemed to be infinite so things would have broken down into a melee battle anyway. Cull didn't infiltrate anything. He marched right in beside Proxima.
124[[/folder]]
125
126[[folder:School Buses of Peter's school]]
127* Why is Peter Parker shown riding a school bus? The school he goes to has been retconned into a [[WesternAnimation/BigHero6 San Fransokyo Tech]]/[[ComicBook/FantasticFour Future Foundation]]-esque government think tank for super geniuses, and those places don't use school buses. And if his school has indeed gone back to being a regular high school, what happened to the whole "Peter Parker is too smart to attend a regular high school" thing?
128** It's not a government think tank; Peter goes to one of the elite NYC STEM high schools (my cousin went to one of them, Bronx High School of Science where Tom Holland actually went undercover as a student to see how they worked). They're still considered public schools. The Bronx High School of Science has school buses for students from Queens and Manhattan.
129** Two words, field trip. More than likely he was on a field trip like what his Debate Team did in Washington DC which required a bus. Plus even a school full of geniuses need to get out of school to go on a trip like any real school. Maybe there was an event that Peter's school was invited to and Peter went who knows.
130** Confirmed by Peter's dialogue.
131** It's still a regular public school (just with more Advanced Placement type classes) for (mostly) regular kids, not Film/SkyHigh2005. Hence, regular school buses. Or another way to look at it: it's ''a'' school for gifted youngsters, not ''the'' [[ComicBook/XMen School For Gifted Youngsters.]]
132** Even private schools use school buses. In fact, I had to arrange with the local public school district for them to provide a bus for her to go to Catholic school.
133** There was a whole parking lot full of school buses at the dance at the end of Homecoming.
134[[/folder]]
135
136[[folder:Why didn't Cap get a new costume in Wakanda?]]
137* The main page talks about how as a fugitive, Steve no longer has the resources for a new costume. Except he's been in Wakanda this whole time, a place that has technology ''decades'' ahead of America.
138** Going by the ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' movie, Steve has been operating outside Wakanda. He hasn't had the opportunity to take advantage of its resources.
139** Far more likely he doesn't want or need a new costume, to remember his origins, with it intentionally darkened as opposed it being the result of wear and tear.
140** More like did he even wash that thing? Or can't he even afford some private time with a washing machine to wash the suit while wanted by government? Or is it that you need special equipment to wash that kind of fabric.
141*** Whatever the case may be, when lives are on the line, smelling good is probably the least of Cap's worries. And it's not like he has to worry about getting sick since, presumably, his immune system is borderline superhuman.
142** Does Steve seem like his usual, chipper self? Dude's even got a BeardOfSorrow, albeit a well-trimmed one.
143[[/folder]]
144
145[[folder:Where's Supergiant?]]
146* It seems we're only getting four of the five members of the Black Order. Why leave one out, and ''if'' you're going to leave one out, why make it the one who actually gets some solo focus in the Guardians cartoon and as such is the ''only'' one casual fans have gotten to know as more than "those guys Thanos occasionally sends to punch things?"
147** Supergiant's powers are extremely similar to Ebony Maw's, so having her on the team would be kind of redundant, and the MCU has an almost explicit "no telepaths" rule. She's also the only member without a word meaning "black" in her name. Also, compared to the number of people who watch MCU films, the number of people who watched the ''Guardians'' show is completely negligible.
148** 'No telepaths rule?' Isn't Wanda a telepath? Are you referring to the whole Index thing from Agents of SHIELD? Because I took that more as "no precognition," and even then, it's an in-universe assumption by the characters, not WordOfGod.
149** It could also be that they are saving Super Giant for the next film, considering the rest of the Children of Thanos are killed in this one.
150** Her name is Supergiant, that's a good enough reason to adapt her out in an already crowded cast.
151[[/folder]]
152
153[[folder:Strange and Star-Lord]]
154* Dr. Strange claims there is only one possible outcome where they could win which required letting Thanos have the Time Stone and succeed in his plans in order to accomplish some unknown long shot victory. However the plan to take off the Infinity Gauntlet was nearly successful if not for Quill in rage over hearing Gamora's death disrupting Mantis's attempt to subdue Thanos and distracting Tony from helping Parker pull off the gauntlet, implying they would have succeeded if not for Quill. Was Quill's outburst part of Strange's plan to let Thanos win or was Quill always going to screw up and Strange instead of preventing it instead tried to work with it?]]
155** Probably the latter. Quill loves Gamora, was there ever any other plausible way he was going to react to the sudden news? Especially when Gamora's murderer is ''right there'' in front of him?
156** I would assume, given the vast number of possible futures that Dr. Strange checked, over 14 million, that it's conceivable that at least SOME of them, if not very many, did involve them getting the gauntlet off. Therefore, the assumption I made was that if the gauntlet had been taken off, it would have been a temporary victory that would've eventually led to defeat anyway. So in short, yes, there's a good chance that Quill's reaction was part of Dr. Strange's plan.
157** Honestly I figured either Thanos would recover and simply kill them all to take it back, or one of them (likely Stark or Quill) would try and use the infinity stones against him (which would almost certainly backfire).
158** Without the Gauntlet Thanos is probably not gonna win against Strange and definitely not win against all of them together, all he has is his bare hands against someone that uses magic and a bunch of people to stop him from getting close to the wizard.
159** Bear in mind that none of the people on Titan had the ability to leave on their own at this point. At best, they could play monkey in the middle with Thanos until he got it back.
160** Actually, Strange still has his sling ring. [[RunningGag For once.]]
161** And presumably the Guardians still had the Milano stashed somewhere nearby. Unless they walked from the middle of Knowhere.
162** It's not part of his plan as much as covered by the plan, like Thanos throwing a moon isn't part of the plan but running for cover when he does it is. They aren't able to pull out the gauntlet because to be able to do that you need Quill as part of the fight and he'll fly off the handle once they are close to victory. Strange saw no possibility to stop Thanos on Titan and given how Thanos only won the MagicDuel by using the stones it's probably because they can't take off his gauntlet at all (if they could it would have been really easy to keep it away from an unarmed Thanos while the rest of the team beat him since Thanos doesn't seem particularly fast or able to fly).
163** There's also the possibility of someone else getting the Gauntlet actually ending up just as bad, even a hero.
164** Through viewing fourteen million defeats to find one success, Strange may have known that Avengers Titan had to delay Thanos for a specific amount of time, perhaps down to the second, for reasons not easily explained. It's repeatedly stated that Thanos' cullings are completely random, and with the power of the Infinity Stones to expand that idea to a universal scale, who knows what variable affect the outcome? If Thanos had performed the Snap at any other time or place, heroes who were necessary to bring about his eventual defeat (like presumably Iron Man, Thor, and Captain Marvel) may have been snapped into dust instead of surviving. Strange needs the battle on Titan to play out exactly as it does for the slim, ''slim'' hope of eventually getting the one "win."
165** It's pretty obvious, taking off the gauntlet would ruin the plan, Doctor Strange saw 14,000,605 futures and could've stopped Quill from punching Thanos. There are quite a few abilities he could've used to stop this but he didn't. That is because in the timelines where they failed (or at least a few of them) Quill didn't punch Thanos and the gauntlet came off. But as shown in Avengers Endgame [[spoiler:Thanos is the only one strong enough to use the gauntlet thus negating the possibilities of what the heroes could do if they got it off.]] Strange's real plan involved making sure the necessary heroes survived long enough to undo Thanos' snap.
166[[/folder]]
167
168[[folder:Star-Lord and Patience]]
169* Couldn't Star Lord have waited just five minutes while they ripped the glove off of Thanos' hand? Yeah, we know he's upset about Gamora's death but if everyone is begging with him to let them wait until they have the gauntlet ''almost'' off not to lose it, couldn't he have just taken a five, especially when he literally just told Drax the same thing hours ago? It also makes him very unlikeable, since the rest of what happens is squarely Quill's fault.
170** It is not Quill's fault at all, one way means one way. Anyone would have that reaction if they met a psychopathic alien who murdered the person they love.
171** ...Why so many people have trouble understanding that people don't think clearly under strong emotions?
172** This movie gave them a lot of strong emotions. They don't understand because they're not thinking clearly.
173** Hell, Quill did pretty much the exact same thing to Ego when he told him that he killed his mother.
174** With his dad he shot him, he didn't just pistol whip and scream like that was gonna kill Thanos. And you can't say he'll worry he hits his friend the whole point is that he was too angry to worry about the plan. It probably wouldn't have change the outcome but it would have been more coherent than just slapping Thanos in the face.
175** As pointed on the Fridge page, by the time Ego admitted he killed Meredith Peter already came to terms with her death. Here he learns that Gamora is dead from the very man who killed her. It's difference between TranquilFury and UnstoppableRage.
176** This. Quill's still essentially an overgrown child, albeit one who's now slowly maturing due to having family again.
177** Someone makes a mistake in the heat of the moment, and that makes him "very unlikeable"? You have some pretty high standards of what you expect from people. And why do so many people have trouble understanding that what happened is all part of the '''one''' successful plan that Strange referenced? (see above folder)
178** Because he doomed half-everyone while fully aware the fate of universe rides on them successfully taking the gauntlet off Thanos, there's no room for mistake. It doesn't matter if it was part of Strange's calculation and the situation would be resolved in the next movie, Stark warned him, he should've waited after they got the gauntlet and unpowered Thanos. But really that scene was really forced, how hard is it to remove a gauntlet? It's not bolted on or anything.
179** I must ask again: Why so many people have trouble understanding that people don't think clearly under strong emotions? At this point Quill is heartbroken and enraged. He isn't rational - no one would be in this situation. All he is thinking about at this point is that his love was killed and her murderer is standing before him and deserves to die painfully. Which is what most non-[[TheSociopath sociopaths]] would be thinking about at this point.
180** I need to contend this. Yes, knowing that someone you love has been murdered ''should'' create powerful emotions of sorrow and rage (a "sociopath" wouldn't feel a damn thing at all). Yet ''Having'' these emotions and ''Acting'' on them are two different matters entirely. For example, a U.S. Marine who just saw a friend being KIA would understandably be distraught, but would still need to prioritize the safety of his remaining teammates and the completion of the mission, and ''then'' start processing their grief when everyone is safe. Not breaking down at the first opportunity doesn't mean you don't give a damn.
181** The issue is that Quill has no such training. He's not a soldier, not a hero who's faced losing a loved one. He's a person with deeply repressed issues and facing a murdered loved one, with her murderer right there. He can't compartmentalize like most of the others (Strange is a doctor, who's had to face death for a long time, Tony's had time to learn to quiet his demons, Drax has numbed himself to pain, etc.)
182** As for why gauntlet doesn't want to come off - Thanos is still struggling. He is weakened - not unconscious.
183** One ''very'' important thing to remember here is it's not ''just'' Gamora dying that makes Quill go berserk: keep in mind, Quill's lost a ''lot'' of people. His mother, Yondu, and while he ''was'' the one to kill him and was furious, do remember up ''until'' the reveal, he and Ego were getting along well and killing him must have been rather emotionally painful after the fact. On top of that, Quill had tried to ''kill her himself'' at her own request and failed. Quill went through the emotion of almost killing his own love interest himself and not knowing he wouldn't until Thanos turned his lasers into a bubble gun, ''then'' spends all that time clearly worrying for Gamora, only to find out she was murdered by Thanos. Quill's emotional state was ''far'' from rational at the time.
184** Everyone in the cinematic universe had a decision they could've made that would've made Thanos lose in earlier or later points in time. But they didn't. The reason why Quill's mistake is so piled on despite everyone else making bullshit mistakes is because it was the biggest mistake of all. In no other circumstance was anyone that close to beating Thanos, not even Thor with Stormbreaker since he didn't disable Thanos' arms in any way. If he had restrained himself, they would've been able to defeat Thanos right there and then.
185*** Gotta contest this point; Thor's fuck up was just as bad as Star-Lord's, something the writers and Thanos himself point out. If Thor had thrown Stormbreaker at Thanos' head, the threat would've ended and Thanos would've either died instantly, or been too unfocused to actually use the Gauntlet due to the axe in his brain. And don't give me that excuse of "he couldn't actually aim it properly": Thor had a cybernetic eye, so his sight and aim would've been fine and Stormbreaker can be guided just like Mjolnir could, so there was no reason Thor couldn't have hit Thanos in the head if he wanted to.
186*** Gotta contest that, Stormbreaker is a lightning axe that can kill a score of enemy simply with the chain lightning, Star-Lord's gun's handle is just regular metal, one had a better reason to think Thanos would incapacitated from the hit of his weapon than the other. Even with Thor wanting Thanos to live long enough to gloat Thanos has a giant axe electrocuting his insides, that's not a love tap you just shrug off. This is like if Tony went "no I'll stand" and then keep trying to punch Thanos after being stabbed. Thanos is tough but a gaping wound that tazes you isn't just painful it's debilitating yet the movie act like he doesn't even need to bandage it.
187*** Yes, Thanos is powerful. Thor knows this, hence why he should've just killed Thanos to start with. Even if it had to be the chest, Thor could've fried his internal organs with lightning to make him suffer, but instead, he knew Thanos had all the Stones, and still gave him the chance to use them.
188** ''The movie act like he doesn't even need to bandage it''. Not remotely true. Thanos is ''obviously'' in a lot of pain and very nearly incapacitated. Also, the axe is clearly not "tasing" him at the time. That Thanos is still able to do the snap is an exhibit of how tough Thanos is, not the movie not treating the grievous injury like it's serious enough.
189** The axe had lightning arcs coming out of it when Thor threw it, the electricity deciding to do jack once he is hit is not a testament of how tough Thanos is but that he is wearing PlotArmor. Especially when being "obviously in pain" is just grunting then go watch the sunset, not even showing he bothered treating his wound.
190** Clearly he used the Time Stone to undo his wound from Stormbreaker, in fact you can see green sparks in a FreezeFrameBonus as Thanos teleports away. The limping probably has more to do with the Snap itself, and however it affected him.
191*** Or the Reality Stone to, oh, change the reality of the wound to "healed". Notice that during the sunset finale Thanos ''is'' still limping and obviously in pain, although that may also have been from the aftermath of using all six Stones at once.
192[[/folder]]
193
194[[folder:Eitri's prosthetics]]
195* So Thanos cut off both of Eitri's hands and slaughtered all other dwarves after they finished creating the Infinity Gauntlet so there was no risk of anyone creating another Gauntlet and using it against him. So who exactly made him those prosthetic hands? Other dwarves were all dead by this point, and [[Catch22Dilemma it's not like he would be able to do it himself without already having them.]]
196** They aren't prosthetics. It looks like Thanos has just turned his hands into solid metal.
197** To me it looked like Thanos pushed his hands into the molten Uru.
198** This raises another question - what made Thanos think Eitri couldn't just commission prosthetics to replace his ruined hand and keep smithing?
199*** From whom would he commission said replacement? Thanos killed every other Dwarf, and everyone else who knows about the place went there explicitly needing Eitri's help.
200** He's the only one alive and he has extremely limited use of his hands, how would he call for help? And more importantly even if Eitri could call for help, would he be able to get back into it before Thanos succeeded?
201** And now you know why Thanos attacked the Asgardian refugees. Because Thor was the only one who would know to go there to get more weapons.
202[[/folder]]
203
204[[folder:"No resurrections this time"]]
205* So is this line by Thanos after he kills Loki supposed to mean that Loki actually was dying/close to dying in ''The Dark World''? Knowing Loki I tended to assume the worst of him, just to be safe, so I assumed that he faked everything. Or is Thanos talking about the time Loki fell into the void in ''Thor 1''?
206** It's a general line about Loki faking his death and coming back several times. Thor later says that Loki has "died" before.
207** I think we can assume it's a bit of LeaningOnTheFourthWall as well, given how often character deaths aren't permanent in superhero comics. I admit it's fairly puzzling, since there haven't really been any instances where someone genuinely died and came back in this series, but whatever.
208** Probably technically a reference to time between ''Thor'' to ''Avengers'' where Loki was assumed dead only to survive thanks to Thanos's help. But mainly just LeaningOnTheFourthWall.
209[[/folder]]
210
211[[folder:"If Infinity stones can do anything"]]
212* So Thanos' goal is to wipe out half the universe because population overgrowth in the setting of limited resources will cause everyone to die. If the infinity stones are pretty much limitless in potential, with the Reality stone capable of literally changing reality, why not double the size of the universe/double the resources. You are still going to achieve your goal of saving everyone with no one likely to actively go against your plans.
213** They don't call him the Mad Titan for nothing. He started off believing that resources are finite, and this belief carried through as he became more powerful.
214** The IS can do it, but the gauntlet can't. After the BadassFingersnap, it is left a charred, half-molten husk after "only" wiping out half of all sapient life. Anything bigger than that would either fizzle out or blow up in the user's face, without accomplishing much either way.
215** The Gauntlet is only needed to harness the power of all the Stones at once, which was (for some reason) needed to do the BadassFingersnap. To expand the universe, Reality and possibly Space Stones would be enough. Thanos is the only person seen to be able to casually handle the stones with no protective gear of any sort (every other character using the Stone would either wear at the very least gloves, or use some equipment specifically designed for this), so it's safe to assume that he wouldn't need to use Gauntlet for this.
216** Further to that, the finger-snap left Thanos with burns on that side of his body. Even he can't channel all the Infinity Stones at once without injury -- presumably if he tried it ''without'' the Gauntlet, the damage would have been far worse.
217** Moreover, it was shown ''in the movie'' that the changes Thanos enacts via the Reality Stone's power alone -- at least, ones that aren't utter destruction -- only last while he's in direct proximity to them and/or while he continues concentrating on them (as evidenced by Drax and Mantis slowly reassembling themselves from the blockified and noodlefied polymorphs Thanos had forced them into). Why would Thanos possibly want to spend the rest of his life concentrating on multiplying resources that would only be consumed by the ever-increasing flood of life in the Universe?
218** To Thanos, adding resources would only prolong the problem. The populations would continue to grow until the new resource limit was achieved. It doesn't fix the problem, just makes it a future generation's responsibility.
219** Well then for that matter, eliminating half the population isn't a permanent solution either.
220*** And adding resources is at least a partial solution. Removing people randomly is totally useless, because you remove an equal amount of ability to make the resources be useful to the survivors.
221** It seems we're supposed to take Gamora's planet's success as an example that the plan would work. It's possible that losing a child or a spouse would cause enough grief for people to stop having kids, stemming population growth and reducing bloodlines. Poetic isn't it? To achieve this Thanos have to do the same thing unto himself.
222** I have a follow up; if he couldn't make resources infinite, couldn't he just bring all civilizations under his control and institute sterilization/population control programs?
223*** Or for that matter, use the Gauntlet to permanently alter the reproductive biology of every species, so they simply ''can't'' breed at greater than a sustainable replacement rate. Soon as their populations reach a set level of crowding and/or scarcity, fertility rates automatically crash until natural attrition from age and illness makes room for a new generation.
224** That sort of is what he's been doing for some time, but the universe is so big that chances are he would die of old age long before he could reach everyone and institute all those programs (getting to the worlds would be fast as he can go anywhere thanks to the space stone, but the rest of the process would take more time). Even assuming the stones enable him to not die of old age, he seems to only be able to be in one place at any one time, meaning he'd need massive external resources to maintain all those population control programs across so many planets. Simply getting all the stones caused him to lose his most loyal followers and practically broke his spirit. Even for him the prospect of spending eternity maintaining the universe he desired was probably too much to consider, hence him desiring nothing but "rest" once he culled the universe. Perhaps in his mind ideally the various worlds would see the "benefits" of what he did in coming generations and make his ideal a continued reality that way.
225** All these points are assuming that the death of half the universe was just a "one and done" event. It's possible that Thanos altered reality to keep the populations under control, so if they start increasing too much, more people will be killed until the population is brought back down to manageable levels.
226** Is there any evidence that annihilating half the universe ''wasn't'' a "one and done" event?
227** Besides the fact that the movie ended five minutes after the Snap? True, there's not much evidence to suggest Thanos did anything beyond simply killing half the universe, but we can't be sure that he didn't do anything else either. It's still an insane and terrible plan, of course, but it may be more self-sustaining than we think.
228** To quote Comic/SwampThing ''"I could do it. I could restore Africa's crumbling top-soil to the land from which rich, rich jungles sprang. But why stop there? Why not rebuild the forests of the Amazon, less green now than an average suburbia and shrinking by the day? I could drop grapes into the mouths of all the hungry children, turn the Gobi and Sahara into green rippling meadows, give the widows roses and the old men strawberries. For if I were to be God, I could touch all this world with wilderness as I touched Gotham, could transform this planet into a sphere of perfumes, colors, and full bellies. I could save mankind. I could do anything. Anything. Is this, then, what it is to be a god? To know, and never do? To watch the world wind by, and in its windings find content? If I should feed the world, heal all the wounds man’s smoldering industries have made, what would he do? Would he renounce the wealth his sawmills bring? Step gently on the flowers instead and pluck each apple with respect for this abundant world and all its providence? No. He would pump more poisons, build more mines, safe in the knowledge that I stood on hand to mend the biosphere, endlessly covering the scars he could now endlessly inflict." '' I imagine Thanos would think something quite like this, only for the entire universe.
229** That doesn't really add up. Thanos doesn't begrudge life for expanding and expending resources, he just knows it will lead to their ruin through overpopulation and resulting starvation.
230** Was it ever said that all the gems would allow him to do whatever he wants, as in the comics? I only remember people saying that he wants to kill half the people of the universe, and that he can do it in an instant with the stones, but not what ''else'' he could do with it.
231** Until and unless we find out more about how the Infinity Stones actually work, my best guess is that it has something to do with the inevitability of decay. Even the Time Stone, which can reverse decay by reversing time itself, only reverses time by a few seconds the one time it's used. In other words, it's a lot easier for Thanos to ''destroy'' people than to ''create'' new space or resources.
232** I don't actually think the Infinity Stones can do anything in the MCU, they probably follow some exotic but consistent [[EquivalentExchange law of conservation]]. You can see this when Thanos fights everyone the stones act on existing matter, turning flames into bats or Strange's black magic into a black hole. Otherwise, Thanos probably would have been a lot more creative in his fights instead of just transmuting things in his immediate environment.
233** There is a simple explanation that has nothing to do with the Infinity Stones' power. Thanos is a very certain kind of mad. He came up with the idea that killing half the population would solve the problem of overpopulation in his own people, and takes their failure as the first proof that his idea would have worked. He tested it on Gamora's people and "it worked" - which is to say, for whatever reason, they haven't fallen back into widespread poverty, therefore giving him a second proof. He is now the man with the hammer, to whom every problem looks like a nail. By the time he started looking for the Infinity Stones, he was long past trying to solve the problem of poverty and hunger. They were a means to enact his solution, and so he never even opened his mind to ask whether his new resources opened up new options.
234*** Going off that, Thanos's self-image is by now probably ''completely'' tied up in the idea that this plan works. If he acknowledges that he was wrong, then he can no longer envision himself as a genius-tragic-hero WellIntentionedExtremist type trying to save people from themselves--he'll just be a killer, and he can't take that, so he can't even let himself think about the possibility that his plan might be flawed or there could be another way.
235** It has been pointed out by numerous people that Thanos' plan is utterly and completely flawed and stupid, it would only make complete sense to a sociopath like Thanos, wiping out half the universe would actually make us use resources ''faster'' to pick up the slack, the only reason it worked on Gamora's home was that Thanos was there to personally give the terms of the half-genocide to her people, who probably worked out a form of population control after Thanos left, the rest of the universe got no such thing, just suddenly people just crumbled, only the people of Earth knew what was actually going on, due to the remaining Avengers probably telling the governments what happened.
236[[/folder]]
237
238[[folder:Where did they get Hulkbuster?]]
239* How did Banner get his hands on the Hulkbuster armor? The only one who can call it is Tony Stark, and he wasn't even available to do it. Moreover, the armor itself can be piloted without having to be linked with the Iron Man armor, almost as if it's built specifically so normal people can pilot it.
240** They got it from Avengers HQ before going to Wakanda, and it's an updated model so it being used independent of wearing an Iron Man armor was part of the upgrade.
241** In ''Age of Ultron'', it is revealed that both Stark and Banner worked together on Veronica, it's entirely possible they worked together on the Hulkbuster armor as well.
242** The ''Age of Ultron'' Hulkbuster was part of the Veronica module, so Banner couldn't have worked on Veronica without working on that version of the Hulkbuster. He had to provide some personal insight on making it more effective. It would only make sense that if Banner had to borrow a suit of armor it'd be one that most directly mimics the Hulk's movements. Banner even comments on this. There was once a time where Rhodey would have been the only person Tony would have trusted with his armor, but Banner's obviously someone Tony trusts now (he trusts him enough to go behind the rest of the team's back TWICE to create Ultron and later Vision), but he'd definitely trust his fellow science bro with his technology-- it's just Banner never needed it to be effective in a fight before Thanos scared Hulk into not wanting to come out.
243** Perhaps it was stored in a satellite and then the parts were deployed at the place where they were needed, as in Age of Ultron.
244** Also, Tony might've given Rhodey access.
245** This. Tony and Rhodes were pro-registration, and so was (by implication) General Ross. Since the Hulkbuster was public knowledge after ''Age of Ultron'', and Bruce by his own admission wrecked Harlem, it's not unlikely that Ross petitioned to have Hulkbuster be recommissioned and on standby for emergencies.
246** And Hulk was MIA for ''Civil War''. So it makes sense that the pro-Accords side would have something to subdue him if he came back for the other side.
247[[/folder]]
248
249[[folder:Guardians and Xandar]]
250* In first [=GotG=] movie, possible genocide of Xandar was what pushed the protagonists from being self-centered assholes to become real heroes. And now, when Xandar was decimated by Thanos himself (Gamora's and Drax's personal Nemesis), the Guardians were not present to defend it. Granted, they cant be everywhere, and it was a surprise attack most likely. But when we see them, they seem to be as easy going as ever, and instead squabble about possibly looting refugee ship. Did they stopped giving damn about anything somewhere along the way? Sure, Gamora is terrified of Thanos later after hearing out Thor, but Quill doesn't seems to be moved at all, even when Rhomann Dey and his Family is likely dead.
