Headscratchers / Thor: Love and Thunder

Infinity Conez

• How is it that Asgardians find it acceptable that there is an Infinity Gauntlet-themed ice cream parlor in their town? That thing literally killed countless people and was what Thanos was using when he attacked them on their ship at the beginning of Infinity War, killing half of the passengers on board (of the few that remained after Hela slaughter them all in Ragnarok... It was a rough weekend for Asgard) searching for one of the stones. Those Asgardians never came back to life, but it seems that nobody cares and they open a funny ice cream parlor about the object that almost pushes them to the brink of extinction.
  • The Infinity Gauntlet was also used to bring back all those people. It could also be that they recognize that the stones and gems were just a tool that Thanos used. The Gauntlet is also an abstract thing to fear. Most of the Asgardians were killed of by The Obsidian Order and Thanos's army. The Snap and Blip were just things that happened. They know intellectually that the Infinity Stones were involved, but they didn't see it happening.
    • Thanos literally killed (for real) half of the Asgardians looking for one of those damn stones, there's no way that they would find it acceptable to use the Gauntlet as an ice cream parlor mascot... And I definitely don't think anyone would find it in good taste considering all the catastrophic consequences the Snap must have had beyond what can be repaired with the Blip (Like the people who died as a result of accidents in air and ground vehicles due to the disappearance of their drivers, the suicides that probably occurred by people who lost loved ones, etc, etc.)
    • It's true a gauntlet brought everyone back, but it was the red and gold gauntlet built by Tony, not the gold Gauntlet used by Thanos.
  • 1. There are other alien species living in the town besides the Asgardians, 2. it wouldn't be the first human theme park/tourist trap to make light of actual tragedies, 3. maybe they have some kind of "Thanos' severed head" special that let's the Asgardians and humans take out their anger on him. Asgardians are a warrior race after all, the shop might be using the Infinity Gauntlet as sort of a symbolic "trophy of victory" over Thanos.
  • In Hawkeye there was a mug that said "Thanos was right." There's always people who find humor in strange things, and it's been five years or more for these people so the wounds aren't so fresh.
    • Except that they could have just as easily made Infinity Conez work if it was a "Tony Stark Memorial" shop, considering he saved the universe with the stones but chose Thanos for who-knows-why. Additionally, just because certain very wrong people may agree with Thanos, it still makes no sense that they'd have a major shop celebrating/lampooning his atrocities in a populated city, just like a 9/11 Ice Cream shop doesn't exist. Honestly, it was just a bad joke in poor taste.

Thor and Valkyrie knew of a way to make any wish come true and they never tried to reverse Thanos' snap with it.

• Thor and Valkyrie knew of the existence of Eternity and where it was (Thor in the third act travels to the gates of Eternity where Gorr and the children were (which is not the same place in black and white where they fight before) without the need to investigate where it is). And they knew they could make any wish by going there. Thor literally could have reversed Thanos' snap at any time if he had just gone there, seen the door has the Bifrost drawn on it, opened the door with Stormbreaker and just wished that everyone who disappeared would come back. I find it totally absurd that nobody even tried that solution during the 5 years.
  • Who's to say that Eternity wasn't Snapped, too?
    • That is not the point, the point is that neither Thor nor Valkyrie (or any of the Asgardians or the other gods) even tried to use that resource with which they could have solved everything and of which they definitely knew its existence and location. Even if Eternity had been killed by Thanos' snap, the door presumably wouldn't have disappeared. And none of them knew that the Bifrost was the key to open it, so they definitely never went to that place to try to get to Eternity to wish for the snap to be reversed (because if they had, they would have seen that the Bifrost is drawn on the door and they would have known that that was the key).
    • That assumes Thor would have figured it out. It took Jane seeing Gorr's plans to connect that Stormbreaker was the key. There might have also been some kind of taboo on seeking Eternity since no god had ever tried despite them knowing about it and many likely having the ability to open the door. Can you really see Zeus not using it at some point if for no other reason than to prevent someone else from using the wish against him?
    • How could Thor not figure it out? Literally the symbol that Jane saw in Gorr's plans (and that she was able to identify as the symbol of the Bifrost) is the same one that was engraved on the Gate of Eternity and is also the same one that is burned on the ground when the Bifrost is used. I know Thor is portrayed as a bit of a goofball in this movie, but it's impossible for him not to recognize a symbol he sees all the time (especially when even a person like Jane, who doesn't belong to the culture from which the symbol originates could recognize it right away).
  • It's possible this links to some of the movie's cut content - it's noted several worlds were removed for time reasons. The most likely reason then is that Eternity's location was originally written as a secret, and Gorr's galactic rampage was actually him hunting down gods who had bits of knowledge. That would also explain how Zeus knew Gorr was trying to reach Eternity.
  • Assuming that the character of Eternity is anything like the comics (especially during the events of the original Infinity Gauntlet story), then even he would be overpowered by the full might of the Infinity Stones. So asking Eternity to resurrect everyone likely wouldn't have worked. Given that Thor already had extensive knowledge of the Stones and Eternity, he likely would have been aware of this fact and knew there was no point in seeking out Eternity for what would inevitably be a failed attempt at reviving everyone.
  • Moreover, we never got to see what went on during those five years post-Snap in any detail. It could be that Thor spent several months after Infinity War tracking down every conceivable legendary being, artifact or magic he hoped might undo the tragedy, including Eternity, but came up empty and then sank into the depression we witness in Endgame.
  • It can't be that Thor doesn't know the location of the Gate of Eternity during the 5 years of Endgame, because in this movie he already knows where it is without having to find out anything. And if he had only gone to that place, he would have known that the Bifrost opens the gate, since the symbol of the Bifrost is engraved on it.
    • The Gate in question may only exist as a product of Eternity's own active will. Dust him, and it disappears until the Big E is un-Blipped.
  • It's likely that wishes granted by Eternity have limits that are generally known and understood by everyone who's aware that such things are possible. Note that Gorr's own wish only restored his daughter's life, not those of himself or his victims or his people, or even Love's Missing Mom.

