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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
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Until Surtur stabs her with a mile-long sword. Hela is definitely badass but I cannot forget what Honest Trailers pointed out: nowhere in the film does she do anything to merit her claim to be the Goddess of Death, rather than the Goddess of Pointy Things.
If killing people very efficiently makes you a god of death, then there are lots of candidates around the universe. For example, I'd give Yondu a token nomination.
It strikes me that both the "god" designation and the assignment of portfolio are probably intended to be more metaphorical than literal. We never do find out what Odin is the god of. Exposition, maybe? And Loki isn't in Odin's line, so his claim to be a god by kinship is ludicrous.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 4th 2019 at 7:03:57 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Odin's a god of a lot of things in Norse Myth. He's the god of wisdom, poetry, death, divination, war, and magic.
Hela's power-set in the MCU is actually based on the powers of another Thor villain, Gorr the God-Butcher. Comics Hela otoh really does live up to the title of Goddess of Death.
Also, the reason MCU Surtur in particular could defeat MCU Hela even at her best was because of his prophesized role to destroy Asgard. He's essentially the Anti-Asgard — and the source of her power is Asgard. Yeah...
Edited by M84 on Jan 4th 2019 at 8:40:44 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedThere's probably some extra magic destiny bullshit factor at play too. It's not just a matter of Surtur being a mountain-sized fire giant with a sword to match.
Fate and prophecy and stuff is kind of a big deal in Norse myth, and that's true to a lesser degree in works based on it.
Edited by M84 on Jan 4th 2019 at 8:39:58 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedWhich still should have been MORE than enough to level the entire effin' planet and kill everybody on it, especially the likes of Quill or Mantis.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianHe strips off chunks of the moon's surface and teleports them down to the planet, which causes a lot of damage but is by no means "throwing the entire moon". The fact that anyone survives it is pure artistic license. This Because Science video
explores the actual physics involved (although he makes the mistake of assuming it's the whole moon rather than just bits of it) and concludes that the scene just ignores reality. Which is kind of "duh" but worth pointing out because you can't then reasonably say, "What would really happen is X."
Worth noting specifically is that, although it's difficult to tell exactly how big the moon is and how far away it is, at the observed impact velocity the debris Thanos is pulling off of it might take as long as a few hours to land, not a few seconds. Ergo, he's using the Space Stone to shorten the actual distance that it travels.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 4th 2019 at 9:04:32 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
He can teleport the debris, sure, but it also has to accelerate enough to generate compressive heating to turn into fireballs as we see on screen. That requires a certain amount of time subject to gravity, a certain amount of gravity, and a certain atmospheric density (itself a function of gravity). Or, the Space Stone just takes care of all of that without bothering physics.
It's pretty clear that Thanos is more than capable of wiping the floor with just about everyone, save possibly Strange and Thor (with Stormbreaker), but it's also apparent that he's deliberately not exerting his full power in every fight.
He has a twisted sense of honor/mercy that drives him not to kill directly unless it's absolutely necessary, or unless the character in question has personally affronted him (examples: Loki, Tony). Note that it's only after he's nearly beaten by the team on Titan that he takes off the gloves (so to speak) and just wrecks their shit.
Rather, he exerts the minimum effort needed to overcome obstacles, and only then delivers his "mercy". After all, if he murders wantonly, it messes up the calculations of "half the people in the universe".
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 4th 2019 at 11:04:13 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I like the idea every time he fights someone Thanos is spending most of the fight working out the math of "how many people do I have to kill now if I kill all these people." and his moments of mercy are just him being frustrated at all the speed math he has to do every time he fights someone.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."He also doesn't even bother to fight the Avengers on Earth. He's proven his point. He just puts forth the minimum effort needed to take them out of the battle. Only Wanda manages to hinder him more than trivially. And Thor, of course, but we know how that turns out.
If anything proves how scary Thanos is, it's the fact that he doesn't bother killing any of them. He knows they pose no threat. The scene with Steve is just brilliant. It's not that he stands a chance, but that Thanos is genuinely surprised that one of these puny humans can hold him off even for a second.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 4th 2019 at 11:10:24 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Heck, even Word of God has stated that a big part of Thanos' motivation is wanting to prove to his dead naysayers that he was right.
Edited by M84 on Jan 5th 2019 at 12:31:51 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised

Well, of course not.
She doesn't need a math equation to conquer worlds.
Edited by windleopard on Jan 4th 2019 at 2:55:34 AM