251** The first they hear about the decimation of Xandar is from Thor, ''after'' he's told them that Thanos is making his big play. So while they might be concerned with the fact that billions of people are dead, they are also rather more concerned with the fact that quadrillions more are about to die.
252** Yeah, but if Thor got the word, why didn't the Guardians? Thor was stranded on the refugee barge, while the Guardians are actually out there looking for trouble (and an easy buck), but one would expect that after events of the first movie they would be in touch with Xandar.
253** Thor didn't find out about Xandar from some kind of Galactic News Network. He found out from Thanos attacking his refugee barge while wielding the Power Stone (which Thor probably knew had been on Xandar for the last couple of years). The actual attack happened just before the start of the film, but Thanos seems the type to monologue while he massacres.
254** I can't remember Thor's exact phrasing but the way he said it made it seem like he really DID hear about it from some kind of Galactic News Network or something similar, as he says that Thanos got the Power Stone after attacking Xandar a week prior.
255** Alternatively, informing Thor of the fact that Thanos had the Power Stone and how he got it would be the first thing that Heimdall would do when the attack began. And if there's someone who would be up to date on intergalactic events, it would be Heimdall.
256** The Guardians were in the vicinity of Asgard when they picked up Thor's distress signal. ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' establishes that it takes ''18 months'' of travel by regular FTL to get from Xandar to Asgard. News may not have had time to reach them yet.
257
258[[/folder]]
259
260[[folder:Scarlet Witch’s Accent]]
261* In Age of Ultron and Civil War, Wanda had a thick Eastern European accent. In this movie that accent disappear without acknowledgement or explanation. What happened to Wanda’s accent? Has she phase it out? And why doesn’t anyone point it out?
262** It is still faintly noticeable. And the explanation is her adapting to being around English-speaking people as opposed to Sokovians, to fit in more. It's also been two years since ''Civil War''.
263** It would make more sense for her to try and lose the accent if she's going undercover. She went to the trouble of dyeing her hair red, so dropping the accent would be another way she conceals her identity.
264[[/folder]]
265
266[[folder:The other half of the Asgardians?]]
267* Unless I misheard, Thor said Thanos killed half of the remaining Asgardians (as is his usual practice), but we see the whole ship blow up. So where did the other half go? Did they get taken prisoner on Thanos' ship and dropped off elsewhere?
268** It was a big ship. There were bound to have been some escape pods. Thanos let half of the people flee, and killed the rest.
269** If you look closely at the intro shot again, you can see that only the ''front half'' of the Asgardian ship was present, with the back half ''nowhere to be seen.'' Thanos evidently split the Asgardian ship in two during the attack and allowed the half that didn't have Loki in it to safely escape offscreen.
270** WordOfGod stated that Valkyrie took the surviving half away in escape pods and are presumably limping toward Earth or maybe a closer safe harbor.
271
272[[/folder]]
273
274[[folder:Named characters from Ragnarok]]
275
276* I wonder, are Valkyrie, Korg and Miek part of the surviving half? We never saw them among the dead at the beginning and Thor never mentions them when he talks about those he lost. Is the ambiguity gonna lead to a reveal that they're gonna make their revolt against Thanos in Avengers 4?
277** Sorry to tell you this, bud, but Valkyrie could be spotted among the corpses. Miek and Korg were not seen, but I don't remember hearing anything about only killing half the Asgardians.
278** I highly doubt they would kill her off and not focus the camera on her or have it mentioned in dialogue.
279** Yeah, I didn't see her body anywhere, either. The white armor would have been pretty distinct, and I think the camera would have focused on her at least a little. Best bet is she's with the half that survived, [[FateWorseThanDeath as far as she knows having failed again to protect her king, her prince, and her people.]]
280** [[WordOfGod Joe Russo]] [[http://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/05/01/avengers-infinity-war-valkyrie-asgardian-fate/ has confirmed that Valkyrie survived. He has refused, so far, to confirm what happened to Korg.]]
281** But it IS mentioned that Thanos only killed half of the Asgardians - I'm just not sure if it was said by Bruce to Tony and Stephen, or by Thor to the Guardians. It's just one line, but it's definitely there.
282** Gamora also says that Thanos's way is to ''always'' kill half of a species and spare the other. In the flashback showing her childhood, we can see Thanos's soldiers doing just that to hers.
283** We see in ''Endgame'' that they survived.
284[[/folder]]
285
286[[folder:Gamora's species]]
287* In Guardians of the Galaxy Gamora is stated to be the last of her kind, so why then did Thanos speak of the remaining half of her people as thriving? Or was there just more than one sapient species on her planet and her species was unlucky enough to end up being killed off completely?
288** She meant that she was last member of her species who had the will to continue on. The others submit to Thanos's rule.
289** Canon shots from the first Guardians of the Galaxy film [[http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/File:Gamora_Rap_Sheet-movie.png directly contradict that]]. Note the top line on the left, just below her name, where it specifically says "last ''survivor'' of the Zehoberei people"
290** Maybe the Zehoberei are a tribe or culture on her home world rather than her species?
291** Or one of two simpler solutions. One, it's just a simple retcon to something that really was a throwaway tidbit from the original [=GotG=], or two, Thanos is [=BSing=] and hasn't actually been back to her homeworld since purging it which would make sense considering he likely has more important things to take care of and until retrieving the Space Stone, couldn't exactly just make a quick stopover to check.
292** Or someone saw a new paradise planet with low population and conquered it. Losing half the population, plus presumably most soldiers in fight against Thanos beforehand would make them for easy pickings.
293** Crosses into NightMareFuel, but what if Thanos lied to Gamora and what actually happened is after losing their loved ones the other half of Gamora's people killed themselves? Because life is not only about resources, you know. We are there for each other. This would be an awesome scene to quickly debunk Thanos's "righteousness" in the beginning of A4.
294** Even worse, perhaps ''Thanos himself'' deliberately went back and wiped out Gamora's people entirely, having confirmed that they were living an easier life after their initial decimation. Why? Because he'd ''genuinely come to love his Zehoberei "daughter"'', and the theories that the LastOfHisKind would be exempt from the universe-wide culling are true. So, rather than violate his warped ethics by making an exception to his "random selection" rule, he stacked the deck to ensure that Gamora would survive the fingersnap ... by killing all the other Zehoberei.
295** Or the people were just too damaged by Thanos's attack to keep going. So the remaining survivors had died out by the time Gamora reached adulthood.
296[[/folder]]
297
298[[folder:Why not cut his arm off?]]
299* Wouldn't it have made more sense if they had attempted to cut off Thanos' arm instead of trying to pull the gauntlet off of his arm? You could make an argument that it would have taken time, but in that case, what would have stopped Doctor Stranger from opening a portal around Thanos' arm and cutting his arm off?
300** Would it be possible to create a portal around something? 'Cause it doesn't sound likely. He could try pushing the portal on his wrist like he did in ''Thor: Ragnarok'' when he teleported Thor and Loki to Odin's hideout, but it would risk also harming Peter and Tony, who were holding said arm in place. And doing it before or after they tried and failed to take the gauntlet off while he was asleep would be impossible. The only reason it worked with Cull Obsidian was because the portal separated him from something he was looking for, so he had to risk crossing it again. Thanos can teleport on his own, so even if he somehow found himself on the other end of portal than Strange, he wouldn't risk getting through it himself and instead would just create his own with the Space Stone. Only other way to preform a PortalCut on him would be to push/pull him through the portal - [[TheJuggernaut and that sounds completely impossible at best.]]
301** Making a portal cut would be very tricky if not outright impossible, and any other weaponry doesn't harm Thanos. After all the firepower they unleash on him in that fight, they manage to spill just one drop of blood, and he even acknowledges how remarkable this is. The film outright states that the only weapon that can actually harm Thanos is Stormbreaker, so chopping his hand off is actually not easier, but harder.
302** Basically this. A full on 20 to 30 minute battle with multiple heroes unloading on him only managed to draw a single drop of blood. Attempting to conventionally remove it would fail and the rest of this folder has reasons why the portal would probably fail.
303** In Thor: Ragnarok, Strange is seen opening a portal then moving it towards the intended target, however with the space stone Thanos might be able to make himself immune to teleporting against his will- Dr Strange doesn't try to TP him from my recollection, so he could have known it would have been a waste of time.
304** Strange ''did'' try to open up the Mirror Dimension around Thanos to trap him in it - Thanos turned it into a blackhole, which indicates that Thanos would probably be able to distort and stop any attempts to PortalCut his arm off.
305** I imagine it went like this:
306---> '''Starlord:''' So Spider-Man yanks his arm through one of Dr. Strange's portals and then we close the--\
307'''Dr. Strange:''' Won't work. Space Stone.\
308'''Starlord:''' Okay, new plan. Mantis...
309** Well y'all are forgetting that the plan they had ''worked''. They were this close to getting the gauntlet off him before Quill flipped out.
310*** It wouldn't have worked, as shown in Avengers Endgame, [[spoiler: Thanos managed to take on Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man all at once and defeat them without one infinity stone. If they got that off Thanos would've gone berserk and gotten it back.]]
311** Thanos' skin is almost impenetrable, this was confirmed by the Russos so cutting his arm off with the sling ring would've failed.
312[[/folder]]
313
314[[folder:Corvus Glaive being able to slice through the Mind Stone's beam]]
315* How exactly is he pulling that off with his blade when Vision fires the Mind Stone's beam at him? It shows that he could just slice through the thing as though it was nothing.
316** It's not explained how, but his blade seems to be able to cut through pretty much any kind of energy. Vision relates that he wasn't able to phase through when he was stabbed by it, and Corvus having snuck into Wakanda implies he was able to cut through the force field as well.
317** It's a [[Film/KillBill Hattori Hanzo glaive]].
318** Thanos might have commissioned other weapons from Eitri besides the Infinity Gauntlet. Overwhelming one Infinity Stone seems like something Thanos' Children are trained for.
319[[/folder]]
320
321[[folder:Fake Infinity Gauntlet timeline troubles]]
322* So, in the first ''Film/{{Thor}}'' movie, we see a brief glimpse of the infinity gauntlet, which led to rampant speculation until ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' when Hela picks it up briefly before declaring it a fake and tossing it aside. Okay, all well and good. But then this movie comes along and tells us that the gauntlet was forged in Nidavellir by the giant dwarves, after which Thanos murdered all but one of them. Except, Thor hasn't heard anything about this, implying it to be fairly recent. Nidavellir is one of the nine realms, so we have to believe that either this all happened long enough ago for the fake to have been sitting in the vault since the first film and Asgard didn't notice, despite being run by we-must-work-to-protect-the-realms Odin with assistance from I-can-literally-see-anywhere-in-the-universe Heimdall, OR, it happened extremely recently, just far enough back for the after credits scene in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' to happen, and the vault contained a replica of an item that did not exist at the time and how did Hela even know that it was a fake?
323** The Infinity Gauntlet is new, but the ''idea'' of the Infinity Gauntlet is ancient -- it's probably been theorised for almost as long as advanced civilisations have known about the existence of the Stones. At some point Odin asked the Dwarfs to make him a mock-up of what they reckoned the Infinity Gauntlet would look like and the Dwarfs, being perfectionists, proceeded to exhaustively research just how such a device would be built, to the point that the fake they produced was actually pretty close to being fully functional. Then, when Thanos came a-calling, it seemed reasonable to adapt the designs they already had to make an actual working model.
324** The fake in the Asgard vault wasn't just the Gauntlet. It also had all six "Infinity Stones" imbued into it. The gauntlet itself wasn't the part that was fake, the stones were.
325** "This is how the Gauntlet would look with all the Gems in place." The fake gems were simply part of the prototype.
326** Doesn't this also raise the question...when some guy comes along and wants an infinity gauntlet, shouldn't the fact that a guy is looking for infinity stones be reported to the Asgardians, Xandarians, Kree, or whoever is responsible for safeguarding the galaxy/universe?
327** Chances are Thanos disabled communications, killed everyone, and crippled Eitri before leaving. There wouldn't really be time or ability to warn anyone.
328** Eitri basically says they called Asgard for help. The same Asgard that's now a smoking crater.
329[[/folder]]
330
331[[folder: Tony losing Friday, Peter losing Karen]]
332* When the ship flies off the Earth, Tony loses his AI. Why? Yes, the answer is obvious: For the same reason he lost the call with Pepper -- he was too far away for signal to get through. Thing is, why is his AI streamed to him from the outside, and not stored in his suit? The AI is a crucial element of the suit's effectiveness, Jarvis saved Tony many times, and for a guy who is obsessed with being prepared for anything, having his AI not always at hand and instead able to be jammed or to fall out of reach seems to be a critical mistake. On the same note, what happened to Karen, Spidey's AI? She was clearly part of his suit as shown in Homecoming (he cuts tracking and communication with Stark, and still had access to her), and keep it mind he still has his original suit on him -- the Iron Spider deployed over it. Yet Spidey doesn't seem to have access to her either.
333** For Stark, the answer is that he has multiple suits and only uses one AI, so he uses a centralised unit. It might have been a better idea to have her make a full transfer to whichever suit he's wearing, but he may not have thought of that. Spidey... I got nothin'.
334** Does he? I thought that Bleeding Edge was actually made to avoid the need for so many specialized suits, being the one that can do everything. And even if he still has multiple ones, it would make more sense for the AI to work like dropbox, being in every suit, and only update the data other one accumulated when connected together. Or even better, if he has multiple suits, the AI doesn't have to be part of it, but instead part of Tony himself. In Age of Ultron, when he picks up new AI, it's not much bigger than flash drive. Spider-Man's suit is almost skintight, and yet it houses all hardware for AI to function. As such, Tony could wear Friday on himself, or even have her implanted, and then let her interface with any suit he puts on.
335** In Spidey’s case, he may not have access to Karen right now. ''Homecoming'' was a bit of a lesson to him about hacking his suit before he had learned how to use all of its abilities properly. Maybe Tony downgraded the suit before returning it to Peter, and that included removing Karen.
336** Maybe Peter just put Karen on silent mode because he finally decided it was more distracting than useful. Also out-of-universe justification: don't make Spidey an Iron Man lite.
337** Perhaps Stark's [=AIs=] work similar to Apple's Siri, where the on-board software only provides basic functions ("set an alarm") and more advanced features require an active network connection ("Find the nearest Pizza Hut").
338[[/folder]]
339
340[[folder: The Tesseract]]
341* Why didn't Loki just lunge for Thor and teleport them both away using the Tesseract?
342** Since Thanos had Thor in his grasp, it's likely he would have teleported with them and then crushed Thor's head like a melon. But at least it would have given them a fighting chance!
343** Has anyone actually been able to use the Tesseract to teleport at will in the films? Quickly? Without specialized equipment of some sort? Other than Thanos?
344** No, which is the point of the Stones in the MCU. You can't use them without something to harness or focus their power. Attempting to do so usually causes great backlash in some capacity.
345** Yes, he could have. And he knew how to do it back in 2012, according to Endgame.
346** The thing is, we don't know how far he went. For all we know, Loki only managed to teleport himself a couple blocks away, which isn't useful when the only place you have to go is in the middle of space.
347*** The problem is, he KNOWS Thanos wants the Tesseract. So by teleporting them away, all he's doing is postponing the inevitable of Thanos hunting him down. And if his brother and the rest of the Asgardians couldn't even make a dent on Thanos, there's basically zero chance that they'll ever get away
348[[/folder]]
349
350[[folder: Groot's Death]]
351* Groot is supposed to be the last of his kind. So why was he dusted by the snap?
352** Ultimately Thanos wants to fulfill his plan no matter the cost - and said plan was to kill off half of the Universe completely randomly, without regards for anything - including things like being the last of kind. That's the exact thing he said on Titan: when his planet was in danger of overcrowding, he proposed to chose half of the population completely randomly, with no regard of age, gender, race or religion and kill them off. He did try killing half of any species he encountered during his quest for Infinity Stones, because it was easier to do this way until he had a way to influence the whole Universe at once, but he wouldn't really consider it completely fair, as it required the very exact amount of members of every species to die.
353** Do we even know if Groot is actually the last of his kind? I don't remember that ever being stated. Granted, the Collector had never seen his species before, but that doesn't mean that Groot is the only one of his species left. In fact, considering Thor actually understands Groot's language, it's quite possible that his species still exists elsewhere.
354** And he might be able to grow again from the wood he gave to Thor's new axe.
355** Even with complete glove, not sure Thanos has real cosmic awareness and decided which ones to kill or spare depending on factors like "last of his kind". Thanos may just have wished "glove, for each sentient being, toss a coin and kill if tails".
356** The problem is with any species with an odd number of people. If there are (2 x M) + 1 people, the snap kills M people, M people remain alive... and what about the extra one? Kill or no kill? Taking Thanos mindset into account, he may settle for "kill". And that's the problem for a species with just 1 survivor, that the snap would kill it by just following the same logic.
357** Thanos is ''definitely'' the kind of mass murderer who would round up in a case like that.
358** It's a random lottery, unless Thanos signs exception with Stark and Earth. He halves the Universe not every planet in it.
359** That really doesn't make sense. If he's concerned with resources, then he'd have to deal with the fact that different worlds have vastly different populations, amounts and types of available resources, and levels of technology. The only way it works in on a world by world basis. There are also resources a space faring race would have access to (e.g. asteroid mines, satellites directly collecting solar energy).
360** Plus, Thanos' methods were always on a world by world, sapient species by sapient species, basis. That he outright says half of humanity will survive indicates pretty strongly that his culling of the universe was going to be the same. That is for every sapient species, a random half of them would die. He wouldn't make humans a special exception. Having him kill completely randomly (that is in a way where by chance some sapient species would lose hardly anyone while others would entirely be wiped out) would be mad even by his own standards.
361** No it wasn't, he promised Ronan to wipe out the ''entirety'' of Xandar if he brought him the power stone. Going that he always killed half sapient life form for every planet when it was only brought up in this movie alone is not true (in fact he never mentioned sapient species, he just states all life and it's confirmed cows are also getting wiped), especially when he culls an already diminished population like the Asgardians, the dwarves living on the forge and Groot. His methods in past movies never showed he does world by world.
362** Not necessarily. Thanos' deal with Ronan was a special case, not his usual method. Also we have no idea just how he would have carried out his promise. If Ronan had brought him it then he may well have destroyed the planet but allowed a portion of the population to escape, fulfilling the letter of the agreement at least. Regardless, it doesn't change that when doing things of his own desire he would wipe out half (an insane aspect comes in how he indeed didn't seem to account for how depleted a population may already be). As for the dwarves, unless their whole population was a mere 300 he didn't wipe out the race.
363** Or the space faring race can just get their hands on the vacant planet for the resources available, would even gives more lands to live. Also unless Thanos never met a species that doesn't eat rocks he isn't concerned about resources given he just decides what constitute population of a planet and resources of said planet. He just wants to prove his random death lottery was a good idea he doesn't care if Dwarves, Asgardians or plant people go extinct because of the massive drop in population as long as the Universe itself isn't dying he is content.
364[[/folder]]
365
366[[folder: Captain Marvel]]
367* So this might be my ignorance showing, but the Stinger at the end shows Fury calling Carol Danvers to help out. Why? What the hell can she do to reverse this? What can she do against the Mad Titan that Thor or Hulk or Doctor fucking Strange were unable to do?
368** Fury was the one who called her, and all he knows is that there is a serious situation that he hopes she can help with. Whether she actually can or not, we’ll just have to wait and find out.
369** Here's hoping he called her because she and/or the original Captain Marvel had some previous history with Thanos, and that's why. The original Captain Marvel was one of the first superheroes to tussle with Thanos, and I hope some of that gets shown in the next film.
370** Plus, there's no indication that Fury knew what was going on besides "mass hysteria, oh god please help". The Avengers aren't here now so might as well call the next best thing.
371** Exactly, Fury seems to be out of the loop completely. Which is understandable, since he is not the part of the Avengers anymore, and events of the movie transpired so fast that nobody probably got him in picture. When people start to vanish, he knows only something terrible is happening, and that Avengers are either missing (Tony) or somewhere else busy (Wakanda). So, he calls his backup, his last measure plan in case something goes bad. And yes, in the end she might prove to be helpless as well, but thing is, Fury was out of options, and didn't have a time or capacity to process what is actually happening, and what would be proper response.
372** Kevin Feige has stated that she will be the [[http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/captain-marvel-movie-director-kevin-feige.html strongest MCU superhero yet]].
373** If she's so strong, why wasn't she in this movie? Surely the '''other''' superheroes knew about her...right? Yes, it's safe to assume there will be an explanation in her solo movie as to why she just sat on her butt here. It just better be a '''REALLY''' good one.
374** Lots of explanations. She's strong, but wants to live a normal life, or she and Fury had a falling out and she said "don't contact me unless the world is ending." Or she's off planet having adventures with the Kree, and pager is some kind of interstellar communication device disguised as a pager.
375** I don't need to wait for the movie to easily answer both those questions. Do the other superheroes know about her? No, they don't - from what we already know about the movie, it's going to be prequel set during the 90s and involving alien invasion - and since in MCU existence of aliens was kept secret until 2012, it would be obviously covered up. Why wasn't she in the movie? That's yet another thing that pops up in almost every MCU movie, and yet seems to completely fly over the heads of most fans, leading to them declaring things like the Avengers not being present for the action of ''[[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier Winter Soldier]]'' or ''Film/IronMan3'' a plot hole, despite it's obviously not one: time and communication. Film takes place over the space of... one day? Maybe two? During that time we have one attack at New York, which is quickly repelled, then another at... I forgot where did the fight between Proxima and Corvus and Avengers take place... which was late at night and was taken care of so quickly, it's doubtful anyone even noticed anything, and then another in Wakanda, which was over in an hour. Not enough time for Captain Marvel to react, unless she already knew something is on (which she didn't, because no one knew about her existence and thus no one warned her about it).
376** I think that, if she's so powerful as they claim, SHIELD would want to keep her under control, so they made her forget about her powers and previous identity (we have seen it with Calvin Zabo). The pager allows to re-activate her, restoring her powers and memory, but Fury would prefer to do it only when the GodzillaThreshold has been reached. He probably thought that it has been reached now. Now, and not during the Chitauri invasion because the Avengers were still standing and fighting the whole time. And no, what he saw was not just mass hysteria. They crashed with a car with no drivers, there were disasters everywhere, and then Hill turns into dust. It doesn't take a genius to understand that, whatever happened to her, was happening everywhere, and was the cause of all those disasters. An attack even more terrible than a "mundane" alien invasion. This is a job for Captain Marvel!
377** It's extremely unlikely that they did anything with her memory, or that she'd consent to that kind of thing. The simple explanation is she just plain hasn't been on Earth.
378** Why not? It's not as if SHIELD never messed with someone's mind, even good guys. Remember Tahiti? It's a magical place, isn't it?
379** This will have to go under WMG-there are a million reasons why she isn't around, but the fact is that she isn't. Anything else is pure speculation until the movie comes out.
380* Who says Nick Fury called her to reverse the damage? At the very least, it's to clean up the mess and to try to get the city under control.
381[[/folder]]
382
383[[folder: Gamora]]
384* Once Thanos had the Soul stone and the others, couldn't he just bring Gamora back? Or is that cheating?
385** Thinking about the Soul Stone alone, it would definitely be "cheating" to explicitly bring back the person you sacrificed, at least without another soul (like your own) to balance things out. It's possible that the infinite power of the whole Gauntlet could bring her back without trouble, but then that would go against his motive, which is to essentially kill as many people as possible. Bringing someone ''back'' is the last thing Thanos would want to do.
386** More specifically, this version of Thanos isn't someone just looking to get the girl. To his thinking, Thanos is saving the universe by sacrificing half of it. What right does Thanos have to spare himself the pain he's giving others? Presumably, i's not that he can't or doesn't want to resurrect Gamora, it's that he's determined to share in the sorrow of the rest of the universe.
387** There is a fan theory that Gamora herself is now inside the soul stone, judging by the little dream Thanos has at the end. If that theory is true, then releasing her from the stone would stop him from using its powers.
388** Since Thanos destroys the stones, that theory is debunked. In any event, ''Endgame'' confirmed that the Soul Stone sacrifice is irreversible. Bruce specifically says that he tried to bring Natasha back and it didn't work.
389[[/folder]]
390
391[[folder: Killing half of the Asgardians]]
392* It's mentioned that Thanos only killed half of the remaining Asgardians and let the other half live, as is his shtick about balance and whatnot. But they JUST escaped Asgard's demise and this is everyone that's left; presumably they weren't able to evacuate the entire planet onto their ship so they only had the remaining survivors. Wouldn't killing half of the survivors be way more unbalanced at this point? If Asgard was fully populated, then killing half of the planet would fit Thanos' plan of reducing overpopulation. But surely a ship full of survivors shouldn't be halved.
393** Yeah, I definitely thought it was supremely dickish to decimate an already-decimated people. But maybe it's just a sign that Thanos is actually insane, that he's not thinking about logic like that. After all, there have been other good alternatives raised about possible uses for the Infinity Gauntlet, like mass resource creation or redistribution of populations, that would work ''far'' better than genocide.
394** Keep in mind, the finger snap decimated even the peoples Thanos has previously decimated manually. Thanos is not one for basic math.
395** Also, as noted above, "Mad Titan." Not "nice, kind, gentle, and sweet entirely rational Titan." I highly doubt he cares.
396** Plus, the Asgardians were refugees, with their planet (and thus, capability to produce resources) gone. Wherever they wound up, they'd just be consuming resources that, in Thanos' opinion, are already overtaxed. Destroying just half of them is downright merciful, by that logic.