For that matter, why didn't Thanos use the above method instead of collecting the Infinity Stones?

• Thanos has been living for a long time, presumably even longer than Thor and most Asgardians. He studied the Infinity Stones for half his life in his quest to find them in order to balance the universe. Chances are he would probably come to learn about Eternity at some point, too. And if he knows that, why would he go through all the trouble of waging war on the entire universe, risking and losing everything to find the Infinity Stones, just so he could accomplish his goal of balancing the universe? There's the matter of the gate being locked by Bifrost, yes, but since Thanos had Eitri - the dwarf who built Stormbreaker - created the Infinity Gauntlet in the first place, presumably Thanos could also force Eitri to create something that could open the gate to Eternity as well.
  • Well for one thing, that still leaves the Infinity Stones in play for someone else to collect, meaning that they could inevitably undo his hard work of balancing the universe. Plus, if the power of the Stones is anything like the comics, they're even more powerful than Eternity himself, so it makes sense he would focus on them instead.
  • That can't be the reason, since it would be as easy for Thanos as finding one of the Stones, protecting it or destroying it and that's it, there would be no way for them to reverse what he did. And in the event that he wanted to do it with the Infinity Stones and them alone, he could ask Eternity to gather the Stones for him. It's absurd that Thanos wouldn't harness something as powerful as a free wish to have whatever he wants.
    • Thanos is called the Mad Titan for a reason: once he sets his mind on a course of action, no amount of reason or logic or "this would make more sense" is going to stop him. It's possible he had people researching Eternity as a backup plan, but by the time he found out about the wish he already had at least one of the Infinity Stones and was committed to the plan he had already set in motion. Plus Gorr's plan hinged on using Stormbreaker to open the portal and that weapon didn't exist until well after Thanos was already close to his goal.
  • There are multiple assumptions being made. Such as Thanos' knowledge of the Bifrost, Eternity, and the promise of a wish being true. We also have yet to see a non-Asgardian use the Bifrost or portal to some other realm as is being suggested. With as much war as Thanos waged, I doubt he was spending a ton of time researching multiple methods to complete his mission. Once he knew about the Infinity Stones, that was the plan. He couldn't know what he didn't know.
  • Not to mention that Bifrost, itself, was out of commission during the early part of the Infinity Saga when Thanos was finalizing his plans. And it was only restored to full operation because the Chitauri invasion failed and the Tesseract wound up in Odin's hands, facilitating its restoration. Had Loki won the Battle of New York and forfeited the Space Stone to Thanos, possibly the Mad Titan would have used it to build his own Bifrost next.

Does the town care about their kids?