397[[/folder]]
398
399[[folder:Loki telling Thanos to kill Thor]]
400* Why did Loki tell Thanos to kill Thor at the beginning of the film? Look at his face -- he's trying to use his tricks to save him so he can keep his brother and the stone. Thanos is blocking some part of his magic, which is why he's only able to summon a dagger instead of a clone to distract him.
401** There's a few options here: Loki thought if he acted disinterested that Thanos would spare Thor because of the lack of results (and Thanos simply called his bluff), that Loki convinced himself that he didn't care about his brother and realized he really didn't want Thor dead during the torture, that he was stalling for time to consider his options, or many other plans that a trickster god would think up.
402** There's also the possibility that Loki was a bit hoping that Thor might be able to take it, at least for a longer while. He's smirking at Thanos for a moment, which could be just him pretending not to care about Thor, but it also could be that he hopes Thor could gain his strength back and break free to attack Thanos, but then he looks at Thor to make sure and sees that Thor indeed is too drained and absolutely can ''not'' take it.
403[[/folder]]
404
405[[folder:Tony's press conference]]
406* Tony tells Bruce that the Avengers are over. Why did he organize a press conference to [[Film/SpiderManHomecoming announce a new member?]]
407** It would be more accurate to say that the Avengers that Bruce knew was over without having to go into more detail about it.
408** Could it be that Tony was counting on Peter accepting the offer so he'd be able to start a new team or keep it from being over in the first place?
409** Tony is a businessman and announcing a "new member" to the Avengers would be a good propaganda story to convince the people that the Avengers are still effective and viable after half the team quit. In his mind, though, he would realize that even with Spiderman, the current set of Avengers wouldn't be enough if another New York like disaster occurred. Plus, Tony "Knights" Peter as a member in this film. People probably don't realize that Spiderman is 16 years old. It's actually kind of FridgeBrilliance because of this, because while the people considers Spiderman a new Avenger, Tony doesn't because he doesn't want to put a kid in danger again after the Civil War.
410** At the time, Tony had War Machine and Vision. Along with Spidey, there are four members right there, which is good enough for a team. Fast forward to this movie, Spider-Man declined membership and Vision ran off with Wanda, so now is a good time to declare the Avengers kaput.
411[[/folder]]
412
413[[folder:Inanimate objects disintegrating]]
414* A minor one but why did some objects disintegrate post fingersnap (Falcon's wingsuit, Bucky's Arm, everyone's clothing, Wakandan armor and weapons) while other objects connected/held by a person (Nick Fury's Beeper, Bucky's gun) not?
415** Mind Stone's influence, I guess. What people perceive as part of themselves disintegrates with them.
416*** This was recently confirmed to be [[http://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/05/25/avengers-infinity-war-clothes-disappear-snap/ Word of God]]
417** All the items that disintegrated was worn by the person. The items dropped were just being held.
418** Which are the same thing. Just flimsy rationalisation on the screenplay's part.
419** So we don't see pantsless Drax resurrected.
420** While the simplest answer is dramatic effect, it really felt to me like anything you were holding/wearing disintegrated with you, but Bucky and Fury both dropped their equipment while they were fading, so the gun and pager were both spared.
421[[/folder]]
422
423[[folder:What happened to the Collector?]]
424* I'm curious as to what happened to the Collector. We see his collection in ruins after Thanos takes the Reality stone, but there's no trace of him, no body lying about, nor does anyone mention what happened to him.
425** He was found lying dead...on the cutting room floor. With movie so packed up with events, he was so unimportant character that he didn't get the screen-time. We must probably wait for deleted scenes or some supplemental materials to confirm his fate. However, from the state the Knowhere is in, he is probably dead.
426** Considering we know Thanos already made it to Knowhere, stole the Reality Stone, and set fire to the place, it's a good bet the Collector is dead.
427** It's quite possible he gave it up freely. He didn't seem to me a type to resist Mad Titan.
428** I like to think he's alive. Him and the Grandmaster are supposed to be the only immortal beings in the universe. Thanos would spare him in case he needed something from the Collector's collection in the future.
429** When Thanos restores the actual reality, there's a skeleton visible in the case where he was in the illusion. I assumed that was his.
430** According to Del Toro the Collector is indeed still alive and survived the encounter with Thanos. Presumably after Thanos got the stone he bailed and was long gone by the time the Guardians got there.
431** In ''Film/TheGuardiansOfTheGalaxyHolidaySpecial'', Nebula states that the Guardians bought Knowhere from the Collector, so presumably he's alive and well somewhere, probably living at one of his many repositories strewn throughout the galaxy.
432[[/folder]]
433
434[[folder:Stormbreaker vs Infinity Gauntlet]]
435* Okay, I get it, Stormbreaker is ridiculously powerful, I'm fine with that. But Thanos has been shown to use Infinity Stones at will. Why try to blast Stormbreaker and not, I dunno, open a portal in its way? Reverse-time the actual throw? Teleport away? Granted, Thanos still survived, but had Thor aimed for the head, he wouldn't have.
436** Thanos didn't seem to know what Thor was throwing at him until it was too late. Throughout the movie, Thanos tends to disarm, so blasting Stormbreaker mid-flight seemed to be his go-to move.
437** Reversing time is shown to be a slow and arduous process in both ''Doctor Strange'' and ''Infinity War''. Definitely not enough time for it. Since it resists a blast from all the stones, we can probably assume Thor / Stormbreaker are resistant to the Reality stones effects because Thor, God of Hammers and all that. Portal generally only seems to work right around him, so he could have teleported away himself I guess. But he is a BloodKnight, so yeah, chalk it up to character flaw.
438** RuleOfDrama. In the comics, having all six stones should have made Thanos completely invulnerable except for superficial damage that he can heal in a blink of an eye. The heroes needed to get at least one good shot in before the movie ended. Thor with Stormbreaker served that purpose.
439** Per dialogue, nobody's previously brought the stones together and used them. We witness Thanos getting his second stone in the opening scene. Presumably, there's a learning curve to their use.
440** The infinity Gauntlet is not necessarily the most powerful weapon, same as for in comics where a few beings matched its power. Stormbreaker probably no sold being turned into bubbles and since it can link to the Bifrost teleporting it away might not work. The beam is just a visual shortcut to show the Eitri wasn't kidding when he said Stormbreaker was the ultimate weapon.
441[[/folder]]
442
443[[folder:Using Infinity Stones]]
444* In both fights against Avengers Thanos mainly relies on Space and Power stones, only using Reality three times - to trick Gamora, to take away her dagger, and to show Avengers what Titan looked like before. He doesn't use Soul gem at all, even though it is implied to be one of the more powerful ones. The fight on Titan would've been very short had he turned all Avengers into noodles, like he did with Mantis.
445** It is worth remembering that amongst the people he was fighting on Titan one was Stephen Strange, a guy whose capacity to rewrite reality is not insignificant; recall that time during the fight he turned one of Thanos's more powerful attacks into butterflies. Thanos probably realized it was pointless to attempt something that his opponent could negate so easily, or at the very least realized it was a sub-optimal option compared to using the power and space stones.
446** In comics, the Reality Stone is the most dangerous to use. Unless you have very clear idea of what you want to accomplish, things can go haywire. And besides if you use it without the other stones reality just "snaps back." It's one of those "too good to use," so Thanos relied on the more straightforward Power and Space Stones.
447** I was under the impression that the soul stone was used specifically create things that were alive. I thought I saw it glowing when he created that cloud of birds/bats on Titan, but granted that was the only use that stood out to me. It definitely was underused given how much emphasis was put on it.
448** Per dialogue, nobody's previously brought the stones together and used them. We witness Thanos getting his second stone in the opening scene. Presumably, there's a learning curve to their use.
449** When Doctor Strange cloned himself, the Soul Stone was used to keep track of the real one.
450** There's also another factor from the comics that might be at play: the reason Thanos is beatable in the comics despite having a complete Infinity Gauntlet is because, subconsciously, he ''knows'' he doesn't deserve to win and possess the power he does, and thus unknowingly sabotages himself. This basically translates into Thanos ''never'' making himself truly invincible or unstoppable, no matter how much power he manages to get. It's possible that factor of Thanos carried over and he doesn't use the Infinity Stones like above because of it.
451** For the vast majority of the Battle on Titan, the Avengers do everything in their power to either prevent Thanos from using the stones by preventing him from closing his fist (there are three separate ocassions where either Strange or Stark uses something to prevent Thanos from closing his fist) or distracting him with rapid attacks. Thanos hardly ever has a moment to stand still, and using the Reality and Soul stones probably take a decent amount of concentration to use properly, so he uses the stones that are most straightforward, effective, and can be used rather quickly without much thought. As for the battle in Wakanda, Thanos wipes the floor with them pretty much instantly with the other stones, so he doesn't really need to use them.
452* A possible out of universe factor is that it could have been agreed for promotion that they would reveal that Thanos had the Power Stone and Space Stone in trailers. So the writers and directors use those stones as much scenes as possible to give material for trailers. I remember the moon blowing scene was revealed early.
453* Also one thing about Thanos is that he's a BloodKnight. Why would he otherwise fight the Hulk alone when he can gang up on him with his subordinates? (Maw does say "Let him have his fun"). How can an opponent fight back if his soul is destroyed, or he's turned into ribbons? Thanos must be (un)consciously restraining himself by using the most straightforward stones so his opponents can actually fight him. Dodging a laser or compressing/teleporting projectiles is fair game to him.
454** WordOfGod also says that using the stones has a price -- for instance, the Russos said he might have permanently lost use of his left arm after the Snap. Thanos probably wants to minimize that price as much as possible if he can avoid it while still gathering the stones.
455[[/folder]]
456
457[[folder:Just Sterilize Everybody]]
458* Why not take a page from the [[Franchise/MassEffect Salarians]] and simply make it so everyone can only reproduce at the same rate they are dying out?
459** He's only looking at what he sees as the immediate problem. Thanos just wants to make everything "better" as he sees it for the current generation. He's not looking to "fix" the universe for good or be some kind of population god. From the sounds of it, he wanted to leave it up to Gamora and her successors to "protect" the cosmos after that.
460** Who's to say he didn't also do something like that? Killing half the universe was only the most noticeable alteration he did.
461** Sterilization wouldn't actually help (neither would killing half the world, by the way), because poverty and overconsumption of resources isn't caused by overpopulation. China and India have populations way bigger than that of the United States, and yet the US consumes far more resources. If Thanos' real drive is to eliminate poverty and scarcity, then he has far more creative means at his disposal - preventing people from consuming X amount of resources in a lifetime, replace all energy sources with renewable ones, identifying the ones that consume the most and only killing them, if there must be killing, whatever, something other than "murdering half the population."
462[[/folder]]
463
464[[folder:Role of the Time Stone]]
465* Every Infinity Stone has a function in the big fingersnap - Soul Stone finds all the living creatures, Space Stone allows accessing them despite the distances, Reality Stone turns them to sand, Mind Stone processes the immense amount of data, Power Stone well powers the whole thing... What does Time Stone do? Does the fact it is needed imply that there will be recurring effects after the fingersnap? Each time a baby is born either it or another member of same species will crumble to dust?
466** My guess it to make sure this all happens instantly. If he's trying to wipe out half of every living creature in the universe, that's a lot of distance for the Infinity Stones' power to travel--and space is ''huge''. It'd take probably millions of years for the fingersnap to reach some planets without the Time Stone.
467** That's what Space stone is for though.
468** In the comics the ''added'' power of the Stones is nothing compared to the ''combined'' power of the Stones. This infographics explains how the elements supply each other, so having all Stones supplies them in an infinite loop.
469** Recurring effects seems likely. People point out that Thanos' plan won't work because the population quickly regrows, but that's assuming he didn't think of that. So the Time Stone looks into the future to continue the effects of the fingersnap in the event the population gets too out of control again.
470** My understanding is that each individual stone enables additional parameters for the others when used simultaneously. For instance, when Thanos uses the Reality Stone on Knowhere, he has to actively use the Reality stone to maintain his revisions. By having the Time Stone Thanos can dictate when the changes in reality occur, such as changing the past, and the duration of his revisions.
471** While not shown in the movie, each of the Stones augments the user's consciousness. In order to enact such a change across the universe, Thanos needed the complete cosmic awareness of all those sentient beings he wished to extinguish. The Time Stone along with the others provided this awareness.
472** I got the sense that instead of simply killing everyone (ex: everyone has simultaneous heart attacks), the fact that they turn to dust implies that they were completely wiped from existence. The Time Stone finds where they are in time and simply wipes them out.
473[[/folder]]
474
475[[folder:Getting the Infinity Stones]]
476* Seeing how Thanos easily obliterated Nova Corps, Asgardians, Avengers, etc, one wonders what had he been waiting for and why did he send underlings so many times. He could've taken all the Stones ages ago. The battle of Wakanda was especially useless, as by that time Thanos was supposed to have 5 out of 6 Stones and obliterated all the resistance with ease - which he did. He may not care about outriders, but he would've saved the Black Order.
477** He sent his underlings once at the start of the film. They've also dealt with countless other worlds, so he wouldn't exactly expect them to have such a hard time. Meanwhile he was in fact busy getting the Reality, Soul and then Time stones. Once that was done, he went straight to Earth. I get the sense he was waiting originally because Asgard was standing in his way of getting the Infinity Gauntlet made and getting the Space stone. It was only once they lost the power of Asgard itself the Asgardians were easy pickings.
478** Thanos sent underlings because Odin (The Allfather) would have probably kicked the crap out of Thanos, The Ancient One may have put up a fight and I'm pretty sure [[PhysicalGod Ego]] would not be a fan of Thanos' plan because Ego is a narcissist. Also even when Odin was gone, there was still Hela and Eternal-Flame Powered Up Surtur on Asgard.
479** Easily? While we didn't see all of it, I imagine that Thanos expended all his troops and resources to get the Infinity Stones. Attacking Xandar to get the Power Stone probably took virtually all his fleet, and he sent the rest to kill themselves on Earth to get the Mind Stone. Space Stone was key to getting the others. With it he could just skip to world after world to find the others.
480** The film itself is arguably the reason why. Thanos is described as having the most powerful army in the universe, along with the Black Order. The force he sent to Wakanda is fairly paltry, suggesting his army has already been depleted, and by the end of the film he has lost all of his troops and the entirety of the Black Order. And that's disregarding the fact that Thanos himself was brought fairly close to defeat several times throughout the course of the film. Thanos probably realized he had hit a point where all of his miscellaneous defeats meant that he would lose unless he put everything on the table.
481** And maybe he doesn't mind squandering his troops and underlings at this point, because he's confident he'll win no matter what happens by then, and would rather as many of his followers die gloriously in battle for his cause than be dusted or left without a purpose in life ''after'' his goal is met. Theirs is a MartyrdomCulture after all: they ''really mean it'' when they tell Gamora's people to rejoice that half of them are about to be slaughtered.
482[[/folder]]
483
484[[folder:How did Thanos locate the Earth Infinity Stones so quickly?]]
485* Follow up to above, was it ever explained how the children of Thanos managed to locate Earth's Infinity Stones so quickly? First thoughts were that the Thanos squad had already known about the location beforehand- except it's explained Vision went off the radar a few weeks ago. And another was in Wakanda, a technologically advanced city completely hidden and had they had only recently just moved it there. So maybe they just have omniscient tracking devices?
486** The mind Stone was from Loki's scepter they probably though about you know, putting some tracking shit on it.
487** The Infinity Stones are drawn to one another. All Thanos had to do was locate one, and just sense where the rest were located (except for the Soul Stone, which had to be "earned" instead of simply found). The Power Stone was the subject of a huge battle in Xandar, so it would have been the easiest to find first. After he got his hands on the Power Stone, it was just a matter of sensing where to find the rest. That's how the Children of Thanos knew exactly where to go to find the Time Stone and Mind Stone on Earth. The heroes also realized this, which is why before even a single Outrider landed in Wakanda, the heroes knew Thanos' forces were coming.
488[[/folder]]
489
490[[folder: The order in which the Stones were acquired]]
491* I don't know how to put this into words- but it seemed extremely convenient that Thanos managed to obtain all of the Infinity Stones in an extremely specific order that allowed the acquisition of subsequent others. For instance, it's lucky the Asgardians just happened to be floating by so Thanos could pick up the space stone, which had instant teleportation abilities to an almost otherwise inaccessible realm of Vormir. And good thing Thanos also obtained the Time Stone from the Avenguardians, since the Mind Stone would have been destroyed otherwise. The entire process seemed too...convenient.
492** Thanos know which and where most of the stones are. The invasion in Avengers is because he sent Loki via Tesseract, he can track it. Besides even if he gets the broken mind stone first what stops him from recovering the Time Stone and repairing it? The Soul Stone seems to be the only Stone Thanos didn't know where it was and it's because it has a weird hidden field all the others he knows exactly where they were, he just delegated the hunt to Ronan and Loki because it wasn't worth getting up.
493** It’s not so much convenient as deliberate. He assaults Xandar with what we can assume would be his full force to acquire the power stone. Then he prioritises the space stone due to the teleporting abilities it grants. From there he pursues the reality stone and the soul stone, as the latter requires his personal involvement (as he knew/suspected Gamora found the location), leaving the mind and time stones to his children. The order wasn’t random chance, he planned it that way.
494** I thought so too, but thinking back on how Thor predicted that the reality stone would be Thanos' third target, maybe there was a logic to what he was doing.
495** Thor pretty much spells out Thanos' logic in the film. The Mind and Time stones are on Earth, under the protection of the Avengers (more or less). Now, Thor doesn't know the Avengers have splintered, but even in their fractured state, they fairly successfully fight off two separate attempts, one each, to get the Mind and Time stones, it is only when Thanos gets personally involved that he successfully acquires them. In other words, the Stones on Earth are a hard target. The Reality Stone is just sitting in the Collector's vault, and no one (save Gamora) knows where the Soul Stone is, so the Reality Stone is obviously Thanos' next target. It is somewhat convenient that he happened to run into Gamora there so he could capture her and pry the Soul Stone's location out of her, but as noted elsewhere, since this is a critical step in his plan (no Soul Stone, no Snap) it's entirely possible Thanos resigned himself to just waiting on Knowhere, certain that eventually word would get to Gamora about what he was doing and that she'd come along to try and keep him from getting the Reality Stone, which he already had. Thanos probably didn't expect his Children to have a great deal of success getting the Stones on Earth, but it was a good use of his resources while he was going after the two he knew he ''had'' to be personally involved in at that time. And the Children did actually have some success, separating Strange, Spider-Man, and Iron Man from Earth and the rest (imagine if the Battle of Wakanda had been fought to protect ''both'' the Mind and Time Stones, with Strange, Iron Man, and Spider-Man joining with everyone else).
496** Vormir isn't necessarily inaccessible - when Gamora tells Thanos that's where the Soul stone is, he doesn't react in a way that suggests it's anything more than another planet. It's simply that until now, Vormir had no significance to him. He travels using the Space stone just because it's faster and more convenient.
497[[/folder]]
498
499[[folder: "Come with me, I have something to show you."]]
500* At the end of ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'', Shuri told Bucky she had something to show him. The implication was that she was showing his new arm. In this movie, Bucky starts off armless and T'Challa shows him his new prosthetic. What was Shuri going to show him?
501** Maybe it was the specs/prototype for his new arm.
502** The post-credits scene was originally longer, including a bit where Bucky meets the Wakandan tribe elders.
503** It's only loosely implied it was his new arm, it could be anything really.
504** Given it some thought I realize it probably was his new arm, and Bucky refused it, seeing it as weapon and symbol of the time he was a brainwashed slave. T'Challa bringing it to him in IW was saying "We need you as a warrior".
505** It does make the most sense. The scene could be them presenting Bucky with the arm and him refusing, saying "I have no battles left to fight." In IW, he pretty much recognizes the call and says immediately "where's the fight?"
506** Wasn't the actual wording, "Come along, there is much for you to learn?" I took it as she was catching him up on all the happenings since he was in cryostasis.
507[[/folder]]
508
509[[folder:Tony and Nebula stuck on Titan]]
510* How will Tony and Nebula survive in a planet with zero resources and no spaceships or no materials and scraps to repair a broken ship?
511** As seen in ''Guardians Vol 2'', the Guardian's model of ship have nanotech repair spray on them. Nebula would know how to use it. It's easy enough to write them off Titan.
512** Are you kidding? The whole planet is covered in ruins and broken tech - including the satellite thingie Stark dropped on Thanos - plus Benatar, Nebula's Necropod and at least one crashed Doughnut-ship (although there were more Doughnuts on Titan). Tony is outside the cave with a planet full of scraps. They'll be fine.
513** While not shown on-screen, Guardians got to get there somehow, and that being the Benatar. With a bit of luck, it's still parked somewhere nearby untouched.
514** The Benatar is actually shown on-screen in an establishing shot of Titan, after the Guardians vs Avengers mini-fight. So it is definitely there.
515** If not the Benatar, they'll probably get assistance from Captain Marvel or Thor via the Bifrost.
516** Remember that Tony invented his armor from zero IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! Mere repairs to a ship with the junk of an extinct civilization lying around is playtime. If not for the urgency of this conflict, he may even turn the Benatar into the USS Enterprise, just so he can say "Beam me up, Scotty!" (and then Nebula asks who is Scotty, and what is it to "beam up")
517[[/folder]]
518
519[[folder: We have a Hulk?]]
520* Okay, so you have a Hulk. Exactly ''where'' was the Hulk when Thanos and his minions were slaughtering everyone on the ship and beating down Thor? He came out of nowhere and was a complete surprise, even though he didn't last long.
521** The screenwriters said in an interview that they think that "it was a plan on their part", that they were waiting for Thanos to get into the right position to attack him and catch him off guard. They also admitted that it was also done for cinematic effect and suspension.
522[[/folder]]
523
524[[folder:Why no teleportation?]]
525* After Peter and Tony save Strange, they have a long discussion on how to steer the ship, either back to Earth or on to Thanos' rendezvous point. Why didn't Strange simply open a teleportation portal? Does that spell not work in space?
526** Presumably Donut-ship is going through Hyperspace or some such, which prevents teleportation. It is also probably is a subject to range, since otherwise Strange could've just thrown Thanos into the Sun or something.
527** Also, Strange would presumably need to be at least passingly familiar with the location he's teleporting to, meaning that he wouldn't be able to get them ''to'' wherever the Q-Ship is taking them.
528** Its quite possible that the teleportation requires some knowledge of the destination relative to your actual position. Dr. Strange knows where his Sanctum is in New York, he knows where on Earth is New York, but he has no idea where the Earth is (related to the ship flying to the unknown).
529** A friend of mine roleplays as Loki and theorizes the spell he uses to materialize objects (Tesseract, daggers, etc.) requires the knowledge of three key details: what he's materializing, where it is now, and where he wants it to be. Strange's teleportation could easily require him to know the same details in order to function. Strange may know what he wants to teleport (the ship/himself, Stark, and Parker) and where he wants to send it to (Earth), but he probably doesn't know exactly where they are right now. And if he wanted to teleport to Titan, then he's also not familiar with the destination.
530[[/folder]]
531
532[[folder: Dora Milaje and Royal Guards]]
533* Before the Outrider invasion of Wakanda, Okoye states that the remaining Border Tribe warriors, the Royal Guard, and the Dora Milaje are available for the battle. The Dora Milaje are the king's bodyguards, what do the Royal Guards do then?
534** Guard the city and palace like a Wakandan Capitol Police while the Dora Milaje are the Secret Service?
535** Probably just a prestige military unit that answers directly to the throne. In real life, the United Kingdom (and several other monarchies) have multiple Guard/Household units that operate as conventional military as well as in ceremonial and public protection duties, but they're not actually the top-tier assets in the royal family's protection scheme. The Dora Milaje, as stated above, would be analogous to the US Secret Service, probably with some of the roles of a counter-terrorism unit like 22 SAS.
536** To use a Game of Thrones analogy, the Dora Milaje are the Kingsguard, while the Royal Guard are the City Watch.
537[[/folder]]
538
539[[folder: Gamora picking Nebula over trillions]]
540* It's established that Gamora was willing to die to protect the location of the Soul Stone from Thanos. She knows (more than anyone) that half the universe is at stake. Yet, all Thanos has to do is torture Nebula a bit and Gamora's leading him right to the Soul Stone's location. What gives? Even with all the tortures Thanos could inflict upon her with the stones he has, where did that resolve go?
541** It's a common trope (and probably TruthInTelevision) that seeing those who you love suffer is sometimes harder to take than actually suffer yourself. She was ready to sacrifice herself, but not her sister.
542** Dying or sacrificing [[AMillionIsAStatistic theoretical trillions you can't see]] is easier than seeing a loved one suffer horribly before your eyes.
543*** This. How often do you hear about people dying on the news? Probably daily. And yet, we can hear about young children starving to death, but cry when a 90-year-old we knew personally dies in their sleep. Because that's how human emotions usually work.
544** Gamora still holds the hope that Thanos can be stopped, even with the Soul Stone in his possession. And it seemed that she was correct, the Soul Stone didn't noticeably augment Thanos' abilities, only when he used it with the other five at the end.
545** One of the major plot points in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'' was Nebula's lifelong resentment at Gamora over Thanos' preferential treatment of her. Whenever they were made to duel, Gamora would come out on top, and Nebula would be punished for her weakness - perhaps in the exact same way we saw her being tortured in this movie. Thanos knows how much guilt this left on Gamora and counts on her reluctance to see her sister suffer yet again on her behalf.
546** Sacrifice is also a major theme of the movie, and it’s constantly debated what it costs, what it’ll achieve, and whether it’s all worth it. Gamora is forced to consider sacrificing Nebula and finds she can’t do it, even for something as important as keeping the Soul Stone from Thanos.
547** As Cap puts it, "We don't trade lives" of others (they are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commensurability_(ethics) not interchangeable]]), we can only put down our own. From the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism utilitarian]] viewpoint (Thanos's) she made an absolutely stupid and even evil choice. From the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics deontological]] / [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics virtue ethics]] (Cap's) standpoint, she made the right choice. Since she died as a direct result of it, from this standpoint it is basically a HeroicSacrifice.
548** If Gamora lets Nebula die to protect the secret, you think Thanos will just stop at that? He'll go after the Guardians next, meaning Gamora has to potentially let five more people die. If she holds out for that, Thanos will become even more aggressive. Thanos is going to find the stone anyway, but Nebula being spared allows her to escape and potentially warn the Guardians about how much he knows - allowing them to prepare for what may happen next.
549[[/folder]]
550
551[[folder: Thor's best friend]]
552* Okay, this one overlaps a lot with ''Ragnarok.'' When Thor and Star-Lord compare their trauma congas, Thor says his best friend was stabbed through the heart, obviously referring to Heimdall. But when he was definitely on good terms with Heimdall, I thought his best friends were the warriors three, the ones prominent in Thor 1 and 2, and those who are killed in Ragnarok and never mentioned again. I understand they were unpopular with fans, but this seems like a huge retcon, when Thor doesn't seems to even remember they existed (Ragnarok) and mention them as his best friends (Infinity War).
553** Probably had something to do with Thor never actually personally seeing them being killed in front of him like with what happened to Heimdall.
554** Thor would have learned of the Warrior's deaths by then; Heimdall qualified for his best friend because he was the only one of his close friends ''left'' at that point.
555** Point of fact -- each of the Warriors Three was ''also'' stabbed in the heart.
556** It's not just that Thor was not there when the W3 were killed, he completely ignores which was their actual fate. The only ones who knew that were Hela (who did not mention any of this) and Skurge (who died during the whole fight, and had not tike to share memories). He may have a vague notion that Hela must have killed them, but can't be sure. He may even entertain the idea that they may have escaped and be alive somewhere, after all, they NeverFoundTheBody (but we, the audience, know better).
557** Perhaps what he meant was one of his best friends was recently killed in that way?
558*** One could even consider it a reference to ''Coulson'''s (apparent) death, which has troubled him for years.
559** The Russo's confirmed in an interview that Thor was indeed talking about Heimdall when he said that his best friend was stabbed through the heart.
560[[/folder]]
561
562[[folder:Population Density]]
563* Given Earth's very different population densities, would randomly killing half the population actually help out in the long run?
564** Its a general concern brought up many times in many places. Thanos's solution is ineffective even in the short term, let alone the long term. Killing half the population may seem like a lot, but this knocks 2018 Earth's population down to around 4 billion, or approximately the same population it had in 1974. Assuming Thanos only cared about sheer numbers, he's bought Earth a couple of decades at most. But it's hard to justify Thanos caring about anything else ''but'' sheer numbers, when if he took literally the ''slightest'' interest in the innumerable factors that could affect his plan, he'd see it was doomed from the get-go.
565** More specifically, the best case scenario is that Thanos hits a society when it's just past the threshold where their extinction is imminent from overpopulation, but the sudden cull comes in time to noticeably save them. Such a society might then be inclined to do as Thanos wishes. More plausibly, Thanos' efforts are either negligible or accidentally catastrophic. Thanos specifies his plan is to essentially rely on a lottery system. Across the cosmos, this means he's doomed worlds to extinction by, for instance, killing too many women for the world to survive, or putting down almost all doctors.
566** That and the inevitable wars (many species blaming others for the disappearance) and the colossal fear, panic and despair would cripple many worlds and lead to the end of their civilizations.
567** But hey, there's bound to be some survivors from all these who could rebuild and learn from past mistakes, so it sort of works out in the long term.
568** Thanos' whole plan falls apart at even the slightest bit of scrutiny. War would be extremely common, which would only increase resource usage. Most civilizations that didn't outright implode would likely experience a baby boom afterwards, thereby either nullifying the snap entirely or making the population numbers higher than before.
569[[/folder]]
570
571[[folder:Bruce Remembering Thanos]]
572* How did Bruce retain all of his memories of meeting Thanos as the Hulk, so as to not only tell Tony who he is, but remember every single detail he was probably filled in on at that point, like the Infinity Stones and his being responsible for the New York incident?
573** Banner explains in ''Ragnarok'' that his 2 years as the Hulk were not the norm for the pair, with Hulk taking full control instead of "sharing the drivers seat". We can thus assume Hulk decided to once again share some control with Banner in the few hours between the end of ''Ragnarok'' and start of ''Infinity War'', and thus Banner was cognizant again of what happened while Hulked out.
574** That, and we didn't see any scenes between Ragnarok and Infinity War. Loki or Thor could have told Banner the details about Thanos before he Hulked out again when Thanos attacked the ship.
575** Bruce has mentioned remembering bits and pieces of what happens as the Hulk. Even though he described his two years on Sakaar as being "locked in the trunk", he still retained a vague recollection of Valkyrie, which implies Banner was still kind of aware of what was going on. We see in Infinity War that Banner and Hulk can communicate with one another. Hulk would definitely remember the ass-kicking that made him not want to come out again, and probably passed that information to Banner mid-transformation.
576** Two points, first of all, in the scene where he turns back to Banner and gives the warning, note that he practically launches into the warning the ''moment'' he's fully Banner again. There's usually a bit of a recovery when he turns back from the Hulk, but not this time. This is almost a reverse of what happened in the "I'm always angry" scene, that is, transform and instantly act. So if Banner can pass on knowledge and suggestions to the Hulk (which he did in ''The Avengers''), it stands to reason that Hulk can do the same with Banner.
577** Second of all, there's precedent in the comic for Hulk turning back into Banner, only for Banner to know what's going on and continue whatever action Hulk started.
578** Ruffalo and others have also mentioned that, despite what Ragnarok seemed to imply, the line between Banner and Hulk is ''blurring''. More vivid memories of his time as Hulk may be a consequence of that.
579[[/folder]]
580
581[[folder:Thanos's motivation]]
582* Thanos seeks to wipe out half of all life in the universe due to his concerns about overpopulation and resource consumption... but why is he so concerned in the first place? What does he gain from his quest, besides the contempt of pretty much everyone he meets? How is it worth it to him to have the most powerful and persistent beings in the universe trying to kill him on a regular basis? Sometimes in other stories, it's a matter of saving one's own people, but most of the Titans have long since perished at the time of the film.
583** Probably because he's the last of his kind (implied, we might see some surviving Eternals in the sequel). He believes that resource consumption leads to pain, suffering and eventual extinction for everyone, and doesn't want what happened to Titan to happen to every inhabited planet in the universe. He doesn't care what people think of him, he knows what he's doing is right.
584** Thanos is the dark side of vigilantism. He's kinda to the movies what Frank Castle was to Matt Murdock during ''Daredevil'' season 2. Just as Captain America is dead set on doing the "right thing" by not sacrificing lives when there's even one other choice, even though others (including Vision) argue TheNeedsOfTheMany, Thanos takes TheNeedsOfTheMany to it's ultimate extreme: If entire generations could be "spared" having to suffer an OverpopulationCrisis by removing half of them in an utterly fair, painless way, isn't that much better than more than 50% killing each other in wars? Thanos is extremely cynical, basically insanely cynical. He takes it as given an OverpopulationCrisis will happen everywhere eventually, and he wants to do his part to make people not have to suffer it. because it's the "right thing" to do. Other people's idea of what's right be damned. Consequences to himself be damned. It's the same thing all the heroes from Iron Man to Captain America to Black Panther have been doing for years. What do they gain personally by any of their actions? How much have each of them sacrificed for the "greater good"? And if any of them had gone through losing Earth like he lost Titan, they could easily be doing the exact same thing (and honestly, by ''Avengers 4'', they probably are going to be doing something extremely dangerous and screwed up to try and fix this film).
585** He described Gamora's world as a paradise after having killed half its population. Genocide isn't right, but when it meets with good results it's hard to argue against it.
586** Actually, Gamora's the last of her species. So it turns out that that the [[AxeCrazy Mad Titan]] is just off his meds.
587*** We have two conflicting reports on that -- according to Thanos, the planet is thriving now. If Gamora was the last, she would have said so to counter that point.
588** There's also the fact that, as he sees it, he wasn't allowed to save his people. He's convinced his plan of "kill half the people on Titan" would have worked, and I think he wants vindication that he could have done it, it would have been fair, and that this time it'll work and he'll be the hero he could have been to his people.
589** He doesn't personally gain anything from it, which is what makes him so interesting. He doesn't seek ultimate power for his own sake, just as a means to enact his particular plan, which he believes to be beneficial to the entire universe. In his mind, he's being selfless. The fact that his version of selflessness involves killing half of everybody who isn't himself shows how twisted his mind really is.
590** Who said it was "everybody who isn't himself"? I think the Russos have implied that Thanos did not exclude himself from the random lottery.
591[[/folder]]
592
593[[folder:Eitri the last of his kind]]
594* If Thanos was focused on killing half the people of each world, why not leave half of Eitri's dwarves alive?
595** Pure pragmatism: Since they are the only ones being able to make weapons that can actually harm him, and half of them would probably be still capable of doing so.
596** The majority of the Dwarven population is on Svartalfheim, one of the nine realms. Killing one outpost of them is just a tiny push in the right direction as far as Thanos is concerned.
597** Actually, Svartalfheim has already been shown in the MCU. It's the home of [[Film/ThorTheDarkWorld the Dark Elves]].
598** Worth noting here that in the original Norse myths, "dark elves" and "dwarves" were interchangeable terms for the same kind of being.
599** Eitri refers to there being three hundred dwarves on the station and Thanos killing them. He never said Thanos killed off the rest of his species.
600[[/folder]]
601
602[[folder:Sure, let's all sacrifice ourselves for the Vision]]
603* It's understandable why the Avengers would want to protect the Vision, but T'Challa barely knows him, and to the other Wakandans he's just a random superhero. Also, the Vision himself is willing to die so the Mind Stone can be destroyed. So why aren't any of the Wakandans suggesting he should take up on his offer? Why are they willing to sacrifice their lives by the thousands just to save one life? What makes the Vision more important than any other person? And shouldn't he himself be horrified by the massacre that's gonna happen in his name and refuse the Wakandans' protection?
604** Captain America explains to Vision that they don't trade lives. Even though Vision is an android, he is still an ally and friend, worthy of protection. They bring Vision to Wakanda to try to find a way to extract the Mind Stone without killing Vision. They wanted to exhaust ALL other options before resorting to sacrificing Vision. When it became clear the Stone extraction plan wasn't going to play out due to everyone being overwhelmed on the ground, THEN it is decided that if Vision has to die, so be it. They understandably didn't want to enact the last resort if they didn't have to. Vision is no more important than anyone else; they would have done this for anybody who had an Infinity Stone in his forehead. T'Challa barely knew Bucky, and spent the majority of Civil War attempting to kill him, but still did everything he could to help Bucky in the end.
605** There are various more pragmatic possible reasons. Namely Bucky referring to things as "the end of the world" suggests the Wakandans have been told enough to understand the gravity of what is going on. Ergo they know that not fighting is no guarantee of safety, Earth is going to be attacked regardless and they won't be spared, so better to have Thanos' forces come directly to them and have a "noble" end fighting. If they destroy the stone then they may suspect Thanos' forces would likely come anyway and kill them all as punishment. Yes they would keep Thanos from his goal but they would also lose one of the Earth's most powerful super heroes. It may be that they recognize that in a practical sense Vision's life is worth more than theirs in terms of what he can do in a fight. If they can get the stone off him then they can destroy it and still have Vision around to help them fight.
606** Alternatively, the Wakandans may have underestimated the gravity of what they were facing (depends on just what info Bruce relayed to them), since only small forces had been attacking Earth so far, i.e. they thought their shield would be enough protection and if they had to fight they had far superior numbers, and by the time they realized they were wrong it was probably too late to back down.
607** It wasn't really for Vision. When army shows up on your doorstep, you go and fight - its unlikely that Outriders would just say sorry, pack up and leave had the stone been destroyed. Had Avengers known bringing Vision to Wakanda would bring war upon it, they might have reconsidered, but they didn't know. It just happened.
608** The Avengers absolutely should have known bringing Vision to Wakanda would cause a massacre. They know that what Banner had told them, that Thanos will do anything to acquire the Stones, and that in order to get one of them his crew had slaughtered hundreds of Asgardians, who are much tougher than any humans. So when they brought Vision to Wakanda and found out removing the Mind Stone can't be removed instantaneously, it shouldn't have come as any surprise to them that this would give Thanos enough time to launch an attack and kill hundreds of Wakandans. So clearly they thought Vision's life is more important than the lives of those Wakandan warriors. Why either Vision or T'Challa (who must've been told what Banner had seen) would allow this to happen remains a mystery.
609** Of course they knew bringing Vision to Wakanda would result in a battle-- that's half the reason they brought him there. There's someone there smart enough with the technology to possibly extract the Mind Stone without killing Vis, and Wakanda has warriors and protection for when someone came for Vision, which they knew would happen because they all knew Thanos and his Children could track the Infinity Stones. The battle was inevitable, and was ALWAYS meant to be a diversion. Steve Rogers wouldn't have called T'Challa without telling him the details. When he left Bucky in Wakanda, he directly told T'Challa there were people who would come for him if they knew he was there, to which T'Challa said "Let them try." Vision openly told them not to wage a battle on his behalf, but Steve Rogers directly tells him they aren't trading lives. It can be argued it would have been more practical to kill Vision earlier rather than have lots of people die, but Rogers operates on rigid HonorBeforeReason. It turned out to be the wrong move, but it's not much of a mystery why that was the decision made. It's one thing to let warriors die in a battle to protect someone, but something else to sacrifice an ally when there's even a sliver of a chance you might not have to.
610** Obviously, T'Challa and the Wakandans were okay with fighting a delaying action against Thanos' forces when they came for Vision. Obviously the preferred solution would be to have the Mind Stone out and destroyed before Thanos got there, but that didn't happen, so battle. And even if they had gotten the Stone destroyed, Thanos probably would have attacked anyway. Thing is, Steve Rogers isn't someone to not tell an ally the whole story, so he outlined exactly what he wanted and what he reasonably believed the consequences would be to T'Challa, and T'Challa agreed to help, whether unilaterally as King of Wakanda or because the people supported that decision, who knows. If T'Challa hadn't been okay with spending Wakandan soldiers against Thanos' forces, he would have told Rogers and company to leave, or not even let them in in the first place.
611--->'''Rogers''': T'Challa, there's a GalacticConquerer with a huge army and spaceships coming for the MacGuffin in this guy's head, we need time to get it out so we can destroy it without killing him. They're going to come for it, we'll have to fight them off until that's done. Can you help?\
612'''T'Challa''': Certainly my friend.\
613''(OR)''\
614'''T'Challa''': GetOut.
615[[/folder]]
616
617[[folder:Malekith and the Reality Stone]]
618* Why was the original owner of the Aether/Reality Stone so "bad" at using the Stone unlike Thanos? Why did its effects seem very different? (Liquid/Gaseous projectiles and general destruction vs rewriting reality) Sure, he did attempt to convert the universe to eternal darkness, but asking about how he used it for combat.
619** Well, the projectiles and the general destruction ''is'' altering reality in a more indirect fashion. Besides, we don't see Thanos using just the Reality Stone, we see him using it ''while'' also having the Power Stone. So maybe Malekith didn't have enough juice to use the Stone to its full potential.
620** It's also worth noting that Thanos's changes to reality aren't permanent; as soon as he leaves Knowhere, Drax and Mantis revert back to their original state. Presumably it's only possible to permanently change reality at the snap of your fingers when you have all six Stones.
621** He seemed to not have used lethal attacks if possible (otherwise he could heave easily and brutally killed everyone during his walk towards Wanda and Vision) and preferred to give them a fair chance with his snap. So he could have deliberately spared their lives. Other stuff like weapons were permanently changed to things like bubbles. Also Malekith’s goal makes no sense if it wasn’t permanent.
622** Malekith was just a fool who had no idea of the true potential of the thing he had.
623** It's implied that using the stones together increases their effectiveness. Bear in mind that, for Thanos' purposes, the mind stone is absolutely useless on its own when it comes to wiping out half of existence -- he clearly didn't care about the thoughts of the survivors, he doesn't keep his victims complacent, and we see no other direct effects of the mind stone's use in the fingersnap. By all appearances, the stones simply chain their power together so that even one stone's use is magnified by having the others in the gauntlet.
624** Malekith was trying to do something different with it. Evidently, in addition to the reality-warping Thanos used it for and the return-the-universe-to-darkness thing, the Aether could also blast people in its kind-of-gaseous form, just like how the Mind Stone could do mind-control in Loki's sceptre, empower Wanda and Pietro, and provide part of the code for Ultron and Vision's minds. Also, Malekith was a) returning the universe to darkness while fighting Thor, so he apparently needed it (or thought he needed it) in its kind-of-gaseous form, and it's easy to hit people with tentacles of red smoke, and b) Thanos needed the gauntlet to channel all the stones' powers, whereas Malekith absorbed the Aether into himself and wielded it directly with his mind - perhaps rewriting reality is harder than a relatively simple task of "be red smoke and remake/unmake the stars, and also hit anyone who comes near me".
625** In the comics, no one knew what they were prior to Thanos collecting them. In fact, he collected them once before without knowing what they truly were. They were all believed to be Soul Gems since Adam Warlock's was the one most were familiar with. Prior to Thanos Quest, the gems were in the hands of the Elders of the Universe who only were able to tap into their most basic abilities.
626** Malekith's goal was to bring back the Darkness. The Reality Stone is (by itself) only local and limited by time and permanence, like when Thanos left Knowhere, and Drax and Mantis returned to norm. In order to genuinely rewrite reality itself, one would need a source of power and access to distant parts of the universe. The Infinity Gauntlet is the way that Thanos used, but it isn't the only way. Malekith was taking advantage of the extraordinarily rare Cosmic Alignment that caused a confluence of Power and Space, potentially allowing a wielder of the Reality Stone to rewrite the Cosmos in some ways. As a Dark Elf, Malekith had the innate power to wield a single Infinity Stone, but probably not more than one, so he sought to use the Convergence to amplify the effect of the single stone -- at the time, any one being wielding more than one Infinity Stone at the same time was unheard of, and perhaps deemed impossible.
627[[/folder]]
628
629[[folder: Bifrost?]]
630* Wasn't the bifrost destroyed along with Asgard? It was previously established in the first Thor movie that the structure is required for teleportation and yet both Heimdall and Thor are able to summon the rainbow bridge.
631** The Bifrost Bridge is only named after the Bifrost, it isn't the Bifrost itself. It has the technology to ''summon'' the Bifrost. Heimdall summoned the Bifrost by using Dark Energy (like they did off-screen between ''Thor'' and ''Avengers'') and Thor's axe is specifically forged to be able to summon it (the Bifrost symbol is on the forge).
632** To elaborate: the Bifrost is an inter-dimensional pathway, sort of like a portable wormhole that allows you to travel from one place to the next. Usually it connects the Nine Realms, but Heimdall and Thor (with Stormbreaker) have the ability to manipulate its energies wherever they are.
633[[/folder]]
634
635[[folder:Thanos's plan, long term?]]
636* I get easing the burden of limited resources by reducing the population of the universe by half, but does Thanos have a plan for limiting birthrates to sustain this more manageable population? To put things in perspective, the Earth's current population is about 7.6 billion. Half of that is 3.8 billion. That was the global population in 1972! So what's to stop Earth and any other similar planet from doubling our population again and being right back where we were pre-Thanos in about 50 years? Populations rapidly increase when resources are abundant. Scarcity of resources then acts as a natural balance. In a few generations it'll be like Thanos never did anything at all!
637** There is no long term. This Thanos doesn't want to be a god. He just wanted to do what he could for the people out there right now, no different from any of the heroes. In his dream scenario, Gamora and her progeny would have taken up his place and done their part to "protect" the universe.
638** There's a reason that Thanos is referred to as "The ''Mad'' Titan" and not "The Reasonable and Well-Thought-Out Titan."
639** To quote myself in an earlier folder: "All these points are assuming that the death of half the universe was just a "one and done" event. It's possible that Thanos altered reality to keep the populations under control, so if they start increasing too much, more people will be killed until the population is brought back down to manageable levels."
640** Also, not many people might wanna procreate after incurring a family's death and a few bloodlines might die out from losing the only child.
641** Thanos is an extremist. Bear in mind, per his own game plan, he thinks the universe is going to be grateful for what he does. We're not meant to think Thanos is sane.
642** Considering that he thinks the universe will be grateful, it's likely that he thinks that this will convince the universe to go along with his original plan from way back on Titan. That is, that everyone everywhere will go, "wow, things are GREAT now that half the population is gone, we should follow his example through mundane means from now on." In other words, this was all a political act. He murdered half the universe to prove that he'd been right all along. He envisioned a universe where euthanasia as a method of population control was an accepted norm.
643** There a ton of things this plan doesn't cover, like worlds where intelligent life hasn't evolved yet. Worlds where the intelligent population died out billions of years ago. A world devastated by one race might actually be a paradise to different life form. In other words, "Not a great plan". MCU Thanos simply isn't the visionary he thinks he is.
644[[/folder]]
645
646[[folder:"We didn't think of it"]]
647* When Shuri and Banner talk about Vision, Banner says they had to technobabble yadda-yadda, and then when she asks him why didn't they jargon jargon technobabble Banner looks awkward and replies "Because we didn't think of it". Except it was Ultron who did any of that. Banner and Tony didn't even touch Vision's body, it was locked in the cradle. They just modified and half-uploaded Jarvis into him. So what gives?
648** It was played for laughs, so I doubt the science was to be taken seriously. Besides, Vision was created to be better than Ultron was, which didn't need too much effort since he already had a conscience.
649** It seems to be more of a way to do CharacterShilling for Shuri. As for an actual reason, given that Banner didn't outright make Vision, he wouldn't have any reason to think of that, Ultron made him first so Banner just had no idea the process used to make him outside of what he and Tony did to finish him.
650** As they say in the movie, Vision is composed of the minds of Tony, Bruce, Ultron, JARVIS, and the Stone. Given that Tony and Bruce created Ultron, presumably much of Vision's "brain" bears the mark of their design. So in a way, they ''did'' make Vision.
651** Tony and Bruce DID perform additional work on Vision's body between taking it from Ultron and Vision being "born". Once Clint delivered it to the tower, Tony decided to "fix" his Ultron mistake by downloading JARVIS into it; despite Ultron being a digital entity, the science bros agreed that it had a very different structure from JARVIS's AI, and since Vision's brain had originally been intended to hold Ultron's consciousness, it's possible they had to rewire or refit something to make it compatible with JARVIS instead.
652** Vision was around and conscious for more than just the movies. Even though Banner himself was busy, Banner's also got guilt complexes, and thinks of Tony as a close friend. He'd be kicking himself for not being there to do the job himself.
653[[/folder]]
654
655[[folder:What can Thanos do if time is stopped? And I mean STOPPED???]]
656* Forgive me if this tactic has been brought up and debunked before, but I can't seem to find where. The Time Stone held by Dr. Strange give its wielder unlimited control over time, such that they have the ability to cause temporal paradoxes if they so choose. (Or heck, he did that without the Time Stone, furthering my point.) If Dr. Strange just stopped time, are we really going to say "Thanos would have blablabla his way out of it and it wouldn't have worked"??? I don't see that making any sense. When the team is wrestling the gauntlet off of him, stop time, take it off, send him into the sun such that there is no returning, resume time. Have his teammates help him if need be. Dr. Strange has a medical license, is under oath to 'do no harm'. I think there's leeway to removing a guys arms to save trillions of lives. It's been shown that the portals they make can dismember people. This isn't brain surgery, and he is a certified surgeon, so the idea that none of this crossed anyones mind is just staggering after a while.
657** While time was being reversed during {{Film/Doctor Strange|2016}} Kaecilius and his men were able to get themselves out of it even though that doesn't seem like it should be logically possible. If they can do it, perhaps Thanos could also do something about it even though he's not a magic user.
658** Thanos control over space with the Tesseract could technically make him immune to time shenanigans, he can move out of it.
659** Also do we know if Strange can stop time, let alone do it easily? What we've seen him do is move time forward and backward for certain objects/people and surroundings. And even if he could stop time, doing so while he was already devoting so much effort to restrain Thanos may have simply been beyond him.
660** Wong made it sound like stopping or reversing time too much could break the universe, so yeah, probably not a great idea.
661** The answer to this and any other "why didn't Strange do X?" headscratcher is "because in one of the fourteen million plus futures he looked at, he tried that, and it failed big time." Maybe Thanos with four Stones could NoSell time travel, or maybe using it on someone with four Stones caused a RealityBreakingParadox ''way'' worse than what Thanos did, with no way to fix it.
662** Or in his fourteen million plus future he looked he never thought of it? As big as it is it's still a finite number he didn't see all the possibilities so you can't just say he thought of it and it failed because we don't know what those futures were. For all we know ten millions of those future was a failure because they didn't know Thanos needed to close his fist and two other millions is because Nebula accidentally rammed one of them when she hit Thanos with the ship.
663*** Extremely unlikely. Strange wasn't trying to see as many futures as possible - he was looking for possible ''outcomes''. Watching multiple futures differing from each other only with extremely small details that have no bearing on the overall outcome would be [[ViolationOfCommonSense the absolutely most stupid thing that he could do at this moment.]] And even if he did that - yes, there may be a better solution that he didn't think about. Problem is, he already has a plan that he knows will work. Even on the off chance that he did come up with something different that seems like a good plan, why risk it blowing up in his face spectacularly with hope that it will turn out better than original plan when he knows that said original plan will work?
664** Notice how in ''Film/{{Doctor Strange|2016}}'', the other sorcerers were able to free themselves from Strange's time manipulation. Apparently sufficient skill at one type of reality manipulation allows you to resist other types. Thanos has four Infinity Stones at this point. He'd break out as easily as he did from the Mirror Dimension.
665[[/folder]]
666
667[[folder: What language is everyone speaking?]]