• No parent/relative is freaking out that their kid has been abducted by a creepy murderous guy. They seem more annoyed as if someone broke into their houses and stole their car keys. No one is bawling their eyes out or yelling at Thor to get them back.
  • ...Yes they were? They were in a massive panic, just Thor was able to calm them down with a speech. Also they're (mostly) Asgardians; they're a warrior race, they've been through a lot the past few years, and they're probably unfortunately used to this sort of thing happening by now.
  • To add to the above, the scene where the kids are taken has someone yell in horror that it was happening and during the aftermath and the meeting where Thor gives his speech, the camera lingers on the people looking sad and despondent at what happened.

The Necrosword is feared across the pantheons because it has the ability to slay gods

• ...but so do lots of other things in the MCU. Things that aren't necessarily divine (like Hel's magicked weapons) or imbued with infinite cosmic power (like the Power Stone or Stormbreaker). Frost Giants and Dark Elves slew Asgardians by the hundreds with brute force or advanced technology. The threat of the "boot" from the Helicarrier is treated as though it would also kill Thor. The Asgardian forces in Vanaheim were having a lot of trouble with an army of mortal aliens in Vanaheim until Thor came to save them (and even he was saved by Sif from a presumably mortal blow, judging by their reactions.) Thor was nearly smashed to death by Hulk, and he was explicitly dying from being burnt up by the power of a dwarf star—neither of which, admittedly, are easy to come by for a villain, but they're still non-magical and non-divine, they just use a LOT of physical force. Then there's Valkyrie in this movie, slaying dozens of Zeus' personal guards, who all bleed gold by the buckets and are thus implied to be just as godlike. Shouldn't the Necrosword be more fearsome because it makes killing a god easy and can be used by anyone without warning, rather than because it can kill a god at all?
  • It's probably not because it can kill gods in general that it's The Dreaded: it's because it's trying to kill all of them, and can endow even a puny mortal with the capacity to take on whole pantheons.
  • Yeah, elaborating on that a bit, it seems clear that the sword is a significant power (and likely skill) amplifier. Gorr went from an emaciated and dying figure with no evidence of established combat ability to having the strength and talent to match gods as powerful as Thor in direct combat. Then you factor in the teleportation, ability to summon distractions and sheer lethality of the sword itself to get an enemy that can likely assassinate many gods before they even realize what they're up against. It's not just that they can kill gods in the technical sense, it's that they truly can overcome and kill just about any god they set their sights on. A house cat can also make you bleed but you're probably going to focus more on avoiding the lion, y'know?

The Nothing after death

• Ever since his disillusionment, Gorr staunchly believes there's nothing waiting for mortals after death—likely since Rapu, his own god, explicitly states as much. Of course, at the end of the movie we find Jane and Heimdall in Valhalla, or, at least, what he calls "the land of the gods," so clearly there's an afterlife for Asgardians. Was Rapu such a bad god he specifically neglected to create an afterlife for his followers, or are the Asgardian deities the ones who specifically *did* create one, albeit one with very strict requirements (dying bravely in battle, etc) that Asgardians fear not living, er, dying up to?
  • Or, could Gorr's god simply have been wrong about non-gods not meriting an afterlife, because he was too lazy and indifferent to even investigate whether there was one or not?
  • Rapu was an utter dick, to put it lightly, so it's not impossible that he was planning on denying Gorr an afterlife because he ate one of his fruits.
  • Valhalla was afterlife for Gods/Asgardians specifically but we know an afterlife for humans is possible as well. We've seen two: the Ancestral plains in Black Panther (2018) and the Egyptian afterlife in Moon Knight (2022)

"We are not gods!"