668* One of the Thor movies (forgive me for not remembering, at the moment, which one) lampshaded the unlikelihood of the alien Asgardians just so happening to speak English, but handwaved it rather elegantly by suggesting that English simply happens to have evolved from Asgardian, presumably during their time on Earth (granted, silly, but we've seen sillier in superhero movies). But surely, that can't be the case too for ''everywhere'' in the universe--yet the Guardians of the Galaxy speak with Earthlings, Earthlings speak with Titans and Titans with dwarfs, all without a problem!
669** ...what? No, the Thor movies did not imply English is the same language as Asgardian. Asgardians either have magic TranslatorMicrobes or just speak English; they're thousands of years old and have had contact with Earth before. In fact, it was a joke in ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' that when Sif lost all her memories except those from her childhood, she still knew a ''lot'', because Asgardians learn plenty of stuff as children, explicitly including alien languages. All the Guardians have TranslatorMicrobes, Thanos probably does too, and the dwarf only spoke with Thor (see previous note about Asgardians and languages) and Rocket (see previous note about Guardians and TranslatorMicrobes).
670** There's a line in the script for ''Film/{{Thor}}'' in which Jane is surprised that the Warriors Three are speaking English, and Fandral replies, "''Your'' language? My dear, you're speaking ''our'' language." The line was cut. Probably for the best.
671
672[[/folder]]
673
674[[folder: What about the rest of the MCU?]]
675* Didn't they already reveal plans for upcoming Spider Man and Black Panther films? How're we supposed to take those characters' deaths seriously when we know the studio can't actually kill them? Or was revealing those films all part of a great XanatosGambit to get us all to be more shocked by the twist ending of this one?
676** Take those deaths as seriously as someone reading the Infinity Gauntlet comics for the first time would have when Thanos killed all the heroes in that issue.
677** Also, there are ways more Spider-Man and Black Panther movies could be made without Peter Parker and T'Challa. Have Miles Morales and Shuri take over for them, or have them take place before this movie...
678** And what about the Guardians of the Galaxy? They're not going to have much of a Guardians movie if all of the Guardians are dead except Rocket (and Nebula, if she counts as a Guardian).
679** Consider that ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' came out right before ''Infinity War'', but is set chronologically a mere week after the events of ''[[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Civil War]]'', a difference of two years. ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'' looks like it's also going to be set directly after Civil War, rather than directly after Infinity War. It's not impossible for the new movies to be set ''before'' Infinity War and simply released in AnachronicOrder.
680** We already know that Spider-Man's sequel will take place after Avengers 4 and will star Tom Holland.
681** Important to note that Marvel films are massive, cross-racial so blockbusters. Most regular moviegoers don't know the future release dates of all the future Marvel films like hardcore geeks do. For all Joe Schmoe knows, these characters really were killed off.
682** Even people who don't really know much about comic books know that important characters tend to come back to life sooner or later. But even for cynical hardcore comic book fans, that doesn't diminish the emotional impact in the moment if the film is well-crafted. Knowing that Peter Parker will be alive and well for his sequel didn't diminish the emotional impact of watching a scared child fade to dust in the arms of his surrogate father.
683
684[[/folder]]
685
686
687[[folder:What About the Rest of the Marvel Universe?]]
688* I know that the X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. are not technically part of the MCU, but in the end they're still Marvel. It would be more than a little weird if they weren't affected by Thanos using the Infinity Gauntlet.
689** You do know they aren't the same universe right? Just because they are ''Marvel'' characters doesn't mean the movie has any ties the other franchises.
690** Yeah, the X-Men don't exist in the Avengers' cinematic universe and vice versa, despite both being Marvel franchises. It's an issue with licensing. That's why neither of them have been so much as mentioned in the other's films.
691** In other words its not a "technically" thing. The X-Men and such do not at present exist in the MCU and Thanos' snap effected only his own universe. There is nothing weird about it having no effect elsewhere.
692** Yes, even if we admit MCU and Fox X-Men universe are part of comics multiverse, each universe has a glove, and the glove works only in its own universe. By the way, it's unlikely all of this could happen in a universe X-Men and FF live in, and they don't show up for help.
693** ''Avengers 4'' is going to be about fixing all of this, so basically: Everyone you saw die or did not see live will live. Everyone you saw live may die. Those are the stakes.
694** And don't expect any references to be made to the ''Infinity War'' events during ''Agents of SHIELD'' or any of the upcoming Netflix shows (''Series/{{Luke Cage|2016}}'' season 2, ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'' season 3, ''Series/{{Iron Fist|2017}}'' season 2, or ''Series/{{The Punisher|2017}}'' season 2).
695*** Wait, but what else do those shows even exist for if not to be affected by (and subsequently talk about being affected by) the movies?
696*** If you had seen the Netflix series (and Runaways), you should already know that the references to the films are from minimal to non-existent. Besides, those are dramas, and half the cast "disappearing" because of some strange cosmic effect from beyond the series and returning a season afterwards would seem in bad taste, plus confusing to those who don't watch the movies. As for SHIELD, they thought that the series was ending, so they arranged things to work as a series finale (besides, the film was released more or less by the end of the season). The 6th season will air ''after'' Avengers 4, so it probably won't deal with it either.
697** Not sure about the Netflix shows, but Agents of SHIELD is already referencing the events of Infinity War, with Thanos being mentioned by name as the alien conqueror menacing Earth, though it's unknown when they'll reference half the population dying.
698*** Jeph Loeb has said that the Netflix shows currently in production will all be set pre-Snap. As for whether the Snap gets acknowledged, well, don't expect to turn on one of the upcoming Netflix shows and hear “Yeah, [insert major character here] is dead now. They dissolved into dirt, along with half the city” because that would be confusing for Netflix viewers who didn't see ''Infinity War'', and would be a serious status quo upset. (I could see that maybe happening on ''Agents of SHIELD'', because that is tied so closely to the films, but not in the Netflix shows.) But it would also be unrealistic if the events of the movie were completely ignored. At this point, the best guess is that the two halves of the movie take place in direct succession, and that therefore, all of the Marvel properties coming out in the next year will take place afterward. (Let's assume that most of the dead people will be brought back in ''Avengers 4'' via Infinity Stone shenanigans). Thus, there will likely not be any inconvenient dead people in the Netflix shows, as the entire situation gets erased from the timeline (which is possible– again, Infinity Stones).
699* On a related note, what was the point of Disney buying out Fox anyway? It seems kind of late in the saga to just suddenly introduce entirely new franchises into the series like everyone seems to be expecting.
700** Disney acquired Fox for far more important and lucrative reasons. The X-Men and FF are just an added bonus. Disney did not acquire Fox just for them.
701[[/folder]]
702
703[[folder:Thor and the Time Stone]]
704* We know that Thor spent his time between ''Age of Ultron'' and ''Ragnarok'' searching for the Infinity Stones, but couldn't find any in his journeys. However, he tells the Guardians that the Time Stone is somewhere on Earth. How did he know this?
705** Process of elimination? Thanos stated in front of Thor that two Infinity Stones were on Earth, and Thor knows that one of those is the Mind Stone. At the time Thanos had two so that is four stones covered. The Soul Stone is infamous for seemingly nobody having any idea where it is, so it can be marked off. That leaves the Reality Stone, and Thor was presumably told by Loki or Heimdall about it being given to the Collector (or may have even been told about it by Sif or another of his friends before he left Asgard in Dark World).
706** He probably realized that Dr. Strange has it, and did not bother to do anything about it because it has a reliable guardian and it's well protected. Not like the space, reality and power stones, who were all completely abandoned somewhere when we first saw them, ready to be taken by anyone, and which would justify Thor's caution of "let's find and secure those things before some terrible guy gets them"
707** Thor searched between ''Age of Ultron'' and ''Ragnarok'' without finding any. Then he met Dr. Strange near the beginning of ''Ragnarok'', and Strange has the Time stone around his neck at the time, which Thor apparently recognized.
708[[/folder]]
709
710[[folder:Bowflex?]]
711* Peter Quill was abducted from Earth in 1988. The Bowflex wasn't invented until 1986. How does Quill know what a Bowflex is?
712** Because 1988 is later than 1986. Also the movies suggest that various aliens have had contact with Earth, so some cultural references have made their way to Quill since his abduction
713** Exactly as the above said. If Yondu could get a hold of a Zune (the one Kraglin gave Peter in Guardians 2) it's more than evident that junkers and pirates visit Earth in secret with ''some'' regularity, and that Peter has been catching up with Terran culture that way. Not often enough to update his pop culture references, definitely, but enough to explain where he got batteries for his walkman, how he knows what a Bowflex is, etc.
714[[/folder]]
715
716[[folder: Why Didn't Anyone Destroy the Stones Earlier]]
717* Scarlet Witch is able to destroy the Mind Stone fairly easily. Granted, she's one of the most powerful Earth heroes, but some of the others have been in the hands of benevolent races that know how dangerous they are. Asgard had the Reality and Space stones. The Nova Corps had the Power stone. The Nova Corps, in particular knew Thanos was looking for the things and that Ronan had been originally working for them. Why not throw it into a star or a black hole? By the end of AvengersAgeOfUltron, Thor knew someone was after the things, but decided not destroying the two his people were in possession of AND keeping them in close proximity to each other was a viable plan.
718** I mean it's still a powerful tools for good that can help with a bunch of stuff, like Strange explained to Stark "fuck you, you ain't breaking my ancient artifact, I can bargain with Dormammu with this thing".
719** The stones were born with the universe and have persisted ever since, it's likely usually not easy or even possible to destroy them. Scarlet Witch was an exception thanks to Vision's theory turning out to be true, namely that because her powers were created by/from the stone, it was possible for her to destroy the stone.
720** This ties back nicely to the resolution of the first Avengers film where the portal generator generated by Loki's sceptre (which we now know was the mind stone) could not protect itself against said sceptre. In theory anything empowered by one of the stones might become venerable to destruction from that source but we only have a sample size of one to go off of.
721** From ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'' it was suggested to Bor that the Aether (Reality Stone) should be destroyed. But he replies that it's too powerful to do that. And later in the same movie, Thor also tries to destroy it himself using the Mjolnir. But he failed to do any damage to it.
722** Thor did quite a bit of damage to the Aether, it just quickly reformed. While it's by far the most fluid of the Stones, it's possible that the others have self-healing properties as well. Maybe the Mind Stone would have eventually repaired itself, but Thanos didn't need to bother waiting since he could just reverse time.
723** Depending on how much the MCU takes from the 616 the stones themselves might be keeping themselves from being taken out of play. Whenever they are lost beyond the reach of everyone they somehow manage to make their way back into play and when Reed Richards tries to use the full set to wipe them out of existent he fails because the stones themselves won't let him destroy them.
724** It's safe to assume that with the stones being so powerful, they might have just feared what might happen if they tried to destroy them. For most of the time, the stones that are known about are assumed to be safe. The Nova Corps are safely guarding the Power Stone on Xandar. The Mind and Time Stones both have powerful beings guarding them too. The Tesseract is thought to be safe on Asgard and it's not until ''Thor Ragnarok'' that they realise Loki has been impersonating Odin - and the events unfold too quickly before anyone can hear about them.
725* "The Ring cannot be destroyed, Gimli, son of Glóin, by any craft that we here possess."
726** They totally destroyed one using Wanda's power. Which they here possess.
727*** It is possible no one was twisted enough to experiment on live beings trying to empower them using the Stones - either because [[PragmaticVillainy you can use the Stone just as well yourself if you have it]] or because [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters no one was twisted enough for THAT, except for a nazi death cult]].
728*** The original question was "Why Didn't Anyone Destroy the Stones '''Earlier'''?" Earlier, there was no Scarlet Witch around. And afterwards, she would have refused to kill Vision, as we saw in the film: she only accepted to do so when Thanos was in plain sight and heading to them while everyone else only delayed him for some extra moments.
729** Considering that the Soul Stone is the only one that Thanos has to "Create" in this movie, perhaps in the past, someone ''did'' destroy one of the Infinity Stones, but just had the misfortune of choosing the one that was the easiest to bring back.
730[[/folder]]
731
732[[folder: Why Would Loki Attack Thanos Directly?]]
733* Question is not about motivation but about method. Why the hell didn't he use projections to maneuver behind Thanos if he really wanted to get the upper hand? Or better yet, instead of even bothering to fight Thanos (the guy Loki worked for, saw beat the shit our of Thor and Hulk and thus must of known would kill him) why didn't Loki actually pledge his allegiance to Thanos, go to Earth with the Children of Thanos, and be a [[TheMole mole]]. There are likely dozens of ways he could have been useful on Earth. Heck at the very least he could have snuck additional intel to someone, having worked for Thanos, if absolutely nothing else. A very obvious lie followed by a thrust of what must be the weakest weapon in the movie seem like a complete waste of the god of trickery's talents.
734** Loki probably knew that even if he decided to play [[TheMole mole]], by the time Thanos acquired the Mind Stone or the Soul Stone, their powers could've revealed his treachery, and at that point Thanos would be too powerful for Loki to escape his retribution. So it's quite possible that Loki realised the only time he could pull a trick on Thanos was ''now'', when he only possessed one Stone, and he decided to fake his death there and then. But Loki must've also figured out that if he did a straightforward attack against and let Thanos "kill" him, Thanos would figure out it wasn't something that a trickster like Loki would do, and he'd realise Loki was playing possum. So pulling a seemingly Loki-like scheme (pretending to be on Thanos's side, then attacking) made it possible to fool Thanos into thinking he had really killed Loki.
735** Loki is dead. And he knew that he would die. There was a ''massive'' battle off-screen before the start of the movie, and ''Thor'', who just went through a horde of Hela's zombie mooks as if they were nothing, is lying on the floor almost unconscious at the beginning, totally beaten up. At that point, Thanos already had an Infinity Stone, and when Loki tries to kill him Thanos had ''two''. Thor and Loki are left with the half of Asgard that Thanos massacred, so Loki has no reason to believe that Thanos would spare him, especially since he failed Thanos before. There is some hope left that Thor might make it, since Thanos promised Loki to spare Thor if Loki gives him the Tesseract, and Thanos seems to keep his word for that matter. But Loki knows all hope is lost for himself. Yes, he ''could'' have fled while Thanos was distracted with Hulk, but Loki didn't want to do that anymore, he wanted to be ''more''. He at least wanted to try ''something'' to stop Thanos from getting more Stones. As for why he didn't use any illusions or tricks: He likely was exhausted and drained from the fight that happened before, same as Thor. And with Ebony Maw present, he might have detected it if Loki should try anything. So Loki had to use a practical weapon and attempted to distract Thanos with his monologue to get close enough to him. He knew Thanos wouldn't really believe him, and that he couldn't pretend to be on Thanos side again, especially since he ''just'' turned against Thanos again (he told him he'd give him the Tesseract for Thor's life, but then distracted Thanos for a second so that The Hulk could attack him). Look at Loki's eyes during his monologue, especially when he looks at Thor and shortly before he attempts to stab Thanos, he's tearing up because he knows he will die, and the words he's saying ("I give you my undying fidelity") are essentially a goodbye to his brother. Even ''if'' he succeeded in killing Thanos, he would have been defenseless against the Children of Thanos and they would have killed him there and then. It was a last desperate attempt in a desperate situation.
736** Or everything Loki did in that scene was part of his plan all along, and he's playing the long game. As mentioned on other pages, we don't know how he survived getting stabbed in ''The Dark World''. He could've actually died and come back somehow. And as Thanos said, he wanted to make ''sure'' that Loki actually died. Loki knows this. So, the only logical way for him to survive would be to die for real, and resurrect himself much later when everything's over. This would also help him escape the eradication of half the universe...
737** It actually sounds like the perfect plan worthy of the God of Mischief. 1. Pull off a classic Loki-scheme to show Thanos that he's still that predictable (showing just how much he's learnt from [[Film/ThorRagnarok the previous movie]]). 2. Use as little magic as possible during the ruse in order to make Thanos think that he's tired from the battle and simply ''can't''. 3. Actually die to make it look like Thanos has succeeded in killing him. 4. Stay dead until Thanos has enacted his "wipe out half the universe" plan so he doesn't get zapped out of existence, too. 5. Find a way to defeat Thanos when the Titan already thinks he's won. (Heck, it's possible that Doctor Strange knows of the plan and is letting it happen.)
738[[/folder]]
739
740[[folder:Okay, How Exactly Does the Power Stone Work?]]
741* On the Asgardian ship and on Titan we see Thanos break large objects apart with it (the ship itself and a moon), yet when he uses it on people he just shoves them away. Couldn't he have literally ripped people apart? The movie should have been even more of a curbstomp than it was. I was assuming it was some large sale breaking of some integral force that holds things together, (what ever it is in the MCU), sort of like the strong force in our world.
742** A part of Thanos' character (at least in the comics) is that he knows he doesn't deserve to win. Perhaps he's just instinctively not using it to its full potential because of that? Or maybe he just likes fighting and is giving them a chance for fun.
743** MCU Thanos doesn't kill unless it's really necessary. He likely wanted everyone given a fair chance with the snap. IMO the more appropriate situation to ask this would be when Ronan did that against the [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014 Guardians]] in his ship.
744** As one person mentioned, Thanos seems like the type of person to at least give his opponents a chance - if he wanted to, he could've just used the Infinity Gauntlet to take him straight to the Vision after getting the other 5 stones and rip the Mind Stone out of the latter's head (since none of the heroes at the Battle of Wakanda could've moved fast enough to get there, especially if Thanos warped right into the lab) - unless Shuri has an set of Vibranium powered armor in the same vein as the one used by Iron Man in the movie, she couldn't do anything to stop him, and The Vision wouldn't have been able to put up a fight.
745[[/folder]]
746
747[[folder:Was Thanos included in the random universal culling?]]
748* Given his KnightTemplar, true believer status I'm assuming so. Then again he was arrogant enough to boast about waking to the sunrise of a grateful universe.
749** It could've gone either way. On one hand, it does seem like he'd include himself in the culling in the interest of being fair. On the other hand, if he did, he'd leave the Gauntlet behind which could allow someone to undo the Snap, which he obviously wouldn't want. Then again, given he's culling 50% of the universe, it's half of every species. Since he's the only Titan left, he can't exactly do that.
750[[/folder]]
751
752[[folder: No One Else in the Universe Ever Bothered to Gather (or at least keep tabs on) the Infinity Stones Before?]]
753* You think something as valuable as the Infinity Stones wouldn't be in random places. I get the Avengers not bothering with it, but if the Asgardians had made the gauntlet before and wielded the stones then someone like Thanos could have never come into power. Similarly why didn't people like the Ancient One bother at least keeping an eye out on all the stones. The movie definitely showcases the failure of the heroes to stop Thanos, but they shouldn't have had to. If higher powers devoted to protecting the universe kept tabs on each of the stones then this wouldn't have happened.
754** Maybe they have tried, and simply failed? Thor tried to do that at the end of AOU and got squat for years. It could be simple coincidence that they all turned up eventually.
755** There are multiple reasons regarding this that are hinted at or stated explicitly. 1. First the vast majority of people in the universe can't use even a single stone at a time, at least directly. Thanos was the first person in the universe's known history to actually be successful at using more than one stone at a time. The idea of them being used all together was likely not on the radar of most of the relatively few people who know what the infinity stones are, let alone where the stones are. The Infinity Gauntlet may have existed as an idea for a long time, but it seems no one took it seriously enough to try, or if they did they failed. 2. The stones that people knew the locations of WERE kept an eye on, they weren't in random places (and not much can be done about the ones that were hidden or missing other than look for them). And there seemed to be some rules/guidelines even regarding this (its stated at the end of Thor: The Dark World that efforts are made to keep there from being two or more infinity stones close to one another). As for why there were not select people who knew where all these guarded stones were, it makes some sense that there wouldn't be as it makes it harder for people who want to misuse them to find them. 3. As respected as some powerful figures in the universe are, it seems unlikely the various powerful factions in the MCU would allow just one or even a few people to take possession of multiple Infinity stones without objecting to it and causing conflicts in and of themselves.
756[[/folder]]
757
758[[folder:Alternate Universes]]
759* Why couldn't Doctor Strange escape the effects of the finger snap by fleeing into another universe? Heck, he could have taken the Avengers and the Guardians with him. He obviously know the finger snap was coming, and Thanos was "only" wiping out half the life in the Avenger's universe. We've seen that the Sorcerer Supreme can move to other universes, so why didn't Strange at least, escape there so that he could oversee the "one chance of victory", instead of gambling that everything will go as it should after his death?
760** By the time Thanos could do the finger snap Strange was simply too weak to do anything, couldn't even stand up. And given the whole point is that resources are finite, Thanos probably also halves every other dimensions otherwise his plan is even dumber than it already is. Like just go to another universe and take resources there if he "only" wipes the Avengers' one.
761** We don't know exactly what the definition of other universes covers but unless it goes into the Multiverse then the only other dimensions we've seen are ones that are not suited for life in the Avenger's universe.
762** Basically any question you have for "why did / didn't Strange do [BLANK]" is that everything that he did or didn't do was required to get to the GoldenPath he saw. And as a reminder, ''Film/{{Doctor Strange|2016}}'' had a climax where Strange condemned himself to near eternal suffering to save the world, so he has no problem dying to save it. "It's not about you."
763[[/folder]]
764
765[[folder:"...Who?"]]
766* Minor question, but how does Dr. Strange not know who Thanos is? Obviously, as was seen in Ragnarok, he was keeping tabs on potential threats to Earth. Thanos is VERY much a threat to Earth. How does he have zero clue about Thanos?
767** He keeps tabs on magic threats, Wong even said in Strange's movie the Avengers take care of the physical threat while the wizards deal with mystics. Loki does magic so he kept tab on him but the Chitauri aren't his business.
768** Additionally, until ''Infinity War'', Thanos has always taken care to stay in the background and let others do the work for him (Loki and Ronan for example), so probably no one just ever suspected that there was a ManBehindTheMan.
769** Strange's domain is Earth, and up until that point Thanos had never personally posed a threat to the planet (nobody knew he was the one backing Loki until this movie).
770*** Also, Thanos likely qualifies as a ''cosmic'' threat if anything.
771[[/folder]]
772
773[[folder:Strange's spell against the ship]]
774* I'm not certain what Strange did when he saw the ship. Lots of people say it was obvious, and yet I've seen multiple ideas. "Just blew all the dust away" "Created a barrier to stop the ship from coming any further" "Froze the ship in place" "Evacuated the area by teleporting everyone away" "The Winds of Watoomb" "Scan the ship and invite anyone to his location" etc.
775** As I understood it just contained the hurricane winds the ship was creating.
776[[/folder]]
777
778[[folder:Stopping Star-Lord]]
779* Quill starts acting erratically, obviously going to do something incredibly stupid in next 15 seconds, everyone starts shouting at him to wait a few seconds... but why doesn't anyone DO anything to stop him? Nebula is just chilling, she could have tackled him and pinned him long enough. Okay, maybe she's too grief-stricken too. But Tony can't spare half a second to blast him away non-lethally? He doesn't even need to let go of the Gauntlet, he has those repulsor-shooting back-panels he used in NY and I'm sure with his nano-armor he can manifest repulsors wherever he wants. So what gives?
780** Tony's just been through a hell of a fight, fighting against the cause of all of his recently anxiety and paranoia and is right next to two powder kegs. If he tries to stop him non-lethal but miscalculates one thing he could end up seriously wounding Quill or killing him, or ending up provoking him even more (which is basically what Tony himself did back in ''Civil War''). Trying to talk him down was the best plan he could made that would be in character for him.
781** What do you think Mantis and Drax are gonna do if Tony blast their captain?
782** When Quill is clearly acting stupid and blast is non-lethal? Nothing, I suppose. Until the Gauntlet is off, at least. They are not stupid.
783** Drax and Mantis had done nothing but be stupid comic relief up until that point and they won't know the blast is non lethal unless they check on Quill, which they have to break focus or hold on Thanos' leg for that. Star-Lord isn't the only one to act irrationally when loved ones get hurt.
784** For Nebula she at least could also be reeling from the shock of finding out Gamora is dead. When it comes to emotions, Nebula is a very internalised person, so she may still be processing it. Quill is a very externalised person - hence why he flips out. It's possible the rest of the group were hoping he would hold it together long enough to get the gauntlet off. Or they could get it off before he flips out.
785** Doctor Strange easily could've stopped him if he wanted to, but remember he saw 14,000,605 possible outcomes where they only win one. Obviously in at least a few of those futures Strange (or someone else) did stop Quill but in those same timelines Thanos wins. It was all a part of Strange's plan.
786[[/folder]]
787
788[[folder:"It would have been a waste of parts!"]]
789* TheUnfavorite daughter of Thanos, Nebula, has spent the last four years amassing weapons and planning to kill Thanos. By his own words, she nearly succeeded, but instead of killing her, he captured her to be tortured. Okay, he ended up getting information he'd later use to gather the Soul Stone. But later, when Nebula confronts him and tells him he should have killed her, he didn't point out how good of a lure she was for Gamora, he replies "It would have been a waste of parts!" It has been shown more than once that even Nebula's parts are, in some capacity, universal, so even if Thanos killed her he could have kept what was useful and reused it (which would have been consistent with his belief that resources are finite). So why did he say this? Doesn't seem practical to keep someone alive who is trying to kill you just because you've invested resources into them that you can theoretically reuse. Was he just rubbing in just how much he's done to make Nebula hate him? A downplayed example of CruelMercy since he knows how much she has hated her life and he wants a future opportunity to make her even more miserable? Or does Thanos actually care for Nebula more than he lets on, now that his favorite daughter is gone?
790** He may care to some degree in his own twisted way, but moreover Nebula is someone that he did devote a lot of time and resources to in order to try to make her more powerful. Yes he could reuse the parts if he killed her, but he couldn't recreate all the experiences that Nebula gained due to the powers those parts gave her, he'd basically have to start over with a new daughter. By saying killing her would be a waste of parts, he likely was referring just as much to the time he put into making those parts a part of her.
791** He prefers rubbing it in but Thanos likely sees her as Gamora's puppy. If he kills her his daughter will be upset, same for why he doesn't just kill Peter but still taunts him cruelly.
792** He was clearly insulting her. It was a harsh response given in the heat of combat. Thanos was dehumanising (for lack of a better term) her by saying he doesn't see her anything more than "parts". Also that she was basically not worth his time and effort to kill.
793[[/folder]]
794
795[[folder:Overpopulation destroyed the planet?]]
796* When the Guardians et. al. first land on Titan, Quill notes that the planet is several degrees off its axis and gravity is all over the place. How exactly did ''overpopulation'' mess with the planet that way?
797** Most likely because of the demands the large population placed on their society. We can see they were quite technologically advanced so maybe whatever technology they had to use to keep up with their high numbers put great stresses on the planet and caused the damage, or running out of resources meant their infrastructure failed in a catastrophic way.
798** Another likely cause could be a massive war between factions competing for resources, using weapons powerful enough to cause the strange effects noted in the movie to be afflicting the planet. Such advanced weaponry could also explain why apparently no one but Thanos survived.
799** Indeed, wars are the main reason why life dies out. Naturally abundance of life adjusts to the amount of resources and the balance remains. That's why Thanos decimated out only the sentient creatures - the ones that can wage war.
800*** War hasn't really killed off that much life, outside of human casualties. Natural disasters (such as the Chicxulum impact), climate change (natural or otherwise), and scarcity of resources (as a result of those or because of population growth) has done a lot more damage. Wiping out all life on Earth, and probably even just wiping out all of humanity, would take an event far, far beyond anything that war could accomplish with modern technology.
801** The peculiarities with the planet's axis and gravity might have been preexisting conditions, or it may have been the result of something like an asteroid impact that could have been averted had the people not been preoccupied (or already wiped out) by their resource scarcity issues.
802** Maybe they did something to the planet to try increasing its natural resources. In ''Man of Steel'', Krypton blew up because the Kryptonians drained the planet core to generate enough energy. Maybe Titan's axis got messed up by people trying to get more sunlight onto agricultural areas, and its gravity was screwy because they tried looking for ways to make animals grow bigger.
803[[/folder]]
804
805[[folder: The Idea of Limited Resources is B.S.]]
806* Overpopulation is a problem on earth because we only have one planet to go around. Yet the galaxy at large is projected to be 99.9999999999999% uninhabited (The conditions for life to evolve is phenomenally rare; sapient life astronomically so). We can see from the various space vessels and alien empires throughout the series that faster than light travel is real and abundant. If each space faring society has access to millions upon millions of entire planets worth of resources (apiece) then how in the world could galactic civilization be on the verge of an overpopulation crisis?
807** Nothing in the movie suggests Thanos's idea that overpopulation threatens the entire galaxy is correct; he is the villain, after all, so he could simply be wrong. It could be that Titan didn't have [=FTL=] travel, so based on his experiences there, and observing Earth, the other inhabited astronomical body nearby, Thanos concluded overpopulation is a universal problem. By the time he acquired [=FTL=] transportation and was able to see other civilizations, he had already become so fixated on this issue that he refused to see any evidence to the contrary.
808** One also has to note that logically a space-faring civilization consumes many times the resources of others (energy for faster than light travel can't come cheap), and in any event certain vital resources could be considerably rarer than others even when one has access to other planets. Plus, Thanos isn't stating that limited resources are ending sapient life overall in the here and now, he simply believes it is to be the eventual fate of the universe and thinks that if all the sapient races adopted his methods then that fate could be staved off. Of course one also has to consider that for all his ideas the real reason deep down is likely just the enormous complex he has over the fate of his own people, the idea that he was denied the right to save them.
809** As has been pointed on this very page several times, he's not called Reasonable Titan. And even if overconsumption of resources was a cosmic-scale problem, resources don't just DISAPPEAR, they either turn into completely unusable stuff, or turn into otherwise usable form (e.g. excrements) that CAN be used, had they not accumulated in one place (e.g. as a fertilizer). The Infinity Gauntlet could easily turn useless stuff back into useful forms, rip black holes apart to salvage more resources than sentient races could consume in a thousand years, transport all the manure from industrial planets to desert ones, etc... but Thanos is completely insane.
810** "He's crazy" is not a good reason. The filmmakers obviously wanted to make him sound reasonable and even sympathetic. They wanted people watching the movie to say "He's got a point". Except, he doesn't, and thinking about his plan for more than a minute is all it takes to see the holes in it. What about planets that aren't overpopulated? What about planets that wouldn't have enough resources to sustain even half? What about planets where people fight each other not over resources but just because they're that belligerent? What about planets like ours that were at "half the current population" just fifty years ago and would be back up to current numbers again in the same amount of time? Is he going to do his Infinity Stone hunt every half-century? If you want to present Thanos as a real threat, then you can't just make him "crazy"; you have to make him smart, too.
811*** "He's crazy" is absolutely a good reason and one they've cultivated throughout the MCU by eliciting the "Mad Titan" moniker in past films. Gamora explicitly calls him out for it in this film. Dr. Strange responds to his motive rant with dry disbelief. And Thanos himself mentioned that his own people called him crazy. It's astounding to see one utter "he's crazy is not a good reason" in light of all that. The filmmakers wanted him to be sympathetic, not reasonable. His motivations are sympathetic. His backstory and freudian excuse are sympathetic. His methods are not sympathetic. It's a pretty clear dichotomy the film is establishing considering that the heroes are fighting him for the latter, not the former.
812** But no one in the movie points out he is wrong, just ethically blind, Gamora doesn't point any negative repercussions of killing half her planet, no one says his planet would have been doomed regardless of his idea or that they were right in labeling him the Mad Titan. If the people that called him the Mad Titan drove themselves to extinction they don't come out as the sane one and if the person you culled her race doesn't argue that they are now a utopia it sides more with him on the efficiency side than people who tried saving the world without killing a bunch of people at random.
813** Except that, as the original question notes, the conditions for life to evolve are phenomenally rare. Given the limitations on places to grow food -- can you grow corn on Venus, under hundreds of atmospheres worth of pressure and highly corrosive gases? how about on Jupiter, where there isn't a surface to inhabit? or maybe Mars, where the soil is toxic and there's not enough atmosphere to sustain vegetation? -- the idea of limited resources is still absolutely valid. Saying that there's plenty of worlds to go to with FTL travel is absurd, because it's like saying you can absolutely drive four hundred miles to the nearest grocery store to feed your family of dozens of people. You can only carry so much, and each trip itself burns up fuel and resources you'll need to spend on maintenance. Eventually, an overabundance of life and lack of population planning means you run out of resources one way or another -- so Thanos's argument carries some weight.
814*** Plus, the argument carries weight if you remember that the stones have to be used by a person/apparatus and most people we have seen use the stones -even Thanos - get hurt using them over time. Even if you can use the stones to recycle resources, the person/machine using the stones for these utilitarian purposes can become overwhelmed by the energy needed to reuse the resources and die/fall apart. Then, a new person/machine would have to be sacrificed to continue the recycling process before the FTL civilization collapses from no longer having the resources it needs to be maintained.
815[[/folder]]
816
817[[folder: Who Decides There is Real Love There?]]
818* In order to obtain the Soul Stone, Thanos sacrifices Gamora, and this apparently satisfies - who, exactly? Who decides that Thanos really loved Gamora? Was it the Soul Stone itself, or the Red Skull as its guardian, or just Thanos deciding? It certainly wasn't Gamora, as she saw him as an insane abusive tyrant. Whoever decided, it seems pretty debatable whether Thanos really did love Gamora, since it was a very abusive relationship and he threw her off the cliff with no consideration of her wishes or welfare. Contrast that with Wanda and Vision, where some real love ''is'' shown.
819** The stone seems to decide and the rocks don't have the best morals, like killing half the universe because you think it'll save the universe is fine by the tesseract's book just don't do discrimination otherwise it'll teleport you in an ironic hell. MadLove is included.
820** I guess it was just Red Skull's lack of vision that got him punished. He was too petty, lacking a drive beyond "more power for power's sake".
821** Thanos pretty much killed them all because he wants to prove his people should have done it to save themselves, he doesn't have that much vision.
822** His goals were massive though. Literally universe-spanning. Even his FreudianExcuse is kinda big (a whole planet dying out).
823** The important bit is sacrifice. Quality and healthiness of love is irrelevant in this regard as long as you feel genuine pain and understand the consequences of that sacrifice.
824** The Soul Stone seems to grant its power to whomever sacrifices what they love most. There is a fan theory that Gamora is inside the Soul Stone - judging by Thanos's dream at the end. So if that theory is true, then the Soul Stone absorbs the sacrifice. And the love is genuine, then the other person is able to use its powers.
825** Considering what has to be done to get the Soul Stone, the only love on display is gonna be ''twisted'' love.
826*** Or two people who love each other can agree that one should sacrifice.
827** building off ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'', which ended with Bucky deciding even though Steve cared about him, what he was doing wasn't necessarily healthy for either of them, I think this is somewhat a commentary on how just because you love someone doesn't mean anything you do for them is automatically "okay". Yes, Thanos loves Gamora, but he's a still an abusive jerk who has done horrible things and ignored her agency. We're building a thematic throughline in the Russo's marvel films about how heroes can't just be well meaning, they have to respect and work together with each other. (Which unsurprisingly is why the reuniting of the original Avengers and Tony and Steve working out their problems is a big dangling thread for ''Avengers 4''.)
828* Emotions, love emphatically included, are subjective. Everyone experiences them differently. I choose to see Thanos' "love" for Gamora as something he believes to be true, and for the Soul stone to grant him its power therefore, rather than assuming that it qualifies for some objectively definition of "love".
829* I'm with Gamora: "This isn't love". It isn't. The soul stone should never have been his.
830** The stone seems to have BlueAndOrangeMorality.
831** It may be worth saying the Soul Stone actually ends up becoming the villain of the Infinity Gem saga in the comics, and thus we should probably all be glad it got atomized. Crazy dead universe and its blood sacrifices.
832[[/folder]]
833
834[[folder: Vision and the underused Mind Stone]]
835* The Mind Stone was in several movies, but why was it almost never used for actual mind control except when Loki used it? More specifically to the point, why didn't Vision try to use it to mind control the Black Order? Or on Thanos? It likely wouldn't have worked versus 5 other stones at the time, but at least attempt to mind control him.
836** Vision doesn't know how to use the Mind Stone for mind control or doesn't feel like it. Like Loki had practice in it. He already used it to be self aware being with human emotion.
837** Vision also doesn't seem like he's the sort to ''want'' to learn how to use it for mind control
838** As opposed to the comics, where they were "always on", so to speak, the MCU Infinity Stones require concentration and willpower to "activate". Vision was stabbed in the back before he knew what was happening and spent the rest of the movie in a state of crisis and heightened emotional distress. When he himself claimed he doesn't understand the Mind Stone or his connection to it, its powers, or how to use it, it would only makes it harder to concentrate on trying to learn all that on the fly when the big ol' Pruneface is staring him down from two feet away.
839** And don't forget Wanda used the powers of it for mind control - and it ended up nearly destroying the Avengers. It's the kind of thing that could go horribly wrong if you don't know what you're doing - and trial and error is not the sort of thing Vision seems willing to resort to.
840[[/folder]]
841
842[[folder: Hulk's Fear of Everything]]
843* I understand why the Hulk would be terrified of facing Thanos himself again after the CurbStompBattle he received from the Mad Titan. But how and why does that fear carry over to the Outriders and the Black Order? Sure they may work for Thanos, but I don't get why Hulk would be scared to face them as well, since he hasn't battled any of them beforehand.
844** [[https://amp.cinemablend.com/news/2415671/the-real-reason-why-hulk-wont-fight-in-avengers-infinity-war-according-to-the-russo-brothers According to the Russo Brothers]], it's actually a slight misinterpretation that the Hulk is scared of Thanos. While they agreed that the Hulk certainly hasn't have his ass beaten like that before, they revealed that the real reason of Hulk refusing to "come out" is that he is simply tired of being used by Banner for battle, and refuses to hulk out just to spite him.
845*** The fight between Thanos and the Hulk was simply not that bad for the Hulk, considering the other poundings the Hulk has taken. Thanos is a better fighter, but he's not hitting the Hulk that hard. He can't, just like the Hulk he can't really cut loose, because they're on a space ship and either of them using their full strength would destroy the ship. Please, go back and re-watch the first Avengers movie and ''Thor: Ragnarok'', and look at the pounding Thor gives the Hulk. Then go watch Age of Ultron and look at the pounding Tony gave Hulk in the Hulkbuster armor. Both of them really cut loose on the Hulk, and all they did was piss him off. Some say the Hulk isn't scared, he's just refusing to come out to spite Bruce. But it would be much more in keeping with the character of the Hulk if what he really wanted from Thanos was a re-match. Thanos damn near killed Thor, and Thor spends all his time in the movie planning his pay-back, not hiding.
846*** The durability of the spaceship is completely unknown so we have no idea if Thanos or Hulk could cut lose or not. If Hulk wasn't beaten that badly then why did he stop fighting? He was beaten to the point he couldn't resist being body slammed and then couldn't get up. That is a worse result than anything we've seen from him, barring Hulkbuster, and Thanos put him down much more efficiently and effectively than that. Psychologically that's going to be a bigger blow than a close fight like with Hulkbuster or Thor.
847** My personal theory was that Hulk was hiding in case Banner is killed by either Black Order or fingersnap, because then Hulk could emerge and save them both (might not work against fingersnap, but Hulk is not cosmic magitek expert).
848[[/folder]]
849
850[[folder: Red Skull on Vormir]]
851* His personality in this movie seems...different. He doesn't act like himself. When you become a stonekeeper on Vormir, do they alter your personality, turning you into this calm, stoic, and wise being? How much of Schmidt is still in him?
852** That's probably just a consequence of being alone on an alien world for ''70 years.'' Most humans don't tend to do well psychologically if they're completely isolated from any other contact for a week, let alone 7 decades. The fact that he's able to speak coherently is a miracle unto itself.
853** Red Skull being made the Guardian of the Soul Stone is his own personal IronicHell. He wants the power of the Infinity Stones, and there's one right in front of him, but he can never claim it because he's incapable of feeling love (which is needed to make the sacrifice). It's not impossible the experience has humbled him a bit.
854** He probably could unlock the Soul Stone by killing himself, or at least get out of the Ironic Hell in doing so. The Tesseract basically told him to go jump off a cliff.
855*** ''Can'' he actually kill himself? He's become a wraith-like drifting entity, and it's unclear if he's even corporeal anymore. If he moved past the cliff's edge, he'd probably just hover there.
856*** I mean sacrifice the person you love, Skull loves himself, feels like yes he could.
857*** But if you're sacrificed, you're dead. There's no evidence to suggest that the Soul stone would resurrect you.
858** Which raises an interesting question - do you get the Stone if you sacrifice yourself? Soul trapped inside the Stone controlling its powers.
859** Even if he had something to sacrifice to acquire the Soul Stone, he would still be trapped there. The Soul Stone is not the Space Stone, so he'd basically be waiting for someone else to take it from him.
860** Because Hugo Weaving didn't want to reprise the role.
861* On a related note, doesn't Red Skull's appearance on Vormir contradict the opening events of the first ''Avengers'' movie? The reason why Loki first arrived at SHIELD's research facility was supposedly that "a door opens two ways", implying that Thanos's forces had located the other end of the ''last'' gateway which the Tesseract had generated. But the last time the Tesseract had been used to create a wormhole prior to that event was 70 years earlier, when Red Skull got sucked into it! So shouldn't Thanos have ''already found'' Vormir, if he sent Loki to Earth by re-opening the far end of that previous wormhole?
862** That's not what that implies at all. There isn't a "static" end to the wormholes, any more than the Bifrost always has to go to the same place. What happened was that Thanos was apparently able to activate the Tesseract and create a portal to it from where ''they'' were. They didn't find a pre-existing terminus to the portal, they created a new one.
863[[/folder]]
864
865[[folder: Thanos-killing weapons melting mortals' minds]]
866* Thor tells Guardians that they can't get Nidavellir weapons 'cos those would liquefy their minds and ruin their bodies. Why did Guardians just go "Eh, okay." when one of them is a daughter of Thanos, and another is half-Celestial, capable of enduring the might of the Power stone better than Thor did? Quill and Gamora could totally wield Nidavellir weapons.
867** ADOPTED daughter of Thanos. Gamora isn't as durable or powerful as the Mad Titan, because she is not related to him. As for Quill - [[BroughtDownToNormal Ego explicitly said that by killing him, Peter will lose all of his Celestial powers, including enhanced durability.]]
868** I meant that Children of Thanos are way above regular mortals due to genetics/augmentations/etc. As for Quill, I've seen that thought thrown around, but it makes no sense to me. Why would his genetics and as such biology change? Without Ego he simply can't tap into the Celestial powers, but he couldn't when he held the Stone too. And what Ego says matter little because a) Ego is lying liar who lies; b) he was trying to convince Peter to spare him, so he would say anything; c) in the universe of Asgardians, Kree and others toughness and resistance to extremely destructive artifacts can be considered "just like everybody else", especially from a position of an egocentric god.
869** The Guardians were dying from holding the Power Stone. They would have died if they'd held it a minute longer, and that was all of them together. Individually they wouldn't stand a chance of holding a weapon powerful enough to summon the Bifrost.
870[[/folder]]
871
872[[folder:Mind-melting in Ultron]]
873* The "lift the Mjolnir" game from Age of Ultron now looks creepy. Sure, Thor was convinced that none of the Avengers was worthy, but that's still unsafe. What if one of them WAS worthy? Cap almost was! Would he get his brain blasted? (Vision presumably can withstand it because he is a robot and is powered by a Mind Stone)
874** "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor". This presumably includes ability to withstand the power of Nidavellir weapons.
875** Hmm, good point.
876** Thor said a weapon that could kill Thanos would do that. He didn't say that ''any and all'' weapons that the dwarves made would do that.
877[[/folder]]
878
879[[folder: The Ages of Thor and Loki]]
880* If no one has a reasonable answer for this question then the timeline of the entire MCU is officially kaput. In the prologue of the first Thor movie, the date shown when the war occurred between Asgard and Jotunheim suggests that Loki is just over a thousand years old. Further evidence, like Thor saying "we were both eight" and them looking the same age in a flashback, shows that Thor and Loki were probably raised as twins and are roughly the same age. All makes sense so far, right? Then Thor goes and messes everything up by saying that he's 1500 years old in this film. Meaning that he'd have to be a few hundred years older than Loki -- and in that aforementioned flashback, he looks ''nowhere near'' a few centuries older than his brother. Seriously, first the issue with the timeline in ''Spiderman: Homecoming'' and now this? Does '''anyone''' at Marvel check these things before approving the scripts?
881** Thor is distraught from all of his trauma and not thinking straight. He's actually about 1053 years old according to the MCU wiki (he was born between 964-965 A.D.) so him fudging his age makes sense, he's lived so long and it 's also possible he feels older than 1000. He's of a race that lives for thousands of years. It's like someone from Earth who's 64 or 65 saying they're 70 years old to appear older and wiser. Just compound that to a few hundred years for an Asgardian.
882** I'm gonna go out on a limb with two possible explanations: 1. Years work different on Asgard, meaning Thor and Loki are 1053 human years old but 1500 Asgardian years. (And about the "eight years" in '' Ragnarok'', it's likely that Asgardians, like cats for example, age faster until they are grown up, otherwise it would be a pain in the ass to have a toddler for several centuries. So they probably really were literally eight.) Explanation 2: ''Thor'' is 7 years old now, and maybe they just retconned the year when the War was. It would make sense for Thor and Loki to be older than 1050, with Norse Mythology and so on (albeit it's also possible that Norse Mythology in the MCU is younger than it is in our Real Life). And well, I can forgive a timeline mistake from an "older" movie, they could never have foreseen back then that those movies would be ''that'' popular, and that the MCU would go on and get even more popular for ''that'' long.
883[[/folder]]
884
885[[folder: Why did Thanos give away an Infinity Stone?]]
886* So Thanos is obsessed with Infinity Stones, and Gamora tells the others that he's had his "obliterate half of existence" fantasy for as long as she's known him. So why did he give the staff to Loki to enable the Chitauri invasion during [[TheAvengers2012 The Avengers]]? Did he not realize that the staff was the Mind Stone? Did he throw a Thanos-sized tantrum when he discovered his mistake? It seems unlikely that he would give an Infinity Stone to an underling, even if he was confident he could reclaim it later. It even seems unlikely he would want to be physically parted from it, given its importance. If Loki managed to steal the staff, being the God of Trickery, that would explain things, but it isn't implied that that happened.
887** "Obsessed with Infinity Stones"? No. He is obsessed with his goal of balancing the universe and only sees Stones as means of achieving said goal. He may be unwilling to part with them, but definitely can bring himself to it if it means some long-term profit. Lending the Scepter to Loki was easiest way to obtain Space Stone (and possibly Time Stone), so he was willing to risk him failing (assuming he even considered such risk - remember, he thought Earth would have no means of fighting back against his forces). As for Loki betraying him - he also doesn't have to worry about it: it was established back in [[TheAvengers2012 The Avengers]] that Laufeyson is scared shitless of him and shown consistently up to this movie. No way he would dare to do any tricks.
888** Not to mention that obtaining the Space Stone would be worth pretty much any price, since he can just use it to teleport directly to the rest of the Stones once he knows where they are.
889** Thanos was really laid back because fighting for Infinity Stones is not without danger, he lets Ronan and Loki fetch the Stones for him since they take the risk and just got fed up by Age of Ultron.
890** Also, in terms of power, the Mind Stone isn't as big of a threat to Thanos in comparison to the other stones. Sure, Loki could've brainwashed Thanos, but as demonstrated in the first ''Avengers'' movie, said brainwashing '''can''' be undone. Plus, Thanos knew there was at least 1 other Infinity Stone on the Earth; he probably figured that risking a stone was worth it if it meant he could double (maybe even triple, if he knew that the Time Stone was on Earth) the number of stones he had.
891[[/folder]]
892
893[[folder: Why didn't Thanos use the Reality stone more often?]]
894* Did Thanos just completely forget that the reality stone existed during the battle on Titan? He uses it on Knowhere to create an extremely convincing illusion that no one can tell from reality, and then instantly disables both Drax and Mantis, to the point where both are immobile for a few minutes. I can understand that this maybe wouldn't work on Strange because Strange has the ability to "shape reality," but he never seems to use it on anyone else despite the destructive power it possesses.
895** As mentioned above (under "Using Infinity Stones"), one of Thanos' opponents on Titan is Doctor Strange, who himself has a significant ability to manipulate reality. It was simpler to use the Power and Space Stones, since any changes using the Reality Stone alone are temporary and could easily be countered by Strange. Also consider that Thanos, while extremely formidable, is still limited. He would have to dedicate constant attention and effort to maintaining anything he did with the Reality Stone, and that's just not worth it when he can just as easily use more mundane and effective means.
896*** What about when Strange was disabled and he was only fighting Stark?
897** By the time he won against Strange Stark was the last one standing and clearly outmatched, Thanos decided to have his fun like with Hulk.
898[[/folder]]
899
900[[folder: My plan vs your plan]]
901* Regarding the battle on Titan, between Thanos and the good guys: while the Guardians and Tony are first going over their plan to take down Thanos, Tony proposes something along the lines of "we draw him in, pin him down, and take the gauntlet." Starlord pooh-poohs the plan, saying it sucks and they should do his plan instead. In the end, apparently they do use Starlord's plan. (Starlord: "This was my plan, by the way.") But wasn't the fight we saw 'basically' "draw him in, pin him down, and take the gauntlet?" Dr. Strange draws Thanos into position, everyone works together to beat him up and pin him down, and they they try (and eventually fail) to take the gauntlet. How was it different than Tony's plan?
902** Details, really. More specifically, Mantis using her empathic abilities against Thanos, which Tony wouldn't have known about while making the plan himself.
903** Or it simply ''is'' the same plan, but just cooler, because Starlord would have proposed it. Stark probably reacted with a "yeah, whatever, if that makes you happy, it's your plan".
904** It might not even be Starlord's plan, he can lie. They probably heard Strange's plan after he said here is the one that worked (likely omitted the whole we are gonna die for a while though thing).
905** I took it as: Stark's plan is to attack Thanos all at once, hoping to overwhelm him, and get the Gauntlet, whereas Quill's plan is to attack him one-at-a-time so that he can't keep track of everyone (Thanos is expecting Maw alone), culminating in pinning him down one-at-a-time until he's incapacitated by everyone. Quill says Stark's plan "sucks" because he knows attacking Thanos all at once is suicide due to what happened on Knowhere.
906[[/folder]]
907
908[[folder:Why Didn't Thanos Spare Gamora's Mother?]]
909* Granted, it's possible that Gamora's mother was already killed when the planet was invaded, since Gamora was screaming for her and fighting against her captors. Suppose she had been alive. Then Thanos could have won over Gamora's loyalty entirely by sparing her mother, keeping her as a royal hostage to ensure that Gamora would never betray him. Instead, she eventually had a HeelRealization on learning that he turned her into a weapon and a pawn, rebelled against him, and scored a decisive victory against Ronan. Why not seize that opportunity?
910** Thanos made her fight her adopted sister under threat of mutilation, he doesn't understand anyone else's feeling but his so it would never cross his mind killing the parents would make them hold a grudge. Also kind of silly to think sparing Gamora's mom will make her forget all the atrocities Thanos is doing and the people he murdered in her hometown. This is a man with morality so out there he doesn't understand why randomly murdering people is not a viable solution he probably can't understand loyalty, which is why he is betrayed twice.
911** Gamora says in the first film that "he killed my parents in front of me" so it's possible they were already dead by the time of the scene we see in the flashback.
912** Even though Thanos probably never intended or expected that he'd genuinely come to love Gamora, he certainly wanted his new daughter/minion to grow up to love ''him'' ... and '''only''' him. Sparing her mother would've meant allowing her to remain a rival for Gamora's affection.