• Has the MCU quietly swept Odin's proclamation from Thor: The Dark World under the rug? That film seemed to establish Asgardians as very long-lived ("Give or take 5000 years"—Loki), powerful entities who lived, grew old, and died, and who were assumed to be gods by other races because of their abilities and technology. But this film is very firm about gods being actually divine, empowered by mortals' belief and having various stations and spheres of influence.
  • Asgardians are simply powerful humanoids who live in a large sandbox who visited Midgard, long ago to protect humans.
  • The other gods could easily be Sufficiently Advanced Aliens too. Different cultures on Earth have a very diverse range of definitions for godhood, and Omnipotence City seems to house gods from all over the universe.
  • I don't recall that this or any other film implied that MCU gods need mortal worship or belief; indeed, Rapu's and Zeus's bad attitudes would tend to suggest the opposite. Being worshipped is simply a status symbol and ego-trip for those jerks. If a deity actually does things to aid or protect his or her faithful, that's a personal gesture of compassion towards weaker, more fragile beings, not an inherent obligation of divinity.
  • It has been implied that they're trying to quietly Retcon the "we are not gods" line, which was from a time when the MCU was trying to downplay the magic. Thor repeatedly insists on being the God of Thunder, gods have the Disappears into Light thing in a way that mortals don't, and Thor mentions he's a little worried that there will be massive cosmic consequences to killing the God of Lightning (though of course it turns out Zeus survived). It's also not entirely clear what counts as a god. Gorr doesn't seem to consider the Asgardian children as gods, but at least one is explicitly the child of a god and has inherited his power, which would make him a god in almost literally every religion.
  • Perhaps Odin personally disliked the label of godhood, going along with it only out of cultural convention. His outburst would then be his own personal feelings on the matter, where he prefers to emphasise that these so-called gods would be better off with more humility – which does rather fit Odin's character in the post-Hela years of his reign. Godhood versus a "mere" superhero seems to be at least partly a cultural convention of the MCU, a little like the difference between saying "the ruling class" and "the rich" so it's not too surprising the boundaries might be fuzzy.
  • Or perhaps Odin is simply aware that Midgard mortals' concept of divinity has changed drastically since the heyday of the Norse pantheon. Back in the day, being "a god" pretty much did mean you were a Marvel-cosmic-grade superhero: powerful, ageless, and very hard to kill, but certainly not omniscient or infallible or exempt from all limitations. Since then, most mortals' standards and expectations of their deities have been drastically upgraded. Odin was discouraging his overly-arrogant sons from thinking they're on par with God-with-a-capital-G, despite their nominal status as gods-with-a-small-G.
  • It's also possible that most Asgardians are just Sufficiently Advanced Aliens that owe their long lives and superhuman capacities to technology and only some of them (like royal family) posess cosmic divine power. After all, when Hela took over Asgard during Ragnarok, the population seemed to fall in line, which would be hard if all of them were Thor-level powerhouses.

God of carpentry

• On Omnipotence City, Valkyrie points out a carpenter god, likely a reference to Jesus. Why would the Messiah, who sacrificed Himself for humanity instead of the other way around, and who preached benevolence and selflessness and is the son of/part of who doctrine says is the one true God be hanging out with a bunch of hedonistic, cowardly pagan deities who partake in annual orgies?
  • You're assuming it actually is Jesus. Given all the weird deities across the universe seen in Omnipotence city, there very well could be a literal god of carpenters on some world.
  • Someone has to be the designated driver.
  • Gorr clearly believed his god Rapu was a loving messiah who was going to save them all and bring about a new golden age. He might not have been the only one who was wrong.
  • During the Roman Empire, Jesus hung out with sinners all the time. Maybe He's preaching to lower-case-g gods just like He did to mortal humans.
  • Turns out that Jesus was actually planned to appear during the scene of Thor, Jane and Gorr with Eternity, according to Word of God.
  • You're also assuming that Christian doctrine and mythology are true. Rapu turned out to be an utter dick, despite that Gorr obviously expected him to be a benevolent God; MCU Jesus might be a partying slacker for all we know.
  • Who's to say that Jesus can't enjoy a good time in his down time? Christianity can survive without him for a few hours while he pops off for a quick tequila slammer with the guys. All work and no play, etc. As for them being cowardly and hedonistic, well, he's not the judgemental sort. Wasn't it in his own teachings that only God has the right to judge? He doesn't have to agree with their philosophies to enjoy their company.

Thor's hammer obsession

• Where did it come from? In "Endgame" he was perfectly fine with Captain America wielding Mjolnir, he even seemed happy for Cap, and he jokingly told him "you get the small one", when Cap accidentally grabbed the Stormbreaker instead. And now he's... jealous of Jane, he's talking with Mjolnir like with an ex that dumped him, while the Stormbreaker is literally hanging over him like a jealous gf mad that he's talking to his ex... what?
  • In "Endgame", he was in the middle of a battle for the fate of the universe, so he had more pressing issues on his mind. Plus Mjolnir in that battle technically wasn’t his, it was his alternate self’s that he was borrowing.
• Also remember Starlord at the beginning of the movie points out that Thor is pretty much an emotional wreck who really needs to figure himself out and get his shit together, so the combination of seeing Jane (a woman he's still hung up on) and the reforged Mjolnir (something with sentimental value to him) doesn't really help.