913** Thanos didn't seem to care about finding out who her mother was in the flashback. Perhaps she was just unlucky that she was part of the half that got killed - and maybe if she'd been in the half that lived then Thanos might have spared her.
914[[/folder]]
915
916[[folder:Strange's New Spells]]
917* While Doylist explanation is somewhat understandable (somewhat, because all those spells come from the comics, so have been part of the mythos for many years), there must be a Watsonian explanation why no one used those awesome spells Strange used in battle with Thanos in good doctor's solo movie. Sure, Strange himself was just a newbie, but Kaecilius, Mordo and especially the Ancient One were full-fledged and very powerful sorcerers. Fiery leapey blast spell, Images of Ikonn, Crimson Bands, even simple sword conjuration would have been very useful at very many points in that film.
918** Kaecilius favors mirror dimension power because Dormammu empowered him, Mordo and the Ancient one are more restrained than Strange since magic has consequence. Strange however doesn't care that much about the principle so he uses a bunch of spells.
919** Other things to consider are the circumstances. In the first fight involving the Ancient One she had no need to use any other spells as manipulating the mirror dimension was enough to curb-stomp Kaecilius and his followers, killing most of them. In her second fight Kaecilius ends things very quickly by stabbing her through stabbing one of his men, thus she was given no real opportunity to use other spells. As for the others, given Strange's prowess at learning difficult magic so quickly, it may well be that Kaecilius and Mordo don't know many or any of those other spells we saw Strange use in Infinity War.
920[[/folder]]
921
922[[folder:Nanotech Hammerspace]]
923* So if Tony's new suit is comprised of billions of microscopic robots, where does it store the liquid nitrogen or med-sprays that he uses?
924** Those were also just made of nanomachines. He's basically gluing the wound shut with microscopic staples instead of cold or standard medical glues.
925** The nanobots can also probably function as tiny factories/refineries, converting any raw material in the surrounding environment into useful supplies. Nitrogen, for instance, is nearly 80% of Earth's atmosphere (and probably plentiful on other habitable planets). Extracting, compressing, and cooling it is just a matter of having enough power, and Tony's arc reactor provides that.
926[[/folder]]
927
928[[folder:The Stark Connection]]
929* How the hell did Thanos know who Tony Stark was, what he's done for the people of Earth, and what he even looks like? He spent the entirety of the previous films just sitting in a chair, and never bothered to learn about any of other heroes before the events of this film (including the group his own daughter is a part of, mind you). So how is it that Thanos explicitly recognizes and understands Tony here?
930** How are you so certain that literally all he did was sit in a chair? You don't think he would have done some research into the people who stopped his forces on Earth before? Don't mistake a meme for actual events.
931*** How would Thanos possibly be able to gather info on Tony and his people from where he is? Unless he has inexplicable access to Earth's Internet, it would seem pretty far-fetched for his spies (if he has any) to figure out who exactly participated in the Battle of New York, and what their backgrounds are. Also, not exactly sure what meme it is you're talking about.
932*** The "He never gets out of the chair" meme. Seriously, though. The man is actively and explicitly searching for the Infinity Stones. He knows there are two of them on Earth. Thanos would have to be really, really stupid to not have people watching and gathering information about the planet.
933*** Also, what makes you think he didn't learn anything about the Guardians of the Galaxy? They're famous enough that he wouldn't even have to look hard. Also the way he refers to Starlord with familiarity as "the boyfriend," made it sound like his identity and relationship with Gamora were not a surprise to him.
934*** In the first Guardians film, his intel on what's going on inside the Kyln is amazing - he seems to be getting reports pretty close to real time (given that Gamora and the others have been there only a few hours at that point). It doesn't seem that unlikely that he would also have agents on Earth (and we know, from Guardians 2 and Agents of SHIELD, that there are occasional clandestine alien visits to Earth).
935** Kind of easy to know who threw a missile from a tower with his name on it, Stark isn't exactly a secretive person, plus if he knew the mind stone was stuck in some red robot's forehead he probably learned about who did it.
936** Guardians of the Galaxy indicates that Earth experiences some fairly regular traffic from people like the Ravagers (given Earth technology and other objects can be found throughout the galaxy), and Agents of SHIELD shows similar species have an interest in the planet. It's not impossible for Thanos to have learned about Stark from them.
937** He repeated a line from Red Skull: "You're not the only one cursed with knowledge.” Who seemed to recognize Thanos and understand his intentions. It's the influence of the Soul Stone. The implication is that it allows you to know a lot about any individuals.
938** Directors commentary confirms that he knows Stark from the Battle of New York. No Soul Stone shenanigans here.
939** The commentary just says Thanos is aware he's fighting the person that stopped him at New York. He still could have got the connection from checking him with the Soul Stone.
940[[/folder]]
941
942[[folder:Bucky's arm]]
943* If Bucky has retired and become a farmhand in Wakanda, why doesn't he wear his prosthetic arm? If not all the time, then at least while working on the farm. The difference between farming with only one arm and farming with two arms, one of which is super strong, seems astronomical.
944** I can think of three, not mutually-exclusive explanations. First, the arm is a symbol of his time as the Winter Soldier, which he rejects. Second, he may be intentionally making life harder for himself as punishment for his past as the Winter Soldier. Third, the rest of his body is still enhanced to the same level as Steve, so he'd have an easier time farming than a normal human (even one with both arms).
945** He seems to view the arm as a weapon of war, so he only takes it up when he knows there's a battle coming. If only because it'll make the fighting easier.
946[[/folder]]
947
948[[folder:Why fight?]]
949* OK, forget anything about how successful the Avengers might have been if Quill didn't go berserk and bum-rush Thanos before they could remove his Gauntlet. Strange said there was only ONE way, out of over 14 million, that they could possibly defeat Thanos, and seemingly implied as he disintegrated that it actually involved Thanos getting all six Stones...so then why did they even bother to try and stop him in the first place, rather than just fork over the Time Stone as soon as he arrived?
950** Either because that would make him suspicious and thus more careful or because it wasn't enough that he gets the stones, but also had to get them at certain, exact moment (just to think about one reason why: if he got it earlier, he would arrive to Earth before Thor and wouldn't get hit with Stormbreaker. Granted, he was able to shrug off said hit, but [[ChekhovsGun it doesn't mean it won't come back at worst possible moment in the next film]]). Most probably both.
951** Just giving him the gem would also allow him to reach Earth before all his Generals are killed if he still has those they might interfere with whatever eventual plan for vengeance the Avengers plan up.
952** Likely because the success of the plan hinges on Stark earning Thanos's respect, and, by extension, his promise to spare half the population of Earth. This ensures the survival of the core Avengers, who will no doubt be integral to winning the long term victory. The battle was required for that respect to be earned.
953** Thanos was going to "spare" half the population of Earth anyway, regardless of what Tony did.
954** On the off-chance scenario 14,000,60'''6''' happens where they do win against Thanos right away, it's not like Thanos is invincible. Besides Strange didn't tell the part where half of them die because no one would have rolled with it (especially Nebula who just crash in the middle of the fight) if some are willing to screw the plan over hearing bad news.
955** Prophecies don't always work this way in fiction. It could be a case in which knowingly trying to fulfill the prophecy would actually avert it, and if that was the case, Strange wouldn't have mentioned it at all, because that future scenario no longer exists. This prophecy in particular is dependent on no one actively trying to make it come true. It's possible that Doctor Strange knew this, and during a moment we never get to see, implored everyone to continue fighting despite his vision.
956** Mentioned elsewhere, but Strange's one "win" may have required Avengers Titan to delay Thanos for a very specific amount of time. Not only, as have others mentioned, Thanos loses his generals and most of his army in the Battle of Wakanda, but it's repeatedly stated Thanos' cullings are completely random. With the Infinity Gauntlet giving him the power to apply that over the entire universe, who knows that variables affect the outcome? Thanos may have needed to perform the Snap at a specific time and place in order for events to line up so that he could eventually be defeated. Most obviously, specific heroes (presumably at least Thor with Thanos-killing Stormbreaker, Tony Stark, and Captain Marvel) may be required to defeat Thanos, but would be erased by the Snap if Thanos gets all the Stones too early or too late.
957*** As of ''Endgame'', it's evident that the timing of the Snap ''did'' have to be '''extremely''' precise. Specifically, it had to coincide ''exactly'' with the very brief time Scott Lang had intended to spend in the Quantum Realm during the ''Ant-Man and the Wasp'' stinger.
958** And the plan also involved the team earning Thanos's respect - so he agrees to spare Tony in exchange for the stone. They put up a very good fight against him - all things considered. So the plan needed Thanos to view them as {{Worthy Opponent}}s.
959[[/folder]]
960
961[[folder:Vision's Perspective]]
962* Does Vision know he died twice? Did he experience the Death and rewind? OR does he just think Wanda didn't go through with it in the end?
963** With his AI brain, plus the Mind Stone, he may very well realize he died twice. As for thinking Wanda didn't go through with it, well last he knew, Wanda was in front of him, then suddenly, Thanos is there instead, tossing Wanda aside. So I doubt he'd think that Wanda chose not to do it.
964[[/folder]]
965
966[[folder:Ownership of the Soul Stone]]
967* It's established that the Soul Stone can only be retrieved from wherever the hell it hides in Vormir by sacrificing somebody you love. What happens, then, if someone else had somehow made it to the planet first and gotten the Stone? Could Thanos strong arm them into handing it over and, because he was never the one to get it from its hiding place initially, be able to use it without having to off Gamora at all?
968** Presumably, yes. It seems that the Soul Stone just needed a sacrifice to actually physically manifest. There's nothing to indicate it's any different from the other stones at that point. Thanos probably just didn't want to risk the possibility of anyone else getting their hands on a stone, especially after he had made the decision to expose himself.
969** And at this point Thanos knows there's a few loose ends out trying to stop him - he left the Guardians alive on Knowhere and the Hulk escaped - so theoretically he could have gotten someone else to sacrifice a loved one to get him the stone. But he was under pressure with time, so he went and sacrificed Gamora.
970[[/folder]]
971
972[[folder:Maria Hill's News]]
973* How did Maria Hill manage to receive news about the Battle of Wakanda, yet somehow miss Ebony Maw's attack in New York that happened just a few hours ago? Sure, Maw's attack wasn't as bad as Loki's, but it should be news to both her and Nick Fury that aliens have returned, right?
974** What makes you think she and Nick didn't know about the ship over New York?
975** Fury actually asks Hill if it's the same "signature" or something as New York, and she replies that it's much bigger. So they were definitely aware of the ship in New York, but the battle was over before anyone but the Heroes could respond.
976[[/folder]]
977
978[[folder:Heimdall Saving Hulk]]
979* Why would Heimdall decide to sacrifice himself to save the Hulk of all people? The closest the two had to an interaction was when the former witnessed the latter crash into the Rainbow Bridge, and there's no indication that he knows Hulk is originally from Midgard. So why would he send Hulk back to Earth, rather than someone he knows like his own king?
980** Send the Earthling to Earth to warn his people.
981** I don't recall where everyone was positioned, but perhaps Hulk was the only one close enough to where Heimdall was collapsed on the floor for him to open a portal for. He was also the one in the most immediate danger.
982** Heimdall looks at Thor before he sends Hulk off, and Thor gives him a small nod. Seems like Thor knew what his plan was, and he clearly approved. Besides, Asgardians can apparently survive in space while there's no sign that the Hulk can.
983** Heimdall's control of Bifrost's end-point location is lousy without his usual watchpost's apparatus to focus it. Had Bifrost dumped its passenger a mile up in the sky, Banner's the only one Heimdall can be sure it ''wouldn't'' kill. So he chose the guy whom he knew for a fact had already bounced back from a bone-shattering fall onto the original Bifrost in ''Ragnarok''.
984** Also, remember, Heimdall can see ''everywhere in the universe'' (with limited exception). He was almost certainly watching the Battle of New York, and saw Thor and Hulk fighting side by side against Loki and the Chitauri. Asgardians are also shown to be a boastful lot, so it's pretty much a given that Thor dined out on the story of him and the Avengers fighting aliens as often as he could. So Heimdall is aware of who Hulk and Banner are, and knows two Infinity Stones are on Earth, so sends Banner[=/=]Hulk to give them a warning.
985[[/folder]]
986
987[[folder:Sacrificing something you love in order to get the stone]]
988* Does it have to be a living person? What about objects? What would happen if I burn a pile of money in front of Red Skull, or destroy my favorite paintings? Does Thanos have any other objects he hold dear besides the gauntlet? There must be other ways than throwing his own daughter off a cliff.
989** No, it's a soul stone, a soul for a soul.
990** The whole point is that it ''has'' to be someone you love. It's not about objects and it's not about finding a loophole that lets you have your cake and eat it too. If you want the Soul Stone, you '''have to''' murder someone you genuinely love. You don't do that, you don't get the stone.
991** Edge case: what about Vision? He's clearly capable of both genuine love and of being loved, but as an artificial being he does not have a soul. Could you kill Vision to get the Soul Stone?
992** He's clearly more than just his programming. Perhaps he does have a soul. Who's to say?
993[[/folder]]
994
995[[folder:Nebula and Star-Lord]]
996* Upon a second viewing of Infinity War I have a question: Why didn't Nebula stop (or at least try to stop) Star-Lord from attacking Thanos on Titan when he, Tony, Drax, Mantis, and Strange were trying to take off the Infinity Gauntlet? Yes Nebula arrived at the scene late so she wouldn't have known about the plan but she could see they were trying to take the Gauntlet off cause she was standing behind Star-Lord, ''and'' she knew about the stones already as well so she would know why taking it off was important, yet she just stood behind Star-Lord during the entire scene and did nothing when he started pistol-whipping Thanos in the head. You could say that she wanted to see Thanos in pain but I still don't see why she would let Star-Lord screw up the Gauntlet plan to see Thanos in pain for a moment instead of restraining Star-Lord, letting everyone else get the Gauntlet off, then being allowed to kick the crap out of him when he didn't have his fancy rocks.
997** Because after learning of Gamora's death, she was in just as much pain as Quill, but whereas he went berserk, she just froze up.
998** In recent succession Nebula was also forgiven by Gamora and the sisters had somewhat mended their bond. Nebula was alone and had nobody else to love or care for her, so in a short space of time she gets her sister back and then loses her again - and Gamora had in fact sacrificed herself to save Nebula. So as soon as she finds out that Gamora has indeed been killed, her mind is processing all of that and she has no idea how to deal with it.
999[[/folder]]
1000
1001[[folder: Why not download Vision's consciousness?]]
1002* We know that Vision could expunge Ultron's consciousness from the internet, and that both the Ultron and JARVIS components from which his template derives could freely transfer from one of Tony's suits or computer systems to another. Wakanda's computer systems are centuries more advanced than Stark's, so could presumably hold an artificial intelligence that's as complex as Vision's with ease. So, rather than pick apart the link between the Mind Stone and Vision's robot body gradually, why not transfer Vision's consciousness into another system ''first'' for temporary storage, quickly scan and map the vacant body's circuit patterns, then just rip the Stone out of his lifeless chassis and destroy it? There'd be plenty of time to repair any damage to his physical body's circuitry later on, and upload Vision back into his robotic housing, after the battle was done. Heck, Shuri could even link him up to her automatic piloting system so disembodied-Vision could join in the fighting, operating his own Bugatti spaceship.
1003** I doubt it would be that simple. Given what type of effort Ultron was trying to go through to download himself into Vision (when it should've been really simple for him to do), it seems like the Mind Stone is intrinsically connected to the process, thus he can't just download himself out of his body so easily.
1004** Considering Shuri is the one performing the operation, if the other option were easier then she would be doing ''that'' instead.
1005[[/folder]]
1006
1007[[folder: They're On House Arrest]]
1008* It really seems like the protagonists dismissed the idea of calling Ant-Man and Hawkeye out of hand. Granted, it's questionable whether or not they'd be very effective against a galactic-scale heavy hitter like Thanos, but the gravity of the situation seems like it should be much more important than a possible parole violation-- the Avengers didn't even ''try'' to summon two of their allies, one of whom was a charter member of the team. If one or both of them were present on Titan to fight Thanos (or more importantly, restrain Quill), or were in Wakanda to help keep Corvus Glaive out of the operating room, the tides of battle could have turned. Instead, [[Film/AntManAndTheWasp Scott is learning magic tricks and playing]] ''VideoGame/RockBand'' and Clint is presumably playing darts in his garage. In Scott's case, he [[TrappedInAnotherWorld pays a heavy price]] for sitting the adventure out, which further enforces why he should have gotten involved.
1009** Iron Man didn't have time to call anyone nor wanted to, Strange was kidnapped and Spider-Man was near enough to sneak in. As for turning the tides of battle in Wakanda, they were kind of already winning and nothing was shown that Captain America still have their contact number after going on the run.
1010** It would have been impossible for Ant-Man and Hawkeye to make it to Titan as Tony and Peter were only able to board the ship due to their suits' flight power. Furthermore, Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian showed up in New York mere minutes after Tony learned of Thanos' plan and the only one's who were able to help him were Strange, Wong, and Banner, who were with him at the time, and Spider-Man, who happened to be nearby. Tony was also on the team that fought against Clint and Scott, so he wouldn't have their contact information, and they probably wouldn't exactly be rushing to the aid of someone who got them sent to prison, especially not Scott as he had no prior interaction with Tony and works with a guy who openly views the Starks with disdain. Not to mention Scott lives in San Francisco and the New York fight lasts only a few minutes.
1011*** While most of that makes sense, even if Tony doesn't have Clint and Scott's contact information in his digital rolodex, he probably would be able to access it - they're on house arrest and he's been working with the authorities, so even if he couldn't just ask for them he's almost certainly fully capable of using his tech to break into databases with that information. Time is probably the main limiting factor, especially if their ankle monitors are enhanced to actively prevent them from going AWOL instead of just alerting the authorities (unless that's addressed in Film/AntManAndTheWasp).
1012** He can't access it because Tony is busy fighting Maw and then he is in space, at no point he has time to warn them to join even if he wanted to (Tony wanted to fight them alone).
1013** ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'' reveals that Scott has just been freed from house arrest but he's busy doing a lot of experiments with the Pyms - and it's likely he hasn't contacted the Avengers to let them know he's free. For all we know they did contact him or try to but had no idea where he was. Or since he has a family, they chose to leave him out of it so as not to put them in danger.
1014[[/folder]]
1015
1016[[folder: Thanos wielding the Power Stone]]
1017* During the course of the film, Thanos is shown to always add Infinity Stones to his gauntlet by holding the stone over it and letting it drop into his hand. One question about that though: how was he able to do this with the Power Stone without killing himself? Star-Lord gets a pass since he's part Celestial and was channeling it through his friends, but Thanos doesn't seem to have any justifiable resistance against it.
1018** According to what, exactly? Ronan held the Power Stone with his bare hand long enough to implant it in his own weapon, and Thanos is considerably more powerful than him. He could've easily endured its effects long enough to implant the Stone in the Gauntlet.
1019** Thanos is a Titan (another Celestial offshoot race like Peter Quill), he has the power to hold an Infinity Stone too.
1020[[/folder]]
1021
1022[[folder: Why were the effects of the Snap delayed?]]
1023* Shouldn't the Infinity Stones have just killed half of the universe all at once, rather than it being staggered over at least several minutes?
1024** 1. The different scenes aren't actually happening in sequence. They're happening all at the same time, but since they didn't do a split screen, you're just seeing them one at a time. 2. Why should they do it all instantly? I'd say the six impossible godly space rocks can do things however the hell they want.
1025** Even in the same scene some take longer to disappear than other, Spider-Man lasted longer than Strange and Star-Lord. And yes they are godly space rocks not stage director, they don't delay some deaths because they read the script and it said drama, the Reality stone doesn't take like five seconds to turn something into bubbles if it feels like it.
1026** There's no reason that assuming it should happen instantly is any more logical than wouldn't. A couple of factors that could affect it: distance from snap and durability of the targets.
1027** Neither those would explain why Spider-Man would disappear so much later than the others, as they were all standing near each other, and presumably Star-Lord (being a half-Celestial) and Strange (with his magical powers) are more powerful and durable than him.
1028** Star-Lord when not empowered by Ego is as durable as a regular human, Strange likewise is a squishy wizard. Spidey is both superhumanly strong and durable, and covered in durability enhancing Starktech armour.
1029** Also, Spidey typically has among his powers a minor healing factor. Nowhere near Wolverine level, but he'll get over things in days or weeks that others might take months to recover from. It's possible that was at work here.
1030*** WordOfGod says it's basically that. His Spider-Sense could tell something really bad was happening (hence his "not feeling so good") and kicked his healing factor into overdrive to try and stop it. It managed to delay the process, but ultimately failed to keep him alive.
1031** actual answer: RuleOfDrama. Killing the goofy muscle man, the nice tree, the kid, etc. last hurts the most. But yeah, biological abilities, amount of willpower left at the moment to fight off the CriticalExistenceFailure (Spider-man is usually written to have one of the greater willpowers in Marvel material for instance), etc. can all be reasonable explanations.
1032** Maybe the fingersnap actually does a little risk assessment of who it's wiping out beforehand. Note that the super powerful beings like Dr Strange, Scarlet Witch and Groot die - while the majority of those left alive are {{Badass Normal}}s or else more muscle than firepower (Thor, Banner). So it needs time to assess who it's going to kill.
1033** Easiest explaination is that Thanos is, at his core, a LargeHam. Eliminating half the population of the universe in a blink is dull; having half the population of the universe slowly fade out -- leaving a lasting impression on the survivors -- is more of his style. He probably considered having an omnipresent voice saying "I, Thanos, decree this!" but decided it was a tad too much.
1034[[/folder]]
1035
1036[[folder: Time Immunity]]
1037* Why weren't Scarlet Witch and the other downed Avengers affected by Thanos manipulating time to undo Vision's destruction? Shouldn't they be rewinding alongside the explosion like how the citizens of Hong Kong were in Dr. Strange's solo movie?
1038** You can probably control whether you want to focus the time manipulation on a single person/object or an entire area. When Strange used the Time Stone for the first time on the apple, he also didn't affect anything else. And when he turned back time to undo the downfall of the Hong Kong sanctum, that was also localized to the area that had already been destroyed.
1039** The other stones probably helped too. Thanos would want to make sure that he doesn't put Wanda in a position to get the upper hand again. The space or reality stone could probably stop everything else from being rewound.
1040** You can see Thanos "drop an anchor" on the spot that Vision died so that the use of the stone only affected him. That's how it worked with Strange's apple.
1041[[/folder]]
1042
1043[[folder: Why half the entire universe?]]
1044* I get that Thanos wants to stop overpopulation but killing off half the universe seems a ''little'' excessive. Why not just genocide some AlwaysChaoticEvil races (and we know some exist in the Marvel universe) that no one will miss?
1045** Genociding a random AlwaysChaoticEvil race has no effect on overpopulation anywhere else. Let's say you kill all inhabitants of Random Planet X, how would this affect Planet Earth or Gamora's planet? He wants to stop overpopulation everywhere in the entire universe, so he has to kill parts of the population everywhere as well, as insane as it is. Besides, Thanos's plan isn't supposed to make 100% sense. The directors confirmed that the main reason why he does it is to prove that he was right and that his planet Titan would have lived if they followed his plan. He didn't do it because of true benevolence.
1046** And who's to say that humanity wouldn't be among such races? An alien may point that HumansAreTheRealMonsters, and have been killing themselves from the dawn of time. Yes, humans also know about love, but that makes thing worse: fully knowing about love and morals, humans wage wars anyway (or even justify such wars with pure intentions, as InsaneTrollLogic). The Chitauri being destructive because they don't know something else seems less evil in comparison. Case in point: the humans made a film about a creature that destroyed half the universe! I doubt the Vulcan or Ocampa literature could come up with something like that...
1047*** Indeed, ''sparing'' the more bloodthirsty races might seem more in keeping with Thanos's twisted agenda, as those are the races that probably '''would''' approve of his original scheme of killing half of Titan's population to save the rest. At least, so long as the individuals in charge would be the ones choosing who lives and who dies, rather than leaving the selection process to chance.
1048** Wasn't Thanos's original plan to kill ''everyone''? And it was only when Tony earned his respect that he relented and said he'd only kill half? His usual plan is to kill half but I got the impression he was planning to kill everyone once he got the stones.
1049** Everyone who knows him says that he's going to use the Stones to kill half of all life, that it's always been his goal. He was saying what he said to comfort Tony in what would've been his final moments, not because Tony's valor suddenly convinced him otherwise.
1050** Gamora stated that as long as she'd known Thanos, which is most of her life as she was adopted as a child, that Thanos' goal was to kill half the universe's population. This was also his proposed solution on his dying homeworld. After Titan fell, he went planet by planet killing half the life, but realized he'd need all of the Infinity Stones to do it on a universal scale. He never states or implies he intends to kill all life. Half was always his goal.
1051[[/folder]]
1052
1053[[folder: Is Thanos the protagonist of ''Infinity War''?]]
1054* Christopher Markus and Stephen [=McFeely=], the screenwriters of ''Infinity War'', firmly believe that the Mad Titan is the main "hero". This is what [=McFeely=] says about him: "[Thanos] is the protagonist. He overcomes odds. He sacrifices a lot and gets what he wants in the end. <...> At the end of Act 2, something bad was going to happen to Thanos. That's when [Gamora] goes over the cliff... It's the worst thing that can happen to him, but it's a necessary evil to get what he wants." Question is: ''Is all of this will be enough to consider Thanos as a full-fledged protagonist''?
1055** [[BluntYes Yes]].
1056** [[BigNo No]].
1057*** Let's break it down then, shall we? The answer '''YES''' could allude to the possible PerspectiveFlip intentionally pulled out by Russo Bros. ''Can we '''sympathize''' with Thanos?'' Yes. ''Can we assume that the Avengers are the '''Hero Antagonists''' that stand in his way?'' Yes. ''Can we truly think that Thanos's goals are '''actually noble'''?'' Yes.