Mjolnir's monument

• As part of its tourist attractions, New Asgard has raised the bit of ground that Mjolnir's fragments fell upon, and built a little pedestal for it. That's all well and good, but, did Thor never consider picking them up and placing them in a proper resting place, like a shrine or even his own house, in the five-plus years since Hela destroyed the hammer? It's one thing if he was too depressed and despondent about everything that happened between Ragnarok and Endgame to take care of himself, but it seems wildly out of character for him to just... leave the broken Mjolnir lying there for other Asgardians to take care of, especially given his feelings for it in this film.
  • He probably couldn't even bear to look at Mjolnir's pieces, given how badly he felt he'd failed the universe and the hammer's fragments representing yet another failure.
  • Presumably, the pieces of Mjolnir are still lying there because nobody but Thor (and later Jane) can move them. They aren't elevated because the New Asgard tourism-board raised the ground; they've lowered the ground around the patch of grass where Hela left the hammer's pieces lying, so visitors can view them closer to eye level. The dome over the top was to stop tourists from swiping the grass around the fragments.

Celestials

• When the Goat Boat leaves Omnipotence City, we see two Celestials who attended Zeus's meeting. While a funny Continuity Nod, considering what we learned about them in Eternals as keepers of the natural flow of life and energy, they really don't seem like the type to engage in orgies and compete for most sacrifices. Also, how would they even get down and dirty with much smaller beings?
  • We know Celestials have the ability to shift size to an extent, given the ones we see in the City are clearly not the size of planets like the ones in Eternals are. Also, it's possible that the Celestials there are simply using Omnipotence city as a hideaway from Gorr's rampage, and aren't exactly interested in what the other gods are up to otherwise.
  • We really only have Arishem's word for it about the Celestials, and he seemed to be running the Deviants/Eternals debacle completely on his own. For all we know, the others of his kind aren't anything like him, and are content to just hang out with the other gods while treating Arishem as a weirdo obsessed with his pet projects.

Mjolnir reforming

• So, if being shattered doesn't really impact the hammer performance - it can reform perfectly well, and you can even use its fragments as projectiles, is there a good reason why it didn't do that right away?
  • Maybe it needed time to "recover" from being shattered, or it couldn't regain its power until after Hela, the one who destroyed it, was dead? Or maybe it's simply The Power of Love allowing it to pull itself together in order to protect Jane like Thor wanted it to.
  • It's likely that it required either Thor or Jane to be there and take control of it, and as mentioned above, Thor was probably too upset to go check on his broken hammer. He thought it was dead and just left it there, leaving the other Asgardians to collect it.
  • Thor and Loki fled from that place very soon after the hammer was shattered. When Thor eventually came back to where New Asgard would be built, he was at the height of his post-Thanos depression, and thus probably unworthy (unlike Endgame fat Thor, who was starting to go back to his older self and could wield the hammer from the past). Then later he goes off with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and leaves Earth behind. He just didn't spend a lot of time near the pieces of the hammer in order to notice they still held power.

Thor and Jane

• When exactly was their relationship supposed to take place? Thor spending a long time on Earth and taking missions from Nick Fury is hard to place. Between Dark World and Age Of Ultron maybe? With them growing apart around Age Of Ultron so that's why she's not at the party?
  • Based on their mentions of how long it’s been, the timeframe between those two movies fits the best.

Safety of the City

• Zeus says that they're safe in Omnipotence City because only the gods know where it is. But why would that stop Gorr? The power of the Necrosword gives him the ability to teleport through shadows, seemingly with no distance limit as he's able to move around the galaxy freely. So why can't he get to the city? It's not like there are no shadows there.
  • Gorr probably could just sneak into the city and that's probably what's making Zeus want to keep Thor from leaving. As when he quietly admits to Thor, he understands where Thor is coming from and sympathizes with his plight but he's worried that Thor's group might fail causing Gorr to retaliate or inspire Gorr to come after them as his next target and torture them for information on how to get to Omnipotence City.
  • OP here, let me rephrase. The power of the Necrosword gives Gorr the ability to teleport across interstellar distances, we know that for sure. We can also infer that it gives him some ability to track/sense gods and go straight for them, since he's killed dozens in a short period and isn't having to spend time searching for them. So how is he unable to reach Omnipotence City? There doesn't seem to be some kind of protective enchantment on the city, since Thor and co. just fly in on their space-boat, and non-gods like Korg can enter no problem.
  • For all we know, Zeus was just saying that to make the Gods who didn't know of the history of the Necrosword feel safer. The real reason Gorr wouldn't go there is because he'd be slaughtered. It's made pretty clear early on that if enough gods join forces, they can beat whoever wields the Necrosword, which Gorr would likely be aware of. The real reason Omnipotence City is so safe is because having that many gods in one place would make it a suicide run to attack.

Taking the Kids

• What was Gorr's plan in taking the kids? If he already knew he needed Stormbreaker, why didn't he try to take it while in New Asgard? He attacked and killed a bunch of Asgardians, and was massacring gods all over the universe, wouldn't Thor have gone after him anyway?
  • He did try to take it in New Asgard. As for the kidnapping, he was living on limited time and probably needed live bait to get Thor and co. to go after him as quickly as possible, preferably without much or any time to prepare for whatever traps he had.
• As stated above it's plain bait after the first attempt. Gorr himself outright tells the kids he fully expects Thor to come for them.

Gorr's tent and instructions

• Why would Gorr he need to hand write instructions to himself on how to enact his plan and leave it for all to see? Also, did he really need to live in the tent in the middle of the shadow realm since the Necrosword allowed him to seemingly survive anywhere?
  • It's pretty blatantly just a plot device, but if I had to come up with an explanation... maybe the Necrosword degrades Gorr's mind as much as his body, so he started making notes just in case he started having memory problems. As for the tent, even with the power of the sword, he might still need a place to take a short break after killing some gods, if they put up a fight. It's a simple tent, it's not like he took time off to build a whole house or anything.
  • Some people just feel the need to jot down their lists, plans, and ideas. Love draws on practically everything in reach; a scribbling compulsion probably runs in the family.

Axl's mother

• Who is Axl's mother? We haven't seen Heimdall with any women, and he seems pretty committed to his duty. Is she still alive, considering we never explicitly saw her among the frightened parents? Also, when was Axl born, considering how much chaos has been going on in Asgard the last couple decades? Asgardians have lifespans in the thousands, but has it ever been revealed just how long it takes them to grow up?
  • His mother, whose name is given as Grace, is shown reuniting with him and he returns.
  • Given that Heimdall's probably thousands of years old, and we've seen him onscreen for probably less than half an hour total, it's tricky to make assumptions of his life like he's never been "with any women" or he's "committed to his duty". He's not the main character so we aren't necessarily going to get a lot of his back story.

Bringing the Goats

• Why did they have to take the goats with them? We saw the New Asgard boats flying under their own power even before being enhanced to fly through space by Stormbreaker's Bifrost, so they shouldn't be needed to pull it. Thor even implied he wanted to eat them, so why weren't they just dropped off at some New Asgard butcher shop instead of being brought along to the fight against Gorr?
  • In the original Thor, Thor went to a petshop seeking beasts to assist him, specifically asking for cats that were big enough for him to ride. Perhaps that is the same idea here. As for the boats, perhaps they can fly but at, you know, tourists speeds. The goats may be faster.
  • There's the literal mythology gag. In Norse Mythology, Thor's carriage is pulled by the goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr.
    • Additionally, Thor's implication of eating the goats is also a reference to Norse Mythology. It's told, that he could eat his goats, but by saving their fur and bones he could resurrect them with the help of his hammer.

Golden Dust

• This movie shows that when gods die, they dissolve into a golden dust that drifts away. This apparently applies to every god in the universe no matter what pantheon, and even divine-empowered mortals like Jane. It also shows that Thor, and possibly all of the Asgardians, are in fact actual gods. So why did neither Heimdall nor Loki fade into golden dust in Infinity War?
  • The amount of time before the corpses turn to dust is inconsistent. Odin and Jane turned into glitter right on the spot, while Frigga dissolved well into her funeral. It's possible Heimdall and Loki took some time to dissolve by chance.

Astrid/Axl's name

• Just purely out of curiosity, would Axl be considered just Astrid's nickname (Astrid "Axl" Heimdallson) or his "Earth" name (the same as how Superman's Kryptonian name is Kal-El and his Earth name is Clark Kent)?
  • It's just his name. His preferred name if you like. Just like how many people in Real Life choose to go by a name different than their birth name, and it's not just a "nickname".

Why didn't Thor safeguard Stormbreaker?