1058*** Can you? Apparently. Should anyone? Hardly.
1059*** On the other side, the answer '''NO''' might as well be a classic interpretation of a ''Good vs. Evil'' eternal conflict, as in ''The Avengers vs. The Mad Titan'' respectively. Some people can accept that Thanos is the actual BigBad of the story depicted in this film: he has his own squad of henchmen that do his dirty job, he tries to achieve a truly horrible goal that includes universal genocide, the Avengers oppose him because that's what good guys always do, etc.
1060** What could be ''the real answer'' to this complicated question, then? Some believe that Thanos is the VillainProtagonist of ''Avengers: Infinity War''; some, however, consider him as a true BigBad of the story. '''Maybe this is the overall point:''' ''you can't be sure at all''. ''Nothing is absolute''; maybe some professional critics or dedicated fans of [=MCU=] could figure this out.
1061** I would say He's a WellIntentionedExtremist, or, if I'm being generous, an AntiVillain but certainly not a hero.
1062* Protagonist does not mean hero. You can have a VillainProtagonist for example. The Blog/UnshavedMouse feels similar, and the film treats Thanos like the protagonist, and that's why it makes him a compelling villain.
1063[[/folder]]
1064
1065[[folder:Thanos crying over Gamora]]
1066* After Thanos throws Gamora off the cliff, he sheds tears at doing so, as if he really cared about her. Why does he care about her? Gamora has made it very clear whenever she speaks about Thanos that she hates him almost as much as Nebula. Yes, she is his "favorite daughter", but we're not told why.
1067** Because Thanos may want to kill half the universe, but he is still capable of love and compassion. Despite how much Gamora hates him for his methods of doing it, he still raised her since she was a child and therefore as much as she might deny it, he is her surrogate father. Why exactly she's his favourite isn't clearly said, but implied to be because she always bested Nebula in their fights.
1068** The very fact that he got the Soul Stone after throwing her to her death is proof that he did love her. After the movie came out, many people who have experienced abuse or know about it in detail have pointed out how Thanos's attitude towards Gamora parallels abusers and their tormentors. Abusers can love the people they hurt in their own twisted ways. Love is also extremely complicated, and sometimes we can both hate and love a person at the same time. Thanos could love Gamora as his favorite daughter but also resent her for her resistance to him. So he can pragmatically see that sacrificing her would eliminate a powerful opponent but that doesn't stop him from feeling bad about it, because he does view her as his child.
1069[[/folder]]
1070
1071[[folder:Thor's axe vs Thanos]]
1072* Why the ''hell'' does Thor throw his axe at Thanos' chest instead of using it to cut his arm off so he can't activate the Infinity Gauntlet (and then pick it up before Thanos can use his other arm to do so)?
1073** Because he's pissed and he wants Thanos to suffer. If he really wanted to end it, Thanos straight up says he should've gone for the head, but Thor didn't because his mind was clouded by rage and he wanted Thanos to die painfully.
1074** Also the body is a much bigger target that the head or arm. A honking great axe isn't a precision weapon after all. Aiming at his arm or head would have greatly increased the chance of Thanos dodging him.
1075** Thor is a warrior with a thousand years of experience. As anyone with training in military or law enforcement will tell you, if you're aiming with any kind of projectile, you are supposed to aim for the center mass. Thanos would be able to move an arm or his head much faster than he could his torso. Thor isn't using a firearm with multiple bullets-- he's using his new axe, which he can summon back to him, but he only has one throw at a time so he had to make it count. Consider that Thor is probably still getting used to that new mechanical eye (and even the axe itself-- this is his first battle with the new weapon and no matter how good you are with weapons in general you still need to adjust to new weaponry) and a more precise throw at a smaller target could have missed even if Thanos hadn't actively dodged.
1076** For that matter, ''a chest shot had an excellent chance of killing Thanos.'' There's a reason chest shots are almost always fatal. Had Thanos been just a little less durable, the saga would've ended there and then and everything else would've been clean up.
1077[[/folder]]
1078
1079[[folder:Thor's slowness]]
1080* A better question about Thor is how come he was slow to react to Thanos' appearance? Every other Avenger reached Thanos before he got to Vision, Thor who can actually stop him? Nowhere to be seen until it is too late.
1081** When Thanos appears, Steve relays this fact to everyone he can, presumably via earpiece which is why they all converge on Thanos. Given that he's been away for a while and only just arrived at that very battle, Thor probably does not have one of them at the time, in addition to being distracted by mopping up the outriders. Thor probably came (eventually) because he saw the Mind Stone's explosion when it was destroyed.
1082[[/folder]]
1083
1084[[folder:Strange's conditions for victory or defeat]]
1085* So, Strange saw 14 million+ possible "outcomes for the upcoming conflict," only one of which was a win for the good guys. Fair enough, but how did he decide what constituted an indisputable "win", and how much farther than that did he see to make ''sure'' it was a win and not just a temporary one? At least a few million of those futures, he must have been trying to find a way to defeat Thanos on Titan. Keep the Time Stone safe, period. In few of ''those'', they must have gotten some semblance of victory, but something made him watch further beyond to realize it was only a brief one. And even once he figured out that they had to "lose" the fight on Titan, he must have had a way to see into a much, much longer future (despite his own dusting) so he could find the one chance declare, "Yes, this is an ultimate victory, or as close to one as we're gonna get." What kept him from declaring a victory on Titan "valid" and going back right then--his mere curiosity about what would happen next? Did he trace the Infinity Gauntlet all the way to the end of its existence to make sure THIS path isn't a temporary victory too?
1086** Nobody knows, because Strange didn't tell anyone, we didn't see his visions, and there's been no information released about anything he saw or how he came to his conclusion. This just plain is not a question that has any answer.
1087** As unlikely as it may seem, it's possible that despite all Strange's findings, there actually ''wasn't'' any semblance of victory. Thanos comes out of that whole fight with nothing more than a small scratch, so it's possible that even had they gotten the gauntlet off, they still couldn't win.
1088** In [[Film/AvengersEndgame Avengers: Endgame]], we finally see how the winning scenario plays out. After snatching all 6 stones from Thanos, Tony Stark used them on to snap Thanos and his entire army out of existence, even though it costs him his life. It perfectly makes sense for Strange to conclude that this is the best outcome they could have, even without seeing what will happen farther down this timeline.
1089** Could be he searched until he found a viable outcome for eventual victory, then kept on searching for a ''less costly'' path to victory until such time as the Stone started showing him futures where they failed ''because he'd wasted too much time viewing possible futures''.
1090[[/folder]]
1091
1092[[folder:Possible amount of time to analyze different outcomes]]
1093* As was noted in the previous folder, Stephen Strange looks into possible outcomes of the battle with the Mad Titan. Of course, he utilizes the Eye of Agamotto - thus, the overall process seems to be very fast by the viewers and every character present. Here comes this question: how much time it would ''really'' took to examine ''all these possible futures''?
1094** He's wearing a Stone that controls time itself. The answer to that question is "however long he needs it to take." If you're looking for exact numbers, no idea.
1095*** Fair enough. But here's the kicker: Strange not only searches for the winning scenario - he analyzes '''millions of possible outcomes''' to get that exact conclusion. ''Every single one of these conclusions'' needs to be rationalized and considered, not to mention ''lived through'' - and ''each of these instances by itself'' takes quite a fair amount of time to process. Maybe good old Doc is a wizard, but that doesn't mean he can't age and can't die. Even without the personal suspension of his aging process thanks to Time Stone, Strange must probably spend ''hundreds of his lifetimes'' looking for that scenario. Or to put it simply, ''Centuries Inside His Mind - Seconds Outside In Reality.''
1096** It took a lot of time, presumably. Why do we care beyond that? He seems fine afterward.
1097[[/folder]]
1098
1099[[folder:Suicidal Tesseract]]
1100* In ''Captain America: The First Avenger'', the Tesseract teleported the Red Skull away to the place the Soul Stone is kept because it sensed that he wanted to use itself for its own selfish purposes. With that in mind, why didn't it do anything when Thanos and Ebony Maw were holding it in their bare hands? Yeah, others have touched the Tesseract with the intent of using it for something awful, but those intentions didn't involve its ''own self destruction''. So what gives now?
1101** For one thing, the Tesseract is actually just a container for the Space Stone, which is what has a mind of its own. It ultimately doesn't care if the shell around it is destroyed. As to why Red Skull was teleported while Thanos and Maw were not, it probably saw Skull's intentions as being too selfish and evil while Thanos at least believed that his goal was genuinely noble.
1102[[/folder]]
1103
1104[[folder:Why Take The Court Martial?]]
1105* Colonel Rhodes was ordered by Ross to arrest Captain America and his entire party, and Rhodes decides he'd rather take the court martial. Since it seems like he is questioning his signing of the Sokovia Accords, why doesn't he just ''resign'' his commission? Rhodes has held his position more than 8 years, and likely has completed all his obligations, so he's allowed to quit. Not only is it cathartic, but at least he won't cause a scandal to the Air Force if he gets in trouble ''outside'' of it. Plus, Ross has been nothing but a tyrant with these Accords, so quitting would be in Rhodey's best interest by the time of this film.
1106** Rhodey initially tried to reason with Ross instead of simply being needlessly combative. Logically, if there is indication that there's an event so potentially catastrophic that there's not enough time for bureaucracy, Ross might be willing to listen to someone with Rhodes' credentials who actually signed the Accords. But Ross is operating on his own brand of HonorBeforeReason . But Rhodey knew what was at stake and he would not be party to arresting a group of people who could potentially save billions of lives. Quitting? Would have been a nice gesture but given what was happening quitting would have been symbolic and little else. Just like the court martial. If Rhodes had quit at some point, he would have been escorted away from the Avengers Facility (he could have fought back and made a mess but that would have been bad for everyone), and would have been unable to supply the rogue Avengers with things they needed for the forthcoming battle, as well. So basically, Rhodey needed 1) to still be able to talk to Ross and attempt to reason, and 2) have access to resources. That's basically why he couldn't quit.
1107** Plus, if he needed to, Rhodes could potentially claim cutting off the hologram was a technical malfunction and try to cover up his other dealings with Cap and the others to get the authorities off his back.
1108[[/folder]]
1109
1110[[folder:When exactly does TheStinger take place?]]
1111* At the beginning of TheStinger, Fury and Hill get satellite reports of "multiple bogeys Wakanda", which are confirmed to have the same energy signature as the ship that attacked New York earlier in the movie. So this must refer to Thanos's fleet appearing over Wakanda. However, between the moment the ships appear and the moment Thanos snaps his fingers, at least an hour of must've passed, given that the whole massive battle takes place in the interim. Yet in the stinger, Hill and Fury get the news about the ships, and only seconds later they hit a car whose driver has disappeared because of the fingersnap. How does this make sense?
1112** The Battle doesn't take that long. There are multiple battles happening at once at the film cuts between them. Second, Hill's reports must not reach her instantly. So she's picking up comm chatter about the ships attacking Wakanda after it's happened and while the battle is reaching it's end stage.
1113** If the reports are coming from satellites, they should reach her instantaneously, not with such a long delay. The fact she can compare the energy signature of the ships means she has the actual satellite data, and is not just listening to some comm chatter. Even if take into account the film cutting between fights, the sheer logistics of the battle mean that it's not over that quickly. For example, after the ships have appeared, the Wakandan troops organise at the border, which must take some time, even if the movie obviously skips over that part. So, between the ships appearing and Thanos snapping his fingers, a significant amount of time passes.
1114** Maria Hill is not personally monitoring every satellite. Even if she's getting the satellite reports, that absolutely does not mean that she's getting them the instant anyone pops up. Someone ''else'' monitors the satellites, then flags what they see, then someone else takes a closer look and determines just what they're looking at. She says they match the energy signature -- that's not ''her'' looking at the instant data and concluding it; it's her ''reading someone else's report'' on it.
1115** Certainly. But given that said data indicates ''massive, most likely hostile warships appearing from space'', you'd think it would take a bit less time for them to report it? Can you imagine what would happen in real life, if people monitoring radar data would take over an hour to report sightings of seemingly hostile vessels violating the airspace to their superior officer?
1116** Said data indicates that '''after someone has analyzed it'''. That a satellite is being monitored does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that it can instantly and accurately identify things that have never been seen before ''and'' deduce their intent. The word "bogey" means that the identity of whatever it is ''is unknown''. Repeat after me: ''The characters do not have all the information, perspective and hindsight that we do''. '''We''' know they're hostile alien ships because we're sitting in the theater after months and years of anticipating that hostile alien ships will be in the movie. '''The characters do not'''.
1117** The characters should know that they are likely to be hostile, as New York was just attacked by a similar ship. Presumably, after that attack, all of Earth's defense forces are under a state of emergency. So when a new set of spaceships arrive soon after, they wouldn't think it's merely a coincidence that these ships just happened to arrive within days after the previous hostile ship. So yeah, it makes no sense they would wait for hours to analyse the data instead of reporting the arrival of the ships right away.
1118** The ships landing over Wakanda are different types of ship. And an attack on the opposite side of the planet does not mean that any ship landing is automatically going to be assumed as hostile and related. They might ''suspect'', but it still takes time to analyze and confirm that it even ''is'' a ship. I mean, remember that the ships are landing over ''Wakanda'', which is super secretive. It might take time just to get the information that ''anything'' is happening over there.
1119[[/folder]]
1120
1121[[folder:Telling, but not exactly showing.]]
1122* Is it just me, or does Thanos consistently fail at using the resources at hand to provide a more substantial case for his "kill half the universe" argument? Two scenes in particular are indicative of this omittance of key information: During his conversation with Gamora, Thanos mentions that Zen-Whoberi has become "a paradise" ever since he did his thing... Then show us. Go on, you've already got half the stones in your possession (and are on your way to nabbing a fourth), I'm sure you wouldn't mind taking a quick teleportation detour to show off the fruits of your labour. Same happens during his conversation with Strange on Titan, only this time he omits the period during which the once-vibrant planet's transitioned into the wasteland it currently exists as. We're not exactly asking him to travel back in time after being given the Time Stone in order to prove his point, just use the Reality Stone (combined with the power of the other three) in order to conjure up a mockup of the events that occurred, whether it be a war for resources, a large-scale technological/societal breakdown or some other mass extinction event. I guess what I'm trying to ask; is Thanos simply too lazy/pressed for time in order to better use the more mundane functions of the Infinity Stones to properly justify the arguments and stories he puts forth, or is he deliberately withholding certain details which could expose some serious flaws within his reasoning and motivations behind his master plan?
1123** Quite simply, he just plain does not feel he needs to justify his arguments. He doesn't need the approval of some committee because, as he demonstrates, he's strong enough to just go ahead and do what he feels needs to be done no matter who objects. He believes he's right, and he knows that nobody else will see it that way no matter what he says, so while he will profess his logic and claim that it works, he's not going to waste his time putting on a full presentation to people who he knows won't agree.
1124[[/folder]]
1125
1126[[folder:Thor using the Bifrost to head to Wakanda.]]
1127* So, alright -- Stormbreaker can summon the Bifrost. Sure, plausible, explained within the dialogue, that's all fine. But exactly how did Thor manage to use the Bifrost to open a portal not just to Earth, but specifically to Wakanda (a place he's never been) and precisely to the middle of the battlefield where he would blunt the Outriders' assault? Heimdall could do that only because he had some sort of mystical sight which allowed him to see pretty much anywhere in the universe that wasn't deliberately shielded or hidden (as with Loki's veils and illusions). Isn't Thor doing this nothing more than NewPowersAsThePlotDemands?
1128** As Thor: Ragnarok shows, Heimdall's presence isn't strictly necessary to use the Bifrost, seeing as Skurge was able to use it and hear Thor calling to him through it. How Thor knew to go to Wakanda specifically is a good question, though.
1129** It's possible Thor somehow used the Bifrost to head towards where the other Avengers were - or indeed Thanos if he's able to do that. But at least at the point of the battle, Wakanda had lowered the shield and the Bifrost was able to take Thor there.
1130[[/folder]]
1131
1132[[folder:WhyDon'tYouJustShootHim?]]
1133* When Tony, Spider-Man, Drax, Mantis, and Doctor Strange had Thanos pinned down and subdued, why didn’t they just have Quill shoot Thanos when they had the chance? It would’ve made getting the Gauntlet off of him much easier and his threat would’ve been ended right then and there.
1134** Besides the fact that Quill wanted to question about Gamora's whereabouts, what makes you think that would work? Thanos was taking all their most powerful attacks without breaking a sweat. Shooting him might've just woken him up anyway.
1135[[/folder]]
1136
1137[[folder:Where people return to after being un-snapped?]]
1138* Crosses with NightmareFuel, but in general, what is the criteria to where to put people back that the stones used? Infinity War shows explicitly a helicopter without a pilot. Are they going to come back in the sky and fall to their deaths? In the ground? What if it was a traveling over water? Would they appear back in the destroyed and properly repurposed wreckage after five years? How about spaceships far away from any planet??
1139** Unlike Thanos, Banner would probably take that into account, to the point of either moving the returned someplace safer, or reconstructing the vehicles if necessary.
1140** Since the Mind Stone is an incredibly powerful supercomputer, it would probably do the calculations needed so that Banner can have them return in the safest way possible.
1141[[/folder]]
1142
1143
1144[[folder: Why did Strange give up the Time Stone?]]
1145* I know it must have failed in one of the 14 million outcomes he saw, but why? How could Thanos have possibly gotten the Time Stone and carried out the snap if Strange hadn't given it up?
1146** Thanos would have killed Stark right then and there, and then gone on to continue murdering half of every planet he came across as he had been doing before—only this time armed with ''four'' Infinity Stones. Things would likely have been far, far worse in the long run. Think about how the Avengers in Wakanda were powerless to stop him when he literally only used three stones. What would have happened if he were actually trying to kill them?
1147[[/folder]]
1148
1149[[folder: Why didn't Eitri have a handle ready for Stormbreaker? And how tough is Groot's arm?]]
1150Can't help but wonder why didn't Eitri, who's clearly very experienced, have the handle ready instead of realizing he didn't have it at literally the last minute? Considering how much effort it took to forge Stormbreaker and how it was essentially a one-shot only attempt, it was a ''huge'' oversight. Also, how can Groot's arm, which he severed to make the handle, be able to withstand the forces of Thor using Stormbreaker without shattering into a million pieces? Groot's tough, but it's shown multiple times that he's not invulnerable and takes damage.
1151* 1) Eitri usually worked with other dwarves. Maybe they had a workflow where Eitri and others operated the forge and someone else selected and fit the handle, and when he finished the molding process realized that no one had the handle ready. Also, it only became extremely urgent to find the handle immediately because Thor was dying. 2) Stormbreaker is a magic axe. It likely has {{Required Secondary Power}}s preventing it from ripping itself apart during use.
1152[[/folder]]
1153
1154[[folder: Loki Surrendering the Tesseract]]
1155Why did Loki wait until ''after'' Thanos inserted the Space Stone into the Gauntlet to make the painfully obvious assassination attempt? Furthermore, why give him the real thing? As a MasterOfIllusion, it should have been trivial for him to conjure up a fake Tesseract and then go for the neckstab against a distracted Thanos while he was reaching out for it. Then teleport himself and Thor out of there while everyone's startled.
1156* Admittedly, this scene is set-up pretty hazily, but it's key to remember that this was at the end of a very long battle where Thanos and his forces slaughtered half their people. Thor, Loki, and Heimdall were exhausted and demoralized after the conflict, so it's likely they weren't thinking very clearly. The Hulk was their Hail Mary play and it failed. Loki might have seen Thanos getting the Stone as inevitable at that point. Also, Thanos is not one to fuck around, and likely would have killed Thor in retaliation for any tricks or illusions Loki pulled. So at the end, Loki tried the only trick he had left. It gets into headcanon territory, but Thanos also kills only enough to leave things perfectly balanced. He and Thor were the only ones left alive on the ship, so either Loki's attempt works and they can get away safely or it fails, in which case at least Thor would be spared while he dies.
1157[[/folder]]
1158
1159[[folder: Using the Bifrost properly]]
1160As pointed out in this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKMTHW6qfSw HISHE]], instead of sending Hulk to Earth, Heimdall could have easily used the Bifrost on Thanos and the Black Order to cast them out into the middle of space or a star if a precise location is needed. Thanos didn't get the Space Stone until he was finished with Loki in that period of time so they don't have to worry about them coming back. Was it because he is worrying about the ''Sanctuary II'' and possibility of the Odinson siblings being caught in the blast range?
1161** Possibly because he only had one chance to operate the Bifrost before he was killed, and chose the option to get someone to Earth who could immediately summon help. Perhaps if he did think of that other option, he might not want to risk it going wrong and thus he's used up his last chance.
1162** It's possible to exit the Bifrost in transition, as Loki and Thor both (involuntarily) do in Ragnarok. So as a mechanism for kidnap to a specific destination, it's fairly useless. Thanos would be smart enough to dip out of the beam before it reached its destination. Even in a worst-case scenario where that leaves him stranded in space, Thanos can almost certainly communicate with his allies through whatever means.
1163[[/folder]]
1164
1165[[folder: Why didn't they fix Nebula?]]
1166At one point Nebula mentioned her cyborg parts leave her in constant pain. After she [[HeelFaceTurn turns good]], why don't the good guys try to help or some how? I would think Doctor Strange could heal her or something like that.
1167** Nebula spends all of her time ''away'' from the good guys, and she doesn't even know Doctor Strange. Plus, nowhere have we seen Doctor Strange's abilities include healing.
1168** Why not? He's one of the most gifted sorcerers on earth and he's an actual medical doctor.
1169** Medical doctor on Earth is part of the problem. Nebula's an alien and more specifically, she's an alien who's had half of her body replaced with cybernetics. Strange wouldn't even begin to know how to fix her.
1170** Also, she only meets Strange at the very end of Infinity War and shortly afterwards he's dust. Nebula spent the time gap between [=GotG2=] plotting to kill Thanos, nearly succeeding and then being tortured until IW happened. So the good guys have no opportunity to 'fix' her.
1171** Also also, "gifted sorcerer" doesn't appear to mean a damn thing as far as healing goes. It's stated outright in Doctor Strange's own movie that the sorcerers of Kamar Taj '''cannot''' heal his hands. Pangborn confirms this, saying his "healing," is him using ''his own'' sorcery to basically ''fake'' mobility back into his limbs. Then when the Ancient One is dying, sorcery is simply not an option. So, again, there is nothing in either of the movies that suggests Doctor Strange can heal anybody.
1172[[/folder]]
1173
1174[[folder: Sure, let's sacrifice half the known universe for a walking toaster]]
1175* So I understand almost everyone fighting has a personal stake in saving Vision given he's their friend and ally. But given that half the known UNIVERSE was at stake, I feel like they really sat around and wrung their hands all "woe is us" style instead of giving serious thought to the idea of killing him. Vision ''himself'' even brings this point up and is shot down with the handwave line of the Avengers not trading lives. Uh, what? Sorry, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Steve, Tony, Thor, they've all tried to sacrifice themselves for the greater good to save many others, but apparently Vision isn't given the same accountability. They sat around until the drop-dead last moment to kill him when if they'd done this from the start, they could've saved the entire galaxy instead of trying (and failing) to save a single robot. They knew the chances of defeating Thanos were slim-to-none, but instead of giving it their best shot, they chose to hope somehow they could save a single person. I hope the rest of the world never really discovered what happened in Wakanda because I feel like every single planet in the universe would be pissed they gambled the entire population of everyone on a single robotic life and LOST.
1176** They explicitly discuss how it's different to self-sacrifice when Vision brings up Cap's ice dip. They make the point that murdering someone preemptively is very different from self-sacrifice when there was literally no other way. In Vision's case they did have another option and deemed it morally more acceptable than murder. Plus the only person who could murder Vision was unwilling to, so it's not like they had much choice. The idea that a sapient being like Vision is worth less than anyone else's because he's a robot is morally repugnant. The whole point is to reject 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' because that kind of moral utilitarianism leads to Thanos' perspective that you should murder half the universe if you think people will benefit from it long term.
1177** Wanda is the only one who would be able to destroy the stone and kill Vision in the process (except maybe Dr Strange but he's otherwise occupied) and she won't be in a hurry to do so.
1178[[/folder]]
1179
1180[[folder:Eitri and the Gauntlet timeline]]
1181* So Eitri made the Gauntlet for Thanos and had his hands dunked in metal. When did this happen? Becase Thanos had the guantlet at the end of Age Of Ultron, years before Ragnarok and Infinity War. Had been Eitri alone like that for years?
1182** The Age of Ultron stinger could have chronologically taken place much later than the events of [=AoU=] itself.
1183[[/folder]]
1184
1185[[folder:Yet Another "Was This Really the Only Way?"]]
1186* Okay, so Thanos is apparently bullshit enough to have a decent chance of beating down the entire team of assembled heroes even if the Infinity Gauntlet was successfully removed from him. Accepting that for the sake of argument -- why does that matter? Thanos has no inherent ability to teleport or reach across spacetime: if they got the Gauntlet off him, then portal'd it to Literally Anywhere Else, there'd not really be much Thanos could do about it, and at that point they could just ''leave'' and figure out how to kill the now-depowered Thanos at their leisure.
1187** At what point did they get the gauntlet off him to do this though? The closest they got was on Titan but, but that didn't work out in the end.
1188[[/folder]]
1189
1190[[folder:Use your powers, Wanda!]]
1191* So, when Thanos uses the Time Stone to reassemble the Mind Stone and bring Vision back, Wanda moves to attack him, only to be swatted aside. Why doesn't she use her powers? She just destroyed the Mind Stone with one hand and hold off Thanos with the other. Why not immediately use her powers again to attack Thanos to keep him from killing Vision in a far more brutal way?
1192** A) Because she just killed her lover only to see him brought back right in front of her, so she's not exactly in the most rational headspace, and B) Thanos immediately knocked her unconscious before she could do anything.
1193[[/folder]]
1194

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