• The climax seems to show that Thor can put enchantments on weapons the same as Odin did with Mjolnir. Sure in this case it was only temporary, but he actually specified for it to be. So if Thor could do that, why did he never put the same worthiness enchantment on Stormbreaker? Gorr's Evil Plan would never have worked in that case.
  • It's implied that his "chats" with Mjolnir were just him anthropomorphizing the hammer, and that he was not aware—and still remains unaware— he was actually placing an enchantment on it, let alone doing it deliberately.
  • The OP is probably talking about the end of the movie, when Thor uses the Thunderbolt to empower the children. THAT'S something he could have done with Stormbreaker.

Jane Showing Up

• How did Jane reach the final battle? Even if Thor, for some inexplicable reason, told her where the Gate to Eternity was, how did she get there? Mjolnir can't teleport its user like Stormbreaker can. Unless it's more New Powers as the Plot Demands.
  • Jane was using Valkyrie`s Pegasus, which earlier had been established to be able to summon the Bifrost. Also Valkyrie was shown knowing how to get to Eternity, so she could have told Jane as well.
  • Pretty sure there's a passing line that refers to Valkyrie's mount as a "portal steed" or similar. It could be that such animals don't need the Bifrost's help to teleport.

Asgardian arms

• If Wakanda can build an entire vibranium-based left arm (and shoulder) for Bucky, it stands to reason that fashioning just the arm for Sif would be child's play. Why then is she shown at the end, training without one instead of getting a prosthetic first?
  • They didn't ask and/or Sif refused to get a prosthetic and/or they did ask and Wakanda said no since they have no reason to give Sif the time of day let alone a robot arm made out of the strongest weapon on the planet.
  • Same reason Odin never replaced his missing eye despite working prosthetic eyes being available in the Guardians of the Galaxy films, probably. Asgardians might rather prove their mettle by rising above a disability than seek to negate it altogether.
    • When Rocket offered Thor a prosthetic eye, Thor accepted it without hesitation.
    • Sif and Thor might have different views on the subject.
  • Could also be that Sif's arm is being crafted and built to her specific needs, which is taking time. Think the difference between being able to quickly fit a basic prosthetic versus getting one specifically made to fit, say, rock climbing.
  • Even if a prosthetic is available, Sif may want to prove to herself that she can still fight well without one. Prosthetics can malfunction, after all.

Valkyrie & Sif

• So Valkyrie is the steward of New Asgard, which should come with a heap of responsibilities. Sif meanwhile just survived an assault from Gorr, which has left her feeling the sting of losing an arm and almost missing out on Valhalla. Wouldn't it make more sense for Sif to join Thor and Jane on their quest while Valkyrie stays behind?
  • Until Sif becomes accustomed to only having one arm she's a liability in combat. Her fighting style and especially her instincts all need time to adjust to her new situation. She'd not only be functioning at below normal but she'd be endangering her allies who would have to compensate for her mistakes. Valkyrie is a mighty warrior at full power and functionality and would almost certainly have people ready to take over for her at least for a while.
  • Even an Asgardian is liable to need time to recuperate after an injury that extreme. For all we know, Valkyrie ordered Sif to stay behind and recover.

The Key to Eternity

• Why is Stormbreaker the key to Eternity? Is it the only key? If so, why is the key to Eternity a weapon created five years ago? Also, how did Gorr find any of this out?
  • Bifrost is the key, not Stormbreaker. It just so happens that now that Heimdall is gone, one of the easiest ways to summon Bifrost is Stormbreaker. Especially when one considers that Gorr has been trying to lure Thor in anyway.

Guardians of the Galaxy

• After their failure to get help from gods, why didn't Thor ask the Guardians of the Galaxy for help? He couldn't ask the Avengers; they seem to have disbanded, and of the originals, Iron Man and Black Widow were dead, Captain America was old, the Hulk injured, and Hawkeye retired. However, he'd worked with the Guardians for some time. Sure, most of them were annoyed with him , but Thor seemed oblivious to that, and the Guardians would have helped a former teammate.
  • None of the Guardians are anywhere near to Thor and the other gods when it comes to their power level. Given how powerful Gorr is shown to be, Thor probably thought that going against him with the Guardians would have been a suicide mission for them, so he didn't want to ask them. Also, since Gorr was only threatening gods and no one else in the universe, Thor probably felt this is was a problem the gods themselves need to fix, without involving mortals who have no stake in the conflict.